When there’s an elephant in the room, it takes courage to be the one to call attention to it. This past Tuesday, in a webinar presented by the Jewish Communal Service Association, St. Louis Federation head Barry Rosenberg said it out loud: “I sense a real crisis in Jewish communal service.” He gave several reasons, including the difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified people, and the “dissonance” between Jewish communal workers and amcha, the rank and file of the Jewish people, in relation to peoplehood and Israel.
Most surprisingly, he articulated a problem that is usually discussed behind closed doors. “We need to be very clear,” he commented, “that in great measure the conditions, policies, and attitudes under which we work are in the control of our lay leadership, and there are serious issues of lay/professional relations on both a policy level and on an operational, interpersonal level.” He sees a need for cultural change within Jewish communal institutions that needs to be better addressed by boards.
His comments came in the context of a study conducted by Prof. Steven M. Cohen. The research yielded a number of generalizations but gives little sense of how its conclusions might be applied to alleviating the challenges to communal professionals. It finds that those who serve Jewish communities have a disproportionately stronger Jewish background; they are more likely to have had Israel experiences; and they share common interests. None of this is surprising. Reflecting trends already well established elsewhere, the study also concludes that commitment to the Jewish collective is declining among younger professionals; the economic downturn affects younger workers more than older ones; and women are significantly underpaid.
Prof. Cohen acknowledges that the composition of the study’s respondents and the reliability of its numbers are questionable. The report notes that “some professionals identify themselves and some of their friends as Jewish communal professionals,” but “we have no clear definition of who should be considered.” About the “opt-in” methodology, where the respondents were self-selected, Cohen remarked in the webinar, “Social scientists look at these methods and they say, ‘It’s not entirely reliable,’ and that’s true.” He believes however, that “the similarities to other studies bear out the value of the study.” Leaving aside methodological concerns about the survey and its conclusions, this new focus on Jewish communal professionals as a group does recognize in a tangible way that our institutions are only as strong as the people in them.
The widening gulf between Jewish professionals and the Jewish general public parallels the findings about Jewish leaders in a study commissioned by the Avi Chai Foundation, which was discussed in this space several weeks ago. But the consequences are different. The gap in education, knowledge, and experience between the “haves” and the “have-nots” may have created an elite corps of young “leaders,” but the Jewish community does not depend on those young people for its basic communal services. It does depend on the people who work at federations, synagogues, youth organizations, and social services who account for two-thirds of the participants in this study. As it becomes more difficult to find and keep professionals who are knowledgeable and experienced, the system of communal organizations on which we rely will become less effective. Donations will decline, and the quality and quantity of communal services will spiral downward as budgets shrink.
As Barry Rosenberg said, it’s ultimately up to the lay leaders to turn things around. Given the chronic and sometimes flagrant problems in lay/professional relations, however, that’s not a hopeful diagnosis. Perhaps a far-seeing foundation will support a demonstration project to design a new governance model before it’s too late. That would be a better use of money than funding yet another dubious survey.
Bob Goldfarb, a regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy, is president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity. He lives in Jerusalem, and can be reached at bob [at] jewishcreativity [dot] org.
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I thank Mr. Goldfarb for his kind words, and want to add some context. The St. Louis Jewish Federation, with generous support of the Lubin-Green Foundation launched its Professional Excellence initiative to promote excellent professional practice. Creating the conditions – the organizational and community culture – that support this outcome is a shared responsibility of the workers themselves, management and the governing boards. My concern is that this crisis, its causes and implications are not receiving the serious attention required from governing boards (as well as management), which ultimately have the responsibility to insure that our organizations provide the highest quality services. Further, there is not enough openness in the culture to build a truly collaborative approach to personnel. This is a subject that needs attention at the local and national levels. I also want to add that while I am deeply concerned about the personnel crisis, I was greatly encouraged by the picture that Prof. Cohen’s study revealed of a highly committed Jewish professional workforce, that is deeply involved in Jewish life and sees itself as part of a holy mission to serve the Jewish people.
I was heartened to see that the Jewish Communal Service Association still exists and saddened to hear the sad state of the current professional system – or lack there of.
There was a time when the yearly conference was a “must attend” event for all levels of professionals to come together to learn and develop professional practice within the Jewish community. From this era came the leadership of the system for the next several decades. Because of the broad networks that were created, better hiring decisions were made because the best and brightest had a chance to “show their stuff” at the conference. Line workers mixed with CEO’s and discussed high level issues of ethics and purpose. There was fertilization across fields.
When money got tight, the conference was eliminated and agencies started hiring locally to save. The professionals started identifying more narrowly with their organization rather than their field of practice or Jewish communal service in general.
Instead, philanthropists like Wexner and Mandel began to focus on developing the elite leadership. But, as Bob pointed out, they are not the folks who fill the ranks of our agencies today.
I always described myself as a Jewish Communal Professional along with the hundreds of others who viewed their work as a career with professional standards. We viewed ourselves and our role as leaders charged with the sacred work of building and developing Jewish life in America.
Maybe you need to rebuild that common professional leadership community once again, so that the lay leadership will be able to see you as the professional leaders you should be.
I often tell the story of a staff person who left a lucrative position at a prestigious NY law firm to work at AJC. She was house counsel in addition to her civil liberties work. One day, after she had just come from a complicated negotiation along with the President of AJC (also a prestigious attorney), he said to her, “You were really good in there.” “Thank you,” she said. “No, really, you did a great job. Why are you working for AJC?”
It is up to the professionals to turn it around so that the lay leadership understands and respects your professionalism and the unique skills you bring to the community.
We do not have a leadership crisis in the Jewish community, unless by leadership crisis we mean too many people who think (and attempt to act) like leaders.
What we have is a followership crisis. We have boards that have no idea what their job is. They think their job is to critique a press release. And so they have utterly abdicated their role in developing strategy and provided full throated support for its execution by professionals. How else to explain the strategic fog in the federation system?
Responsibility is delegated to CEOs (and other staff) who do not have the authority to execute, and who must consult with every real and wannabe leader (major donor), and (contrived) committee chair before making a decision.
If we want effective professionals, both leaders and rank and file (so to speak), we must delete the authority (guided strategically and evaluated by the board) and let them execute. The board must then turn into followers.
The fact is that in many federations the board chair (often called the federation president, itself very telling as that title is usually reserved for professional staff) thinks he/she (I know it’s all too often a he) is actually the executive vice president (yes, another telling title — not CEO but executive VP).
Yoo hoo, the board chair and the CEO do not have the same job. Complementary and partnering, perhaps. But mostly different job descriptions.
So long as the insane run the asylum, we can’t be shocked that it’s a nut house. And who would want to work in a nut house?
My comments take this discussion in a different direction. I was a Jewish communal professional [in one way or another and defined very broadly] for almost 30 years, but I haven’t been for the last 13. It gives me a different perspective on this discussion. Permit a few bullet points [each of which warrants a longer comment:
1. Retention of professionals in the Jewish world is no different than the world at large. It is symbolic of an insularity that the question is worded as it is. The current reality is that MOST educated people will have 5-7 careers or work in 5-7 industries. How can the Jewish world imagine that this ethos can be solved in Jewish institutins when it is so culturally pervasive in the US and in some other industiralized societies?
2. It is not helpful to continue to define things in an implicit caste model. Even when i was working for Jewish institutions, i served on boards of other organizations, Jewish and otherwise, and there were other professionals who sat on the boards of organizations I headed. That is healthy. Roles simply are no longer clear or permanent. The degree to which people act as if the old definitions apply is the degree to which this becomes self perpetuating and counter productive.
3. I myself had far too many examples of people saying things to me similar to the anecdote Evan quotes above about the AJC attorney. I have found that respect for the nfp sphere ebbs and flows, but so does respect for teachers, lawyers, bankers, sports people, etc. When people said those things to me, and i took them seriously, it was usually a time for me to make some sort of change. When I was happy and fulfilled, i had all sorts of effective retorts. But in my work with funders [which is the for-profit way i earn a livelihood] I advocate that they cannot have it both ways: if they want nfp staff who preform comparably or superior to those in the for profit world, then don’t strangle the personnel budget so that the organization balances its budget on the backs of under-compensated but well meaning professionals. You know what? You would be shocked how many had never had anyone say that to them and I know that it has changed how funders related to orgs that they fund.
4. Leadership is no longer an ascribed status. No one gets it simply becasue of title. We live in a world where leadership must be earned. If ceo’s aren’t being gutsy leaders, then is it surprising that there are no followers? All of us have made one or more jokes that in the Jewish world there are no followers, only leaders. But it only becomes true if we act as if it is true. Leadership does not require blind obedience; it does require being courageous enough to articulate vision and take risks to get there.
Enough