Marla Gilson got sick. Then she got fired.

Marla Gilson of Chevy Chase, Md., is a longtime Jewish community advocate who has given her career to helping the sick, elderly and poor.

How is she repaid for her tireless work? By being fired when she herself is faced with a deadly illness.

Gilson actually is quite lucky. Diagnosed with leukemia in January, she quickly found a bone marrow match, something many leukemia patients never find. (Most Jews who lived in the Washington area in the late '80s remember Allison Atlas, the 20-year-old leukemia patient whose ultimately unsuccessful search for a bone marrow match galvanized the community and inspired thousands to join the bone marrow registry.)

However, the transplant would leave Gilson vulnerable to infection for several months, and she proposed to her employer, the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Jewish Aging Services of North America (AJAS), that she work from home until September so that she could recover in a less risky environment.

AJAS said no. And they fired her.

Gilson had been working as president and CEO of AJAS for just nine months. AJAS says that they believe they've already gone above and beyond by paying Gilson for several weeks after she had used up her accrued sick leave, and for continuing to provide her with health insurance coverage.

But many in the Washington-area Jewish community are calling AJAS out for the decision. The Washington Jewish Week and JTA have many reactions from community members and friends who call it "unbelievable," among other things. And Gilson's attorney is gearing up to fight the dismissal on the grounds that it's discriminatory.

It's certainly understandable that AJAS would balk at having its new CEO out of the office for six months, especially in tough financial times when face time and networking can be critical for a nonprofit.

But Gilson seems to have given ample opportunity for AJAS to do the right thing, including offering to take a pay cut in order to have the organization hire a consultant to assist her with her duties. She also promised to return to work by Sept. 1.

The question is, would we be making a big stink about this story if Gilson were the CEO of Starbucks? Are we holding Jewish organizations to higher standards - maybe even too high?

Perhaps we are, but is that so wrong? Unlike most secular companies, Jewish organizations operate under a set of religious and ethical guidelines - it's called the Torah. When you decide to put "Jewish" in your name, you're agreeing to follow the moral code that goes along with that word. That isn't to say that an organization needs to put itself out of business in the name of the Torah, but there's no indication that that was a risk here. To blatantly subvert Jewish values while calling yourself a Jewish organization makes us all look bad.

Bottom line, AJAS may have written their own obituary with their handling of the Gilson case, and it didn't have to be this way.

It's incredible to me that companies and organizations continue to make hairbrained mistakes like this one in the age of the Internet. For some companies, a little negative publicity isn't always a bad thing - often just getting one's name in the spotlight can reap long-term benefits, even if it comes with a short-term financial hit.

But for a nonprofit that isn't very well known and probably relies on the donations of a few major machers every year, this could be a death knell. Did AJAS think this story wasn't going to get out?

Marla Gilson seems to have enough advocates that it's easy to imagine she'll bounce back from this. But will AJAS? Unless they do an about-face, and soon, I don't think so.

UPDATE, April 5: The Washington Post ran a story today about the Gilson case. This story states that Gilson will lose her health insurance coverage once COBRA runs out, contradicting the Washington Jewish Week story that states that AJAS will continue to provide Gilson with health care coverage (although, on second reading, it's not made clear whether that's going forward or whether it was for the weeks when she was being paid beyond her allotted sick leave). If Gilson loses her insurance (which also covers her husband and one of her children), that will just be more salt in the wound in this tragic story.

Comments

Leave a Comment

In order to post a comment, you must first log in.
Are you looking for user registration? Or have you forgotten your password?