What Makes A Leader?

As Jewish community changes, so does model of good leadership.

RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York
Part one of a series.
sk American Jews to name an American Jewish
hero and they might say Steven Spielberg or
Sandy Koufax.
Perhaps you'd get Sarah Jessica Parker — her moth-
er's Jewish — or even Madonna, the Catholic superstar
who has helped to make Kabbalah mainstream.
But ask an American Jew to name a Jewish commu-
nal leader and you may well get a vacuous expression.
American Jews are towering figures that enliven sec-
ular fields from science to entertainment, but leader-
ship in American Jewish communal life has become
lackluster, some say.
Others argue that today's communal leadership is
quite effective — just less prominent and more facilita-
tive, in keeping with the times.
For one, the American Jewish community has grown
increasingly decentralized, with more groups and foun-
dations taking on special causes.
"I would not say that we have a leadership crisis; we
have a diffusion of leadership," says Shula Bahat, asso-
ciate executive director of the American Jewish
Committee, where she is responsible for lay leadership
development.
"The outcome is that it is hard to identify leaders of
the community as a whole. Each leader functions in
their own milieu," she says.
However, the decentralized leadership model fits the
American Jewish community's size and multiplicity of
organizations, she says.
Furthermore, "The autocratic leader is not a desir-
able model today," she says. "Successful leaders use per-
suasion rather than edicts to inspire people to follow"

A

Communal Shift

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9/24
2004

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Bahat says American Jewish communal life has shifted
toward inclusiveness and team leadership. For example,
the AJCommittee has instituted myriad committees to
allow members to "own a certain niche in the organi-
zation."
In a culture where American Jews are thoroughly
assimilated, persuasive leadership is necessary to com-
pel them to donate to Jewish causes over non-Jewish
ones, practice Judaism or marry Jewish. At stake,
observers say, is the future of a thriving American
Jewish community.
But in trying to rally a community of independent-
minded Jews with multiple and even conflicting iden-
tities, today's American Jewish leaders face a daunting
task.
In an era of individual empowerment, are American
Jewish leaders adapting to the community with the
right leadership model? The answer varies from organi-
zation to organization.

New Leaders: Michael Steinhardt and Richard Joel

In general, "leadership has to be fueled by a purpose"
beyond mere organizational survival, says Richard Joel,
the longtime, charismatic president of Hillel who last
year became president of Yeshiva University
"Do we as a people have a driving dream that fuels
us? I worry that that's in short supply," he says.
Ignorance about "who we are and what we are about is
a major informing factor in this."
"Leadership," says Joel — often cited in the corn-
munity as the model of a dynamic leader — "is vision
plus an implementation strategy"
By that standard, just being head of a Jewish group
does not necessarily make someone a leader. In fact,
many leaders are emerging outside the mainstream
organizations.
Some say Jewish institutions themselves handicap
their leaders: Many Jewish groups are highly bureau-
cratic organizations that hamper leaders' impulses to
innovate or be entrepreneurial.
And some institutions cling to outdated mandates,
says Larry Moses, president of the Wexner Foundation,
a premiere training program for Jewish leadership.
"Because the pace of change is so rapid and relent-
less, Jewish organizations need to thoughtfully assess
and reassess their relevance to the challenges and
opportunities of the times," Moses says.
Shifting Jewish demographics — from intermarriage
and single-parenting to the emergence of gays and les-
bians, dual-career families and increased mobility —
have created new challenges for synagogues, he says.
Federations must shift from an "Israel-centric and
`rescue and relief' mission to a broader concern with
American Jewish education, identity and affiliation,"
he says.
Increasing competition among Jewish groups calls
for strategic change in function and vision, Moses says.
Due to poor compensation in entry- and mid-level
jobs, and lack of professional development, Jewish
groups also wrestle with professional recruitment and
retention — which, in turn, dampens the potential to
attract top lay leaders.
In addition, it's a tough time to lead in this country.
Like their fellow Americans, Jews have become
focused more on individual than communal needs.

Jewish professionals and activists say Americans still
live in the era of "Bowling Alone" — a reference to
Robert Putnam's 2000 book that documents the loss of
community in America and the lower membership in
civic and community organizations.
In addition, the rise of the baby-boomer generation
has bred a certain suspicion of authority and institu-
tions, says Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL: The
National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
Trends such as customizing one's Passover Haggadah
or putting charitable dollars towards one's own pet
project, rather than a communal funding pool, attest
to the changed psychology Rabbi Kula says.

Leadership S t yles

Still, some say there's not a crisis of leadership — just a
shift in leadership style to empower a group's member-
ship, again in keeping with the times.
"A change in the style of dominant leadership is
being understood as a crisis of leadership," says John
Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the UJA-
Federation of New York
"People look for strong leaders who have clear
answers, and yet so much of contemporary life leads to
nuance and ambiguity," he says.
"We're in a much more participatory, consensual
process in which people seek to be heard," he says.
"That does not lend itself to strong rabbis from the
pulpit giving 40-minute sermons every Saturday."
In fact, Ruskay says, there currently may be more
"excellent, first-rate facilitative leadership in the Jewish
community than we ever had."
Rabbi Richard Block exemplified the shifting leader-
ship style when he took over the pulpit three years ago
at the Temple-Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, where the
Zionist giant Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver held court for
46 years.
When he first took over, Rabbi Block says, he joked
with the Reform congregation that "this time around,
God sent you a rabbi that wouldn't readily be con-
fused" with God.
The way Rabbi Block sees it, "leadership has to be
experienced through the strength and the voice of
every participating individual."
Kehilat Hadar, an egalitarian minyan popular with
young adults on Manhattan's Upper West Side, follows
a similar ethos: Organizers intentionally lead from
behind.
"There's no one figure who's always conducting
things in a public way. That empowers people to lend
their own voice to prayer — and that's my goal," says
Elie Kaunfer, one of Hadar's co-founders. "This gener-
ation likes the empowering model."
Richard Joel, of Yeshiva University, sent that message
in his inaugural speech at the school last year. Known
for redefining paradigms with the turn of a phrase, Joel
said his purpose at the flagship institution of modern
Orthodoxy was "to ennoble and enable" students.

