According to the 2011 census of England and Wales, the Jewish community of the United Kingdom numbers around 263,000 and has a staggering 2,200-plus Jewish organizations.
The mainstream UK Jewish community has long devoted many resources to youth leadership development, through substantial investment in the Zionist youth movements, the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), and synagogue-based bodies. These funds have enabled young people to take responsibility as madrikhim (leaders) on a local level (at age 15 or 16), lead camps (at ages 17–20), lead Israel tours or local Jewish student societies (at ages 20–21) and become youth movement or UJS leaders for a year or two after university, with responsibility for large budgets and for the well-being of thousands of young people.
Notwithstanding all this, only a handful of the hundreds and thousands of former youth movement and UJS leaders—both men and women—find their place in the wider community once they leave their movements. Some do not seek a way in, skeptical that they will ever find another role with such level of empowerment or for which they have the same passion. For those young men and women who do seek to affiliate, can they find true leadership responsibility only outside the mainstream, or can the mainstream community find gateways to bring them in?
The growing realization that the UK Jewish community needs ongoing development and nurturing of its current and future leaders if it is to survive led the community to respond with two initiatives in 2011.
New Initiatives for Leadership
In June 2011, the Commission on Women in Jewish Leadership (CWJL) was launched in the UK by the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), the body that brings together the major British Jewish organizations to work for the good of the entire UK Jewish community. The aim of the commission was to suggest ways of advancing more women into senior voluntary and professional roles in the community.
In the autumn of 2011, the CWJL produced an initial review, titled “Gender Imbalance: the Status Quo,” which revealed that women were underrepresented at the leadership level. This document laid the foundation for the community consultation that followed. The CWJL published its recommendations in July 2012, under the headings of Governance, Personal Leadership Development, Networking, Communications, and Other. At the heart of the recommendations was a recognition that change needs to come from women themselves, both individually and collectively; from the Jewish community’s organizations and institutions; and from our youth and, potentially, from their schools.1
To implement the recommendations of the report, Women in Jewish Leadership (WJL) was created in March 2013 as a project of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, supported by the JLC. The Equality Support Group of WJL is currently focusing on introducing standards of gender equality into Jewish communal organizations through the presentation of an Award for Change to communal organizations that encourages them to set and work toward standards for improving gender equality. The Leadership Development Group of WJL is implementing and monitoring the personal development and networking recommendations made by the CWJL and has established an ongoing program of communications to maintain the momentum and keep awareness of the issue high.
Changes in the Community as a Result of the CWJL
In my view, there have already been some notable changes in the community in terms of women’s leadership since the CWJL commenced its work. These are not necessarily all a direct result of the CWJL’s work, but are undoubtedly a result of a changing awareness about the issue.
For example, in 2012 when the CWJL was still meeting, for the first time in UK history, 25 percent of the selection committee for the next chief rabbi were women. The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue community amended its governing document so that women could be chairs of local synagogues and that women could be trustees. The new chair appointed to the Movement for Reform Judaism was a woman, and women compose about 30 percent of their board. At least one more woman has been appointed to the board of Liberal Judaism.
New developments in 2013 have included the passing of a motion by United Synagogue (the UK’s Orthodox body) to appoint female chairs of synagogues, which were previously not allowed. There are now nine women chairs of synagogue boards out of sixty-two, as well as nineteen vice-chairs. The Leeds community has launched a women’s network: Jewish Women Mean Business. In August, more than fifty lay and professional leaders and event planners signed a statement to the WJL opposing “all-male panels” and encouraging others to consider not participating in all-male panels.
On a professional level, there have been numerous women CEOs of smaller Jewish organizations, but only one (but soon to be two) female heads of the larger ones. This has not been the case in Jewish day schools, where many of the heads have been women. Now, however, the pendulum is swinging back and, increasingly, school head teachers are men.
Lead: Inspiring Jewish Leaders
The second communal initiative started in November 2011, when Lead: Inspiring Jewish Leaders was launched as the community-wide leadership development division of the JLC. Having been created and nurtured within the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), Lead’s vision is to create inspiring and transformative Jewish community leaders by offering programs, support, and resources to lay and professional emerging leaders across the Jewish community. Lead is working on implementing some of the recommendations of the CWJL, as well as encouraging the community to open up lay leadership roles to younger people, men as well as women.
One of the community’s longstanding gateways to leadership has been the Adam Science Foundation Leadership Programme, run by the Adam Science Foundation in partnership with Lead. Now in its twenty-first year of operation, the foundation is named in honor of a young lay leader, Adam Science, who was tragically killed in a car crash in 1991. Each year, the program enables ten to twelve young professionals in their mid-twenties to early thirties to acquire knowledge, understanding, and experience of the UK Jewish community in order to become its future leaders. There are now 230 alumni of the program who have subsequently become involved in a range of communal organizations, synagogues, day schools, Limmud, and other initiatives.
One of the new chairs of a United Synagogue community is Michelle Bauernfreund, who heads the Alei Tzion community. A graduate of the Adam Science program, Michelle said, “I was proud to take on this role as part of the first cohort of female chairs in the United Synagogue. I feel that as a woman I have a lot to bring which may have been missing previously, and I hope to use these ‘female’ skills to develop the life of my shul in the right direction.”
Thus, the UK Jewish community is addressing the need to develop its current and future leaders, both lay and professional, and will work to harness the passion, skills, and enthusiasm of young adults coming into the community. Their participation will raise the bar in terms of leadership vision and capability for already existing lay and professional leaders. We are by no means where we wish to be yet. We have a long way to go before the community becomes gender-blind, but we have certainly started the ball rolling.