It’s no wonder we can’t recruit Jewish execs: a local voice

It has been almost 15 years since I left the corporate banking world for a second career, in synagogue management. J.'s May 20 cover story on the shortage of executive leadership rings true on many fronts. It is difficult to get to the roots of the causes of this national problem. Let me share a few insights.

As the current president of the National Association of Temple Administrators, a 350-member association of synagogue executives, I am well aware of the alleged shortage throughout the Jewish world. But like the cry about Jewish continuity in the early 1990s, we must look at the underlying reasons for this crisis.

We are not the same Jewish community who lived through the Depression, experienced anti-Semitism, World War II, the founding of the state of Israel and the rescuing of Soviet Jews in the 1970s.

We are, because of the past generations of our parents and grandparents, the best educated and experienced generation of Jews in America. This applies to baby boomers like me as well as the gen-X and Y that came after me.

So what does this mean? It means that we can manage and lead and challenge ourselves and our institutions to be different than they were 50 years ago. One of the problems is that the current batch of elder lay leaders are afraid to turn over the reins to new ideas and new professional leadership.

Last November the executive officer of our association and our sister Conservative association met in Dallas to jointly address some of these issues. We explored the issue of lay leadership who try to control rather than govern. We spoke of gender issues and pay inequities and ways to bring better-qualified people into Jewish institutions.

Yes, there still is a glass ceiling in many institutions, but not in all. In the Reform movement, Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, Central Synagogue and Sharrai Tefilah in New York, and Beth Israel in Houston all have exceptional women executives at the top of their field. But all too many synagogues treat women clergy and executives as second-class as far as pay and benefits go.

The problems do not lie with the professionals. The problems lie with our lay leadership. Be it JCCs or federations, synagogues or family service agencies across the country, the issues of micromanagement, long hours away from family and compensation that is less than stellar are at the heart of the issue. These are issues that our lay leaders would never accept in their own careers or corporations, but they act like Jewish professionals are slaves to Jewish values.

Several years ago a Harvard Business Review article was titled, "Why do CEOs leave their brains at the door when they join nonprofit boards?" It seems that the secular world has also wrestled with this problem all too often. Maybe it is time for all of us to sit up and take notice when the Jewish Community Federation in a city such as ours has such a difficult time recruiting a new executive.




Gary S. Cohn is president of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco and president of the National Association of Temple Administrators.




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