tials, Mr. Rubin concluded, are primarily
a function of workplace demographics —
meaning de facto discrimination, rather
than overt discrimination.
"The average male salary is higher be-
cause of more men in the top slots (and
those positions) haven't turned over," he
said. "But in equal positions, there are
equal salaries."
Ironically, the impact of larger numbers
of women entering the Jewish communal
field has also worked to slow salary ad-
vances, Mr. Rubin added. This is par-
ticularly true on the state and local
levels, where jobs are more readily
available to women, Mr. Rubin and others
indicated.
"I'm seeing a trend in a number of
organizations, including my own," said
Harriet Kurlander, director of the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee's Commission on
Women's Equality. "More and more wo-
men are coming into the field — and
where women flood a field, wages are
depressed.
"Women often are willing to take less
money," she continued. "As more women
move into field operations and middle
management of Jewish organizations,
there's a very real concern that this may
depress wages."
Still another impediment to women at
higher levels of major organizations has
been the perception that they are less
able, or willing, to disrupt their lives by
moving to distant cities.
"There's a (belief) that women . . . are
not willing to make the personal and
family sacrifices that men make on a
regular basis," said Diana Aviv, the
assistant director of NJCRAC, and one of
the top-ranking women in the Jewish
communal world.
"One criteria for top positions is serving
in the field in middle management; if you
haven't done some geographic jumping,

26

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1991

you're unlikely to get one of the higher
positions," she said."

The Volunteer

The situation is different — but by no
means ideal — for women seeking posi-
tions of influence as lay, or volunteer,
leaders of Jewish communal organiza-
tions.
Volunteerism was been the usual outlet
for women eager to express their talents
in the pre-feminist world. But here, too,
subtle patterns of bias persist within Jew-
ish organizations.
"Too often in the past, lay leaders of
Jewish organizations have been men, the
lower-level (volunteers) have been wo-
men," said Ann Lewis, a longtime polit-
ical activist and volunteer chairperson of
the American Jewish Congress' Commis-
sion for Women's Equality.
"When I see pictures of the (volunteer
leaders who comprise the) Conference of
Presidents, it's always 98 percent male.
So when they meet at the White House, or
with the prime minister of Israel, almost
half of the Jewish community is not rep-
resented." Jacqueline Levine has held a
long list of high-level volunteer posts in
the Jewish communal world. But despite
her personal successes, Ms. Levine also
argued that the Jewish community has
lagged behind the broader society in br-
inging women into positions of lay leader-
ship.
"Of course, there have been women as
lay presidents of major Jewish organiza-
tions," she said. "But I have yet to see a
woman follow a woman as president. I
was chair of NJCRAC — and I was the
only one. The same was true for Shoshana
Cardin at CJF. And it's not for want of
women who are capable of these kinds of
positions."

Women following women has become
more common on state and local levels,
according to Ms. Levine.
"But there, too, mostly it is in the
smaller or intermediate cities," she said.
"In the larger cities, we again see that a
woman has never followed a woman."
In addition, Ms. Levine added, the
number of women who are reaching the
top rung is far less than "the number of
women who are foot soldiers in the Jewish
organizations."
Ms. Levine's observations are supported
by a 1989 study of women in Jewish Fed-
erations authored by Barry A. Kosmin of
the North American Jewish Data Bank.
His data showed that women, as many
maintain, (do) lag behind in a number of
key areas.
For example, Mr. Kosmin found that in
1986 there were three times as many
women federation presidents (20 percent

Women have made their
greatest strides at the state
and local levels.

of the 187 federations surveyed) as there
were in 1975 (when 6.2 percent of the
presidents were female).
However, he also found that the highest
percentage of federation volunteer board
positions filled by women was that of sec-
retary (54.4 percent in 1986).
This led him to conclude that "women
were still largely confined to the tradi-
tional roles of secretaries," as well as to
social welfare-related committees.
He also wrote that women remained
significantly under-represented on key
financial and endowment committees,
traditionally an important platform for
advancement in the lay federation world.
In 1986, Mr. Kosmin said, women ac-
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