On Jewish Leadership
FROM THE EDITOR
In preparing this issue of Sources on Jewish leadership, I found myself thinking often about Rabbi and Professor David Ellenson, who I knew as as a fellow scholar at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Research Center. After his death last December, as he was widely and warmly eulogized, friends and family recalled noteworthy moments and characteristics of his tenure as President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a post he held from 2001-2013 and again in 2018-2019. As we approach his first yahrzeit, three of his choices continue to stand out to me: first, David ensured the future of HUC-JIR’s School of Sacred Music by securing the support necessary to endow it as the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. Second, during the Second Intifada, he insisted that first-year rabbinical students study at the HUC campus in Jerusalem, as previous cohorts had done. The third is less a single event and more of an attitude: in interviews and other contexts, David spoke openly about his initial opposition to the Reform Movement’s decision to accept patrilineal descent as a source of Jewish identity in the 1980s and the reasons he later came to accept it as the correct policy for the movement.
The essays in this issue have helped me to understand that each of these was a case of exemplary leadership. The authors featured here write about leadership from a variety of vantage points: they include experts in leadership training; experienced lay and professional leaders; leaders of small synagogue and study communities and of large communal organizations. Each author writes from their own experience and expertise, but they are primarily focused on the big picture, asking and answering: what sort of leadership do we, the Jewish people, need right now? They offer wisdom and guidance to those of us who are in search of leaders and to those of us who are ready to lead. There is no time, in this issue, to fret about the so-called “pipeline problem”; there are only potential leaders waiting for mentorship and guidance.
In her article, Elka Abrahamson, president of the Wexner Foundation, emphasizes that leadership skills can (and must) be learned, even by someone who is a born leader. She reminds us of the lesson of the dance floor and the balcony: a leader must know when to circulate within the swirling crowd on the dance floor and when to step up to the balcony and take in the big picture. Only by balancing between the two perspectives can a leader see what is needed. I suspect that David Ellenson’s success in endowing HUC-JIR’s cantorial school emerged from moving between dance floor and balcony: had he remained entangled among a dedicated and talented faculty and student body facing difficult financial circumstances, he would not have seen the resources available in the larger Jewish world to ensure the school’s future. And had he not spent time enmeshed in the school’s inner workings, he would have not known its value and potential.
Avi Killip, Executive Vice President of the Hadar Institute, argues that Jewish religious leadership requires three elements: one must stand for something; offer something; and ask something. I see each of these elements in David Ellenson’s insistence that first year rabbinical students live in Jerusalem even during the Second Intifada. First, his vision of what a rabbi should know and should be was shaped by his commitment to Jewish peoplehood, a commitment that included not only the North American Jewish community but also the State of Israel. This was what he stood for. Second, he had something to offer these students: a meaningful vision of the rabbinate and the education necessary for them to realize and embody that vision. And then, third, he asked students to do something that might have felt, to them, overwhelming or even impossible. But his ask was supported by what he stood for and what he was offering. Killip invites those who would lead to discover what they will stand for, what they will offer, and what they will ask by first immersing themselves in Jewish texts and traditions; David offers a compelling case study.
Within the Jewish community, for reasons that include the nature of Jewish life and the legal technicalities of maintaining nonprofit status, leadership is not limited to professional roles, and countless Jewish leaders do their work as volunteers. Several articles in this issue explore the nature of lay leadership and, in particular, the relationship between the volunteers and the paid staff that together run Jewish organizations of many different types. Alan Solow, a former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, writes as a leader of leaders, advising individuals who are asked not only to join but to chair a board of directors. He argues that before taking on such a leadership role, a lay person must have a vision of change for the organization in question, a plan for implementing that change, and a commitment to building consensus among the board and the professional staff.
For this issue’s Conversation piece, I reached out to the leaders of the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation to talk about best practices for philanthropic leaders, in their case as leaders of a foundation with capacity to impact significant projects in the Jewish community and beyond. Chair of the Board Paula B. Pretlow and President and CEO Rachel Garbow Monroe spoke of their commitment to the Weinberg Foundation’s mission, which was defined decades ago when the foundation was established, and their shared vision of how to implement that mission today. In another article, Joshua Ladon, Vice President, West Coast, and Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and Jo-Ellen Pozner, Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University, examine the various factors that can affect the lay-professional relationship and the balance of power and responsibilities between them.
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These articles all remind us that Jewish leaders, whether lay or professional, exercise the power they have with others and for others. There are times when successful leadership means letting go of one’s own vision or adjusting it in response to the reality of the community one serves. This is how I understand David’s approach to patrilineal descent, and I appreciate his openness about it as shedding light on the give-and-take among leaders and between leaders and their communities.
The Jewish people need fresh thinking about leadership in Israel as much as we need it in North America. When I invited two Israeli colleagues to write about leadership, they each immediately asked if I meant Israel’s leadership crisis, namely, the Israeli government’s failure to lead before and since October 7. From where they each sit, this is the challenge that must be addressed. The essays they wrote capture their frustration and anger but also their continuing commitment to the ideals of the State of Israel. Ronit Heyd, Vice President and Director of the Center for Israeli and Jewish Identity at the Shalom Hartman Institute, points in her analysis to a disconnect between the needs of the Israeli people and the interests of the government. Her despair is palpable, but she is not without hope. The piece concludes with the suggestion that individual citizens and NGOs must step into the breach and push for positive change. Avi Dabush, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights and member of Hartman’s Rabbanut Yisraelit, describes his work as the spiritual leader of Israelis from the Gaza Envelope, who have been displaced for over a year and still do not know when they will return home. We must believe, he writes, that it is possible to rebuild. This is the faith that guides him in his work. Together, these two reflections on leadership in Israeli society in this moment offer a compelling reminder to North American Jewish leaders of the shared, but unique, challenges we face.
The leadership theme is rounded out by two pieces that draw on Jewish history to offer new visions for contemporary Jewish leadership. Marc Dollinger, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility at San Francisco State University, examines the legacy of two Jewish leaders in the American civil rights movement: the beloved rabbi and scholar, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and the Black Jewish president of SNCC, Chuck McDew. Dollinger argues that it is time to reexamine the history of Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement and in doing so, to consider why Heschel is so well known and McDew largely forgotten. He makes a powerful case for Jews committed to social justice work to view both of them as role models. Finally, Rabba Rachel Kohl Finegold reflects on her experience in the pulpit in light of the changes female rabbis have brought to the rabbinate. She argues that the Jewish community must change its definitions of rabbinic gravitas and see that the more relational approach characteristic of female rabbis is as worthy of respect as older approaches grounded more in study and distance.
Finally, I am very excited that this issue ends with a rich Close Reads section, featuring pieces by poet Joy Ladin on trans hermeneutics—what it means to read biblical text from a trans perspective; by scholar of education Jon Levisohn on our responsibilities as interpreters of Jewish text; and by rabbinics scholar Jane Kanarek on how to center women when reading the Talmud. Teachers, too, are leaders with vision, and each of these pieces offers the chance to sit, for a short while, in the classroom of an extraordinary teacher and to engage with their thought leadership.
Thinking about teaching brings me back to David Ellenson. I learned a lot from David about 19th–century German Orthodoxy, which was his area of specialization, but the most lasting lessons he gave me were in ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people. Some of that, I hope, comes through in what I wrote above. In working on this issue of Sources, I came to realize how much he also taught me about transforming that love into a force for good.
As always, I look forward to your feedback.
Claire E. Sufrin
