A
dvocacy of social
responsibility.
We must begin by teaching our students to
recast modern Judaism with the strong appeal
of a clear moral imperative. My own awareness
of this challenge was seeded over a decade ago
when the then HUC-JIR President, Dr. Alfred
Gottschalk, charged me to “teach our students
to be intrepid.” He invited me to create a course
on the New York campus, which I organized with
Albert Vorspan, former Director of the Commis-
sion on Social Action of Reform Judaism, in which
social action would be taught as a central aspect
of rabbinical leadership.
How prescient was his vision, in light of
today when association with institutional Jewish
life is justified by the elusive emerging Jewish
generation
only
if it represents a larger purpose.
A worthy mission can draw them toward
organizations that are dedicated to creating
a moral, compassionate society, and a just,
peaceful world.
With the help of my congregants, HUC-JIR
established a Chair to give social responsibility
a more permanent place in the required core cur-
riculum. The goal is to teach that rabbis, cantors,
and educators, inspired by Jewish social vision,
can mobilize our congregations to bring about
societal and communal change. Among areas
studied are civil rights and civil liberties, domestic
and global poverty, immigration, gay/lesbian
rights, Israeli issues of pluralism and peace,
interreligious relationships, and community or-
ganizing. All are demanding issues new Jewish
professionals will surely confront almost daily.
To place this class, and similar courses on
the other two stateside campuses, in a larger con-
text, three important dimensions were added:
campus-wide programs and speakers on themes
of justice including, most recently, Elliot Abrams,
Ruth Messinger, Alan Dershowitz, and Rabbi David
Saperstein; text instructors of biblical and rab-
binic literature presenting materials dealing with
Judaism’s concern with a just society throughout
our sacred literature; and hands-on opportunities,
required for all students, to work with agencies
and organizations engaged in social justice on
a daily basis.
O
utreach to the diversity
within our ranks and to
those who in their indifference
have distanced themselves
from us.
Encouraged by the vision and support of the
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Founda-
tion,
an HUC-JIR Chair in Leadership and
Outreach has made possible programs power-
fully impacting our student body. Most of these
young rabbinical and cantorial students bring
to their studies the attitudes of the past, chiefly
that Jewish leaders put the blame on those “out-
side the tent.” Our task, therefore, is to create a
different culture at the College-Institute, one of
welcome and embrace.
We have successfully begun to achieve this
in classrooms, rabbinical student internships,
and summer residencies in congregations with
effective outreach approaches and, most signifi-
cantly, through the
Schusterman Outreach
Weekend Institutes
.
Every rabbinical student is
required in the fourth year of study to attend one
of three Institutes held in a Reform congregation
where professional staff and lay leadership have
partnered in the transformative skills that re-
shape congregations into welcoming outreach
communities.
Students live with congregational families,
often intermarried, and are led in discussions by
rabbis, interfaith couples, and lay leaders who
are effectively dealing with the difficulties faced
by interfaith families; successful integration of
diversity into temple life; controversial questions
related to intermarriage officiation; outreach to
the GLBT community and, especially, to unaffili-
ated young singles and couples.
Students’ response to our Schusterman
Outreach Institutes has been most enthusiastic.
It is worth noting that some of our graduating
seniors in the past two years have deliberately
chosen positions in synagogues and organiza-
tions with a heavy emphasis on the very goals of
creating an American Jewish community inclu-
sive in nature and welcoming in spirit.
T
raining in the practical
skills required to trans-
form vision to realization.
It used to be that rabbis learned leadership
through experience or, if fortunate, from a tal-
ented senior colleague. Today, the need is too
urgent to depend on time or luck.
I recently surveyed rabbinical colleagues
whose administrative abilities enabled the cre-
ation of effective, dynamic institutions. I asked
them: what leadership insights and managerial
skills would better prepare our students at the
beginning
of their careers? The following areas
were considered of foremost importance: strate-
gic thinking, planning, and skills in managing
change; varying styles of leadership for differing
situations; managing conflict, “hot buttons” is-
sues, and misplaced anger; working with laity
and staff by building trust and empowering oth-
ers; and financial concerns, especially budgets
and fundraising.
Each of our three stateside campuses pro-
vides opportunities to study these issues, often
through actual cases. Work in student pulpits,
internships, and summer residencies becomes
more valuable when students have also experi-
enced in the classroom the all-important
self-reflection and discussion on the values
and the skills of authentic leadership.
This, then, is what we hope to view in the
near future from our tripod of leadership
education:
•
Young graduates will have learned to trans-
late their moral vision into dynamic social
action communities that inspire affiliation.
•
Cantors, rabbis, and educators will be
equipped to create in congregations a
spiritual home large enough for our people’s
diversity, with portals wide enough to
welcome back those who have drifted afar.
•
A new generation of leaders will possess
the courage and ability to transform institu-
tions, with professionals and laity working in
a trusting, authentic partnership that shall
thrive with renewed vitality in the changed
landscape of 21st-century American
Judaism.
The Chronicle
Fall 2011
Page 5
A Tripod of Leadership Education
Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson, C ’58;
National Coordinator of Leadership Initiatives; Adjunct Professor of Professional Development
According to studies by HUC-JIR Professor Steven M. Cohen, the
under-40 generation characterizes the synagogues
of their parents
in a highly critical “ABCD fashion”:
ALIEN
to their 20s and 30s world;
BLAND
and
BORING,
,
filled
with a predictable demographic of the middle-aged and upper-middle class;
COERCIVE
regarding the views they
do not readily accept, the importance of in-marrying, and unquestioned support of Israel and its policies;
and
DIVISIVE,
separating Jews from non-Jews and denominationally Jews from Jews.
The demographic Jewish landscape has undergone stunning alteration. Consider such realities as:
an approximately 50% intermarriage rate;
43%
of Jewish households are composed of singles;
50%
of Reform religious school children have but one born-Jewish parent;
nearly 10% of Jewish families are gay or lesbian;
10%
of American Jews are non-white, as are 15-20% of their adopted Jewish children.
We are well aware that affiliation with the traditional institutions of Judaism, the denominational
synagogue in particular, is under siege. HUC-JIR must now assume the daunting yet realizable
task of educating leaders with the knowledge, vision, and skills to create and recreate Jewish
institutions able to respond effectively to these new realities. What then is required of us?
