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

