|
|
November 12, 2004/Cheshvan 28 5765, Vol. 57, No. 11
Tomorrow's leaders?
As Jewish community changes, new models emerge
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Ask American Jews to name an American Jewish hero and they might say Steven Spielberg or Sandy Koufax.
But ask an American Jew to name a Jewish communal leader, and you may well get a vacuous expression.
American Jews are towering figures who enliven secular fields from science to entertainment, but leadership 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 facilitative, in keeping with the times.
For one, the American Jewish community has grown increasingly decentralized, with more groups and foundations taking on special causes.
"I would not say that we have a leadership crisis; we have a diffusion of leadership," said Shula Bahat, associate 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."
The decentralized leadership model fits the American Jewish community's size and multiplicity of organizations, she said. Furthermore, "the autocratic leader is not a desirable model today. Successful leaders use persuasion rather than edicts to inspire people to follow."
In a culture in which American Jews are thoroughly assimilated, persuasive leadership is necessary to compel 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.
In trying to rally a community of independent-minded Jews with multiple and even conflicting identities, American Jewish leaders face a daunting task.
"I think it's clear that there's a large segment of the Jewish com-munity that the organi-zed Jewish community doesn't reach," said Bob Mautner, who is in his second year as chair-man of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. "And I don't have an answer on why we can't reach all those people."
In general, "leadership has to be fueled by a purpose" beyond mere organizational survival, said Richard Joel, the longtime, charismatic national president of Hillel who last year became president of Yeshiva Uni-versity.
"Leadership," said Joel - often cited in the community 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 bureaucratic organizations that hamper leaders' impulses to innovate or be entrepreneurial.
And some institutions cling to outdated mandates, said Larry Moses, president of the Wexner Foundation, a premiere training program for Jewish leadership.
"Because the pace of change is so rapid and relentless, Jewish organizations need to thoughtfully assess and reassess their relevance to the challenges and opportunities of the times," Moses said.
Shifting Jewish demo-graphics have created new challenges for synagogues, he said.
Federations must shift from an "Israel-centric and 'rescue and relief' mission to a broader concern with American Jewish education, identity and affiliation," he said.
To complicate matters, 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 com-munity in America and the lower membership in civic and community organizations.
Still, some say there's not a crisis of leadership - just a shift in leadership style to empower a group's mem-bership, again in keeping with the times.
"A change in the style of dominant leadership is being understood as a crisis of leadership," said 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 said. "We're in a much more participatory, consensual process in which people seek to be heard."
This is the first in a four-part series on the changing nature of leadership within the American Jewish community.
Staff Writer Deborah Sussman Susser contributed to this article.
|
|
