• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Readers Forum / Needed: a Sea Change in the Professional Culture of the Jewish Community

Needed: a Sea Change in the Professional Culture of the Jewish Community

December 2, 2010 By eJP

Making Jewish Paychecks Fair
by Jill Jacobs

Just a week before the Paycheck Fairness Act died in the U.S. Senate, we learned that female Jewish communal professionals are paid, on average, $28,000 less than men working in the field, according to data from a new study by the Jewish Communal Service Association and the Berman Jewish Policy Archive. When the data is adjusted for job responsibilities, education, age, experience and hours worked, women still earn $20,000 less than men at the same levels.

Since the release of the study, there has been the requisite hand-wringing from Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders about the need to promote women’s leadership. But changing the balance of male and female leadership will take nothing less than a sea change in the professional culture of the Jewish community. Here are a few suggestions about how to bring about this change:

1) Make salary scales public: Many of my female colleagues (myself included) have negotiated a salary only to find out later that men in similar positions – sometimes with fewer qualifications – earn significantly more. Certainly, women should learn to negotiate better, and we should be trained by rabbinical and graduate programs to do so. However, the burden is on organizations to create transparent salary scales, and to offer women the same salaries given to men. We can start by listing salaries in job announcements, rather than using the protection of “salary commensurate with experience” to pay men more. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have helped women gain necessary information as they negotiate salaries. But the Jewish community need not wait for an act of Congress to pursue its own paycheck fairness.

2) Replace mishpokhe with professionalism: Thinking of ourselves as mishpokhe, rather than as workers for professional organizations, engenders an aversion to written policies in favor of handshake agreements. But the result of the mishpokhe factor is a lack of transparency. Individual women (and men) may work out flex-time deals or other family-friendly arrangements. But these handshakes leave each individual to negotiate for himself or herself, without a sense of what is fair. Written policies guarantee that every employee will be treated the same, regardless of negotiating skills or relationship to the decision makers.

3) Hold organizations responsible for bad behavior: Among the bad behavior stories I have heard: A friend applying for a job in a midsized Jewish community is told that she is the best applicant, but will not be offered the job because single women tend to move away once they learn how difficult the dating scene is in the area. A rabbi negotiating a contract with a synagogue fights off a proposed clause that would restrict her from taking maternity leave during the High Holy Days. Job applicants are asked outright about their plans to have babies.

Some information travels by word of mouth, but we cannot rely on word of mouth to protect women from unscrupulous employers. In a post on the Forward’s Sisterhood blog last year, Rabbi Joanna Samuels suggested creating a website where organizations could post their employment policies. This proposal would go far in showcasing the best and the worst of the official policies. Perhaps such a site would allow for reader comments so that we might also learn about the best and the worst unofficial behavior. In addition, it is time for an annual ranking of Jewish workplaces, akin to the workplace rankings that U.S. News & World Report and The NonProfit Times publish. Such a ranking, based both on official policies and on surveys of employees, would reward those organizations with exemplary behavior and challenge others to change.

4) Don’t use the “mommy track” as an excuse: Many point to the so-called “mommy track” as the reason that women – especially women in their 30s and 40s – do not advance to senior positions. These women, the argument goes, drop out of competition as they choose to prioritize child rearing over their careers. It is true that many women (and men) are not content to see their children only on weekends. For some, taking a high-level job means extensive travel and regular night meetings. The response, though, should not be to blame those who refuse to take on these punishing schedules (nor to refrain from offering top jobs to mothers). If the Jewish community wishes both to promote healthy family life and to make space for women’s leadership, we need to create a work culture that does not assume a 24-hour work cycle, constant travel and attendance at every conference – for leaders of any gender.

Instead, let’s create clear and achievable goals that allow leaders to do their jobs well while also maintaining family lives, volunteer service, and involvement in spiritual and cultural communities.

If we are to equalize opportunity for women and men in the Jewish community, nothing short of radical change will be necessary. But the result will be a community that benefits from the wisdom and skills of the best possible professional staff.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the author of “There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice Through Jewish Law and Tradition” (Jewish Lights, 2009).

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward; reprinted with permission.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Readers Forum, The American Jewish Scene

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Barbara Dobkin says

    December 2, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    Thank you Jill!! Is anybody out there with the power to make change listening?

  2. Jonathan Horowitz says

    December 2, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Thank you for your thoughtful piece on raising the standards of excellence in Jewish organizations. I couldn’t agree more. It is worth noting that improving pay scale transparency, professionalizing work policies, and holding organizations accountable for treating workers fairly is beneficial for both women and men. All Jewish professionals (and by extension the communities they serve) stand to gain when Jewish organizations become great places to work. Conversely, all of us lose when Jewish organizations don’t have what it takes to recruit and retain the best people. Both men and women should take responsibility for enacting the changes that Jill is proposing. More so, the burden does not rest on senior-level professionals alone. Younger professionals, board members, donors, and volunteers all have the power to ask probing questions and inspire organizations to make positive changes.

  3. Dmitri says

    December 2, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    Excellent piece. In the same vein, we also need to address the significant disparity in pay – and in opportunities – between immigrant and US-born professionals, a disparity that runs counter to the fundamentals of our Jewish tradition, as in “there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger that resides among you”.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Bruce Powell on An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Sara Rigler on Announcement: Catherine Reed named CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom
  • Donna Burkat on The Blessings in 2020’s Losses
  • swindmueller on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times
  • Alan Henkin on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times

Most Read Recent Posts

  • What Title for Henrietta Szold?
  • Jewish Agency Accuses Evangelical Contractors of “Numerous Violations” but Denies They Evangelized New Immigrants
  • An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Breaking: Birthright Israel & Onward Israel Seek to Join Forces to Strengthen Jewish Diaspora Ties with Israel
  • Why One Zoom Class Has Generated a Following

Categories

The Way Back Machine

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs, Websites & Influencers in 2020

Copyright © 2021 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved