AT
■
THE
TOP
Bob Aronson,
representing a new breed
of Federation leader,
takes the
Detroit Jewish community
through critical times
and into the 1990s.
F
fifteen years ago,
Bob Aronson broke
into federation
work in a blaze of
glory..
He was hired as a
secretarial assistant,
which in more common
terms is spelled g-o-f-e-r.
And his employer, the Jew-
ish Federation of
Milwaukee, paid him the
princely annual salary of
$4,000.
In retrospect, how much
should a person be paid
who was suspended from
Milwaukee's Nicolet High
School for leading a boycott
of the senior prom? And
how much should a person
be paid who dropped out of
high school and to this day
still hasn't earned his high
school diploma or general
equivalency diploma even
though he holds a bache-
lor's in fine arts and a
master's degree in social
work?
PHIL JACOBS
Assistant Editor
Wasn't $4,000 ap-
propriate for a person who
had no prior experience in
Jewish communal ser-
vices?
After all, Mr. Aronson,
38, is a lithographer, a
printmaker. He spends his
private time not wielding a
nine iron on the golf course
with the heavy hitters, but
with a sketchbook and pen-
cil, capturing a landscape
or still life. This is a man
who is as comfortable talk-
ing about Ivan the Terrible
and the tumult of military
history as he is the wing-
span of a blue jay and the
serenity of bird watching.
Ten months ago, Bob
Aronson was introduced to
the Detroit Jewish com-
munity as the new exec-
utive vice president of the
Detroit Jewish Welfare
Federation, bringing him
to one of the nation's top
federation professional
positions.
The question is, why this
man? And almost to the
letter, observers said Mr.
Aronson's rise to the top
happened because of three
reasons: his ability to
relate to almost all people
at their level, a tireless
sense of urgency for what is
good for Israel and the Jew-
ish people, and a wonderful
sense of humor without the
fear of being self-critical or
candid on major issues of
controversy.
"Bob came into Detroit in
the midst of one of the most
hectic periods in recent
memory in our Jewish
communal life," Federa-
tion President Mark
Schlussel said "He was
calm, cool, collected and
handled himself
marvelously in taking the
reins of leadership."
Mr. Aronson said he was
anything but cool and col-
lected when he decided he
wanted to get involved
CLOSE-UP
24
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1990
with the Jewish commun-
ity.
In 1973, Mr. Aronson
said he found himself lost
in art school, spending a
great deal more time
steeped in school and class-
room matters than in the
scheme of life, ranked low on
the priority list. He said it
took the Yom Kippur War,
when Israel's very exis-
tence was threatened, to
cause him to question his
purpose in life.
"I found myself on the
doorstep of the Milwaukee
federation," Mr. Aronson
said. "I didn't know what I
could do, but I wanted to do
something. In art school, I
was in a world where the
concern of students was
over issues not critical or
relevant to what was hap-
pening in the world. I
wanted to be where I could
touch what was happening
in the Jewish community,
where I felt I could make a