The Challenges

In order to solve a problem, one must ask both what is necessary and what is doable.

1. Staff:volunteer ratio. Is the Jewish community in fact large enough to sustain a profoundly different staff:volunteer ratio? What can and should work for the community? And how much can the remainder afford to sustain them at the level necessary to do right by those career choices? If we have a shrinking community to begin with, can the remainder shoulder the burden to increase both the numbers and the salaries of those working on the community's behalf?

2. Social Status. Assuming that one can demonstrate that the financial wherewithal is manageable, there still remains a larger "social" question. Would you want your son/daughter to do that? When I began my professional career in the late 60's/early 70's, there seemed to be a respect and admiration for the commitment that led someone with good potential and respected credentials to choose a career in the not-for- profit realm. By the 80's, many, too many, people would look upon those choices more cynically. Why, they would ask, would one choose to make less money and spend one's life in that sector if one could choose otherwise. Even today, we continue to hear all sorts of strange and distorted assumptions about those who work in the not-for-profit world. As recently as this winter, at a seminar I conducted at MAKOR on choosing a meaningful career, many young people articulated that they were considering a career change to the not for profit world so they wouldn't have to work so hard. There is still a myth that one who works in the not- for-profit sector needn't and doesn't work as hard as someone in the for profit sector.

   Another example: during a several year period, I stuck my toe in the consulting world - working with for-profit companies. Interestingly, if a potential client discovered that I am a rabbi, the outcome became predictable - if the potential client was Jewish, I NEVER got the contract; if the potential client was not Jewish, I ALWAYS did. [Fortunately, there were more non-Jewish clients.] What does that tell us about the perceived status of those who choose careers in the Jewish community?

   Of course, one must be cautious about generalizing from one's own experiences. Yet these anecdotes are reflective of other articles and position papers by those who advocate an improved status for Jewish communally paid professionals. The specifics may be personal; the condition quite general.

3. Parochialism. Those who work within the Jewish community often find it to be claustrophobic. Most Diaspora Jews have made a conscious choice to embrace the larger world while celebrating their Jewishness. This is true across the board, from those who are in the Modern Orthodox camp to those who are more liberal to those who are secular but affirming Jews - which comprises the overwhelming majority of Diaspora Jewry. We are beyond the self denying and name changing of a previous era. Yet if one chooses to work for and within the community, one's associations are exclusively Jewish. It is perceived by many as needless self ghettoization. Even if one solves the financial and status issues mentioned above, the question of where one fits in the larger world remains. [Of course, for some, working in and for the Jewish community solves a problem of the potential conflict of observance and job demands. But one hopes that the desire to work in the Jewish world not become limited to those who are the most religiously observant.]

4. Valuing the outsider. There remains a Catch 22 for many who climb the ladder in Jewish life. Ironically, at the middle and senior executive level, there are many organizations which rate work outside the Jewish world higher than experience within. How many search committees have we heard express their preference to reach beyond the known cast of characters to go outside? This not-subtle message is heard enough that it signals to many that it would be better to enter the executive ranks from a successful career in a non Jewish sector than to work one's way up the ladder internally. Why choose a leadership path in Jewish communal life if it is not valued at the end?

5. Super-Jews. One final hurdle remains for those who are active in Jewish communal life, on both the lay and professional side. For many, those who choose active involvement are considered "super-Jews." And the majority of Diaspora Jews does not wish to be "super-Jews" or even assume that they share the same values with those whom they believe are. Thus, beyond all of the other barriers discussed here, it is perceived by many that the Jewish organizational world is simply impenetrable and functions with different values. Why choose a paid career or volunteer leadership position with people whom you perceive to be different than you and your social group?

   Before proposing solutions, there are two other, more generic issues which must be understood as well.

6. The Womanization of the Not for Profit World. While there is no question that a persistent glass ceiling continues to exist in many sectors, it is important to recognize that certain professions have become "women's" careers. "Womenization", whereby certain careers have a very high percentage of women, is not to be confused with the "feminization" of work. In the former, employers, consciously or not, view their workers as "2nd income" or short term and thus pay less and have less long term financial commitment. In effect, many careers are thereby viewed, sadly, as less prestigious. In the case of the feminist model, which exists rarely, careers would have a different balance of work and career, would not be gender biased, and would reflect different dynamics and values in the work place.

   We most assuredly see this phenomenon in Jewish life. Women are predominant everywhere but in the executive suite. And even there, it is changing. The double edged question, which goes much beyond the Jewish community, is what will happen to the Jewish community if it is staffed primarily by women? I am not the first to ask this question; there is much debate about it. But it is impossible to ignore if we are to plan for and implement radical changes in the communal leadership structure.

7. Commitment to an employer and by an employer. Once upon a time, an IBM employee was an employee for life. Similarly, a responsible employee in the not-for-profit realm could reasonably assume the likelihood of lifetime employment. No longer. If there is no semblance of loyalty to an employee, there surely is no incentive for people to feel loyalty to an employer. If transitions and consecutive careers are the expected norm, it is unrealistic to assume that the Jewish community can invent a system which runs counter. Both agencies and employees have now been acculturated to other ways of thinking.

   I have written elsewhere on the perversity of a society which devalues employee loyalty but expects 24/7 commitment. [in Jewish parlance, 24/6]. There surely is little justification for a society organized around such a principle even in the for-profit sector, but many workers choose to do it because of the financial incentives. The not-for-profit world has no such incentives, so the same "24/7" weighs more heavily on the shoulders and psyches of those employees who feel those expectations.

So we come full circle: the barriers to entry to lay or professional involvement and continuity are very high. And they are sufficiently stubborn that they don't lend themselves to facile solutions.