Americas Jews

9. Leadership, Decision Making, and the Struggles for Change

9. Leadership, Decision Making, and the Struggles for Change American Jews as an ethno-religious group in American society are a voluntary group with no specific legal stature. In addition, while this group's organizational structure is very complex, its precise communal structure is somewhat amorphous . As we have seen, a variety of organizations operate in a variety of different spheres. Daniel Elazar has pointed to four basic categories of institutions within the American Jewish community, the relationships among which have developed by the accepted rules and principles determining their boundaries and spheres of activity. The two basic spheres are the religious and secular on the one hand and the public and private sectors on the other. Within each, leadership roles are divided into cosmopolitan and local, and professional and volunteer (Elazar , 1976, p. 257). The division of Jewish institutions into the religious and secular spheres grows out of the Protestant milieu of American society. Those activities perceived to be related to ritual are considered the domain of the synagogue and the clergy, as "religious." Those activities and concerns involving welfare, social service, and/or an Israel orientation, are perceived as "secular," and are outside the domain of the synagogues. Educational and cultural activities fall somewhere in between; sometimes they are considered religious, while at other times they are treated as secular. In consequence, as Elazar suggests, they "often suffer because they fall between two stools" (ibid., p. 258). Although the boundaries between the religious and secular spheres are not as decisive as in Protestantism nor are 203 204 America's Jews in Transition they so firm as they were in the American Jewish community of the first and second generations-because of both the growth in the strength of the synagogues after World War II and the increasing sensitivity of those in the secular sphere to Jewish religious tradition-the two types of institutions remain structurally separate with professional leadership coming from very different kinds of training and background: the religious leadership comes from the seminaries, while the secular leadership tends to come from schools of social work. To some degree, the increased sensitivity to Jewish religious tradition among those in the secular spheres is an outgrowth of the approximately one-half dozen graduate programs in Jewish communal service which have been established in recent decades in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, and Cleveland. Each program is designed to enhance the general professional and Jewish knowledge of its students and, although they vary in terms of Jewish ideological proclivities and quality (Weinberger, 1974), their graduates do appear to be more knowledgeable about and committed to Jewish tradition than the average Jewish graduate of non-Jewish schools of social work. In addition, a number of students in Yeshiva University's Wurzweiler School of Social Work are enrolled in joint programs in Jewish studies and social work, and most of them go on to careers in Jewish communal service. Even those who are not enrolled in such programs take four courses, required of all students at the schooL in Jewish history, sociology, and social philosophy. While these have tended to bridge the ideological and functional gaps between the religious and secular spheres, however , the structural separation remains (Elazar, 1976, p. 259). While the divisions between the private and public spheres are not as clear as are those between the religious and secular spheres, Jewish federation-related activities are generally perceived to be public, whereas lodges, fraternal associations, and country clubs are considered to be in the private sphere. Until recently, synagogues too were considered to be in the private sphere. With the growth after World War II in the membership and activities of many Leadership, Decision Making, Struggles for Change 205 synagogues, however, there is an increasing perception that they as well are part of the public sphere. There appears to be a growing sense, for example, that synagogue boards have a responsibility and are accountable to a wider public than merely their own memberships. Whether synagogues will ultimately completely move into the public sphere and, indeed, whether the lines between the public and private spheres will eventually dissolve completely remains to be seen. For the present, the synagogue still retains its province within the private sphere. The distinction between the public and private spheres is, as Elazar indicates, very similar to that between cosmopolitans and locals. As he defines them: Briefly, cosmopolitans regard the community as...