24 | AUGUST 31 • 2023
R
eading an issue of the Jewish News
in the late 1970s led to the very
start of Susan Gertner’s impressive
career. Now celebrating her 20th anniver-
sary as the executive director of National
Council of Jewish Women, Michigan
(NCJW|MI), a 132-year-old grassroots
volunteer and advocacy organization with
a mission to improve the lives of women,
children and families, Gertner
was still a student at Michigan
State University when she read
about a need for volunteers.
“Jewish Family Service need-
ed volunteer drivers during the
summer months to help people
get to doctors’ offices and other
important appointments, and I thought that
was something I could help do,
” explains
Gertner, who lives in West Bloomfield. She
enjoyed her summer there, connecting with
older adults so much that when she read in
the Jewish News about an internship with
JOIN (the Jeannette and Oscar Cook Jewish
Occupational Intern Program, now offered
by Gesher Human Services), which provides
a paid internship to Jewish students consid-
ering a career in the Jewish community, she
applied and was placed at the JFS Volunteer
Department the following summer.
Once Gertner had her bachelor’s degree
in social work, she got a job with Jewish
Family Service to be a Meals on Wheels
caseworker, working with the NCJW
Kosher Meals on Wheels Program. It was
there that she first encountered NCJW|MI
volunteers for the first time.
“I saw their passion and dedication to
ensuring that vulnerable seniors had a hot
meal every day, and it really impressed
me,
” she explains. “I became very familiar
with the organization and heard about the
important volunteer projects it did for the
community.
”
Gertner then decided to attend Wayne
State University to get her master’s degree
in social work with a certificate in geron-
tology and, after finishing, she moved to
Connecticut where she worked at the Jewish
Community Center in West Hartford in the
position of senior adult director and then
program director.
Eventually her ties to Michigan proved
too strong, and Gertner moved back to
her home state, securing a job as executive
director of Jewish Community Services in
Flint where she worked for eight years. Now
married with a young son and commuting
from West Bloomfield, Gertner preferred
to be closer to home as her son had started
school. Fortunately, a chance meeting with
a contact who worked at Jewish Federation
pointed the way: a new job was opening at
NCJW
, the appointment of its first executive
director in Detroit.
FINDING A HOME AT NCJW
Founded in 1891 in Detroit, NCJW had
always been a volunteer organization, but
as the years passed, its presidents and board
members had come to the realization that
it was to too large a commitment for vol-
unteers, who frequently needed to be in the
office or working on projects every day. By
2003, NCJWs in other cities were starting to
hire directors to provide a partnership and
continuity between office staff and volun-
teers. Detroit’s NCJW had decided that they,
too, needed a director to provide stability to
their organization.
Florence Herrmann was president at that
time and remembers Gertner well. “We had
been working with a company who told us
National Council of Jewish Women Michigan’s
Executive Director Susan Gertner celebrates
20 years on the job.
Susan
Gertner
ALISON SCHWARTZ SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Dedicated to
Improving
the Lives
of Women
OUR COMMUNITY
Susan Gertner on the
way to March for Our
Lives in 2018
A NCJW|MI rally for
equal pay for women
in Lansing in 2017