JEWISH LEADERSHIP and the JEWISH RENAISSANCE New Challenges for Leadership Development
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JEWISH LEADERSHIP AND THE JEWISH RENAISSANCE New Challenges for Leadership Development JONATHAN S. WOOCHER, PH.D. Executive Vice President, JESNA, New York Today, the core afftrmatiort of Jewish leadership development programs is that those who aspire to Jewish leadership must be Jewishly literate. However, Jewish literacy alone is not sufficient to guarantee effective leadership. The curriculum therefore should encompass what leaders need to know and experience to enable them to build vibrant Jewish communi ties, thereby allowing others to participate in the processes of Jewish growth. n a very real sense, leadership development a new culture of expectations and opportuni IDrought me to Brandeis University and ties for Jewish leaders to enhance their capa seven years of learning from and with bilities and to grow as Jews. Bernard Reisman. As a rather obscure Jewish Thinking back over the past twenty-plus studies professor at Carleton College in Min years of my own involvement, it seems clear nesota, it is unlikely that I would have come to me that the most important theme in the to Bernie's attention when Brandeis sought evolution of leadership development during to fdl a faculty position in the Hornstein this period is the ever-growing emphasis on Program in Jewish Communal Service were it Jewish literacy. Early on, the issue was not for the work I had done for the Council of approached somewhat gingerly and in small Jewish Federations designing and conduct doses. In the mid-1970s, most federation ing a new "model" leadership development leadership development programs combined program dealing with contemporary Jewish practical orientations to the work of federa issues. (How I came to be doing that at all is tion and its agencies, some skills develop another story—but not for this essay.) In ment, and perhaps some introduction to cur turn, the attractiveness of the opportunity to rent Jewish issues and/or explorations of per go to Brandeis was enhanced by Bernie's sonal Jewish identity. Jewish learning in any indicating that one of my job assignments traditional sense was not a goal or expecta wouldbe to help Hornstein develop programs tion. The first program I designed was billed in continuing education for Jewish leader as an innovation because it used a "scholar in ship. residence," though, tobe candid, it was pretty During my years at Brandeis, Bernie, I, light on Judaic substance. CLAL came along and other colleagues did indeed put in place and began to make Jewish study an intrinsic the first pieces of what has become a rich and attractive centerpiece of its leadership array of advanced leadership development training sessions. Today, the "Cadillac" of programs for both professionals and volun leadership development programs, the teers now sponsored by the Hornstein Pro Wexner Heritage program, is almost entirely gram. We began such programs as the Dis about intensive Jewish learning. Its core tinguished Leaders Institute and Sherman affirmation is that those who aspire to be Seminar for Outstanding Young Profession Jewish leaders must be Jewishly literate—a als, which continue to this day. We also dramatic reversal ofthe implicit assumptions mounted a variety of other institutes for rab operative only a few decades ago. bis, Jewish educators, communal profession This transformation in the normative con als, and lay leaders. Together with the efforts tent of Jewish leadership development pro of many others, these programs helped shape gramming clearly parallels the overall shift 131 Journal of Jewish Communal Service / 132 in this Jewish community's public agenda increase in entropy. As a collective system, during this period. 1 do not foresee having to we are less capable of working effectively fight again the battle over whether Jewish together. The symptoms of this change are to learning really is an important requisite for be seen in phenomena ranging from the rise Jewish leadership and hence for leadership in denominational fragmentation and ten development programs, whether introduc sion to the declining role of central commu tory or advanced. But, having won this point, nity campaigns. But the changes go much there still remains an enormous challenge: deeper. Jewish life today is lived more indi- How do we integrate the commitment to vidualistically than ageneration ago. History helping leaders increase their Jewish knowl and the public agenda speak less powerfully. edge and understanding into a larger frame The quest for personal meaning, more than a work of leadership development, one that sense of group belonging, is the criterion by enables them to fiinction effectively as lead which choices of lifestyle and behavior are ers in a dramatically changed Jewish envi made. The family, not Jewish institutional ronment? If we cannot today imagine leader life, is the arena in which and on which ship development without Jewish learning, it Jewish energies are focused. Hence, it is more is nevertheless also true that Jewish literacy difficult to bring and keep Jews together for alone is not enough to guarantee effective collective action. Even highly committed institutional or communal stewardship. This Jews find it difficult to forge broad shared is especially true at the advanced level, where agendas. In Jewish education today, parti leaders are expected to exercise significant sans of day schools, congregational educa influence over the direction of Jewish policy. tion, Israel experiences, early childhood edu Let me expand a bit. We need to start, 1 cation, summer camping, and other worthy believe, with a sense of where we are today as causes too often find themselves contending a community. The good news is that, at its over whose favored mode or setting is the core, today's community is almost certainly most effective, important, and worthy of ex the strongest Jewish community in American panded communal and philanthropic sup history. We have an elaborate—some might port. say, overelaborate—institutional structure. The "personalism" of Jews today is by no America's Jews are by and large prosperous, means a wholly negative phenomenon. If secure, and comfortable both in their Judaism cannot supply personal meaning to Americanness and Jewishness. (The excep disparate individuals, if it cannot evoke some tions to this rule, though perhaps relatively measure of deep feeling, it is doomed in small in number, most definitely continue to today's world. Indifference, a sense that need and merit the community's concern and Judaism is irrelevant to our personal lives support.) In manifold ways, Jewish spiritual (what in survey language we might call "just and intellectual life is flourishing, although Jewish-ism"), remains our greatest enemy. we justifiably worry that many Jews neither What is happening in Jewish life is complex participate in nor care about the creative and multifaceted. Certainly, if one looks at opportunities available to nurture and ex the Jewish populace as a whole, we are faced press their Jewishness. with cross-cutting trends. Some Jews are We are a strong community, but not one living at or beyond the margins of what we whose fiiture can be taken for granted. For think of as the Jewish community. These are me, the concern is less the classic ones of the Jews we worry about when we bemoan assimilation and intermarriage, but rather, assimilation. (The term and concept are, 1 subtle, though by now widely recognized, believe, seriously flawed as tools for explicat shifts taking place in the nature of Jewishness ing what is happening today, but can still be as Americans understand and practice it. The used as a shorthand for pointing to the not- net increase in Jewish energy over the past insubstantial number of Jews who manifest several years has been accompanied by an little overtly Jewish behavior in their lives.) WINTER/SPRING 1999 New ChaUenges for Leadership Development / 133 But, as noted above, the other side of the story the potenfial for a Jewish renaissance in today is the also not-insubstantial numbers of North America and globally, direct personal Jews who are actively engaged in seeking to participation in the excitement of Jewish forge personally meaningful Jewish identi growth surely is a desideratum, if not a requi ties. Some of these individuals look like site, for Jewish leaders. Hence, there is every conventionally committed Jews: They be reason to seek to reinforce those trends over long to synagogues and Jewish organiza the past two decades that have placed ongo tions; they engage in some number of ritual ing Jewish learning—as well as exploration observances; and they contribute to Jewish of Jewish spirituality and an expansive vision causes. But for many of these, and for many of personal Jewish activism—at the heart of others who do not look like conventional the curriculum for leadership development. Jews, the personalist and constructivist char But, we need to go beyond the personal. If acter of Jewish identity development today leadership development is seen only as a tool gives their Jewishness a dynamic, fluid, idio for enhancing the participants' own syncratic quality that challenges institutions Jewishness—important as this is—it risks to stay apace with and relevant to their indi becoming self-indulgent, elitist in the nega vidual Jewish journeys. tive sense of that term, and even capable of Jewish institutions and communities are creating a barrier between leaders and those being asked to take on a multiplicity of tasks— whom they need to reach out to, engage, some pulling in opposite directions. They guide, and support. must be rich, nurturing Jewish environments The true test of leadership is the ability to for those who are vigorously engaged in grow translate compelling personal experience into ing as Jews while appreciating that this growth the regularities of institutional life, thereby will itself be taking place along different axes allowing others toparticipate in the processes for different Jews.