“
How to be a Mentsch in an Economic Downturn – The Legal, Ethical, Halachic and Practical Issues
.”On Wednesday, March 18
th
, at the Israel Center for Conservative Judaism, located in Flushing,Queens, over 120 committed Lay Leaders, Education Directors, Youth Leaders and Rabbisattended this years METNY Spring Leadership Conference titled “METNY – Beyond theHorizon”.I was fortunate in being asked to facilitate a workshop titled “How to be a Mentsch in anEconomic Downturn “– The Legal, Ethical, Halachic and Practical Issues. The workshopfeatured two outstanding presenters:
Rabbi Paul Drazen
, the director of the United Synagogue’s Program Development Department.In his current role, Rabbi Drazen, coordinates United Synagogue’s program service units[education, youth, and leadership development among them]. As well, Rabbi Drazen directs publishing
Torah Sparks,
the IMUN program and our Biennial Conventions. He providesconsulting services and board and leadership training to USCJ member congregations. RabbiDrazen has been active in areas including: religious broadcasting, hospital ethics and domesticviolence prevention. He has served on the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards and the staff of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.
Ed Rudofsky
, the Co-Chair of the METNY Law Committee and Chairman of the USCJCommittee on Congregational Standards, which oversees compliance with the United SynagogueStandards for Congregational Practice and dispute resolution between congregations, clergy and professional staff. Ed is member of the METNY and USCJ Boards; the author of "The Role of the Synagogue Board in the Employment of the Rabbi"; and a Past President of SouthHuntington Jewish Center, where he served on the Synagogue Board in various capacities for 19years and recently helped to successfully guide the congregation through a severe financial crisisrequiring cost-cutting and across-the-board payroll reductions.Rabbi Drazen opened with a presentation of some examples of
halakhah
(Jewish law) applicableto employment relationships, and discussed practical issues as how as Lay Leaders we conductourselves in regard to employees of our synagogues, from the Rabbi to the person responsible for maintaining your synagogue in a clean and neat manner.Ed Rudofsky talked about the importance of good (i.e., open; honest) communication with theemployees of our Synagogues and schools, and in some cases their spouses (e.g., the Rebbitzin).We all need to remember that when we go home at night, our employment compensation affectsour family and not just ourselves. Have we looked at creating an “economic emergency” budget,tried to increase fundraising, rent out space, run income producing programs and evaluate programs that create a loss for our Synagogues? Ed asked those gathered at this workshop toremember that our Synagogue role as a Leader is different that our 9-5 role. As SynagogueLeaders, we have an obligation to be understanding and compassionate; to educate; tocommunicate; and to develop alternate modes of operation that permit us to meet the goal of “saving everyone’s job” while insuring the survival of our congregations in this EconomicDownturn.
Leave a Comment