“This program was wonderful and I feel very privileged to have been a part of it.”
someone with the potential to become more involved, especially on the board and officer level.
Nominated for this prestigious leadership award by their JCC’s executive director prior to each Biennial, participants come together at the JCC Association Biennial convention for one and a half days of learning together, with the theme of “JCCs Build Excellent Leaders, Leaders Build Strong Communities.” Following the Institute, they join their local delegations and continue to learn and grow at the general Biennial sessions. The Institute balances learning about leadership in the Jewish communal world with an additional focus on enhancing individual leadership skills. It is built on the need for strong leaders to build strong communities; on the belief that leadership competencies can be learned and developed with practice and opportunity; and on the knowledge that our own Jewish tradition has much to teach us about leadership for our communities. The award and institute is named for Esther Leah Ritz, an exceptional Jewish communal leader from Milwaukee who passed away in 2003. She was the first woman president of the Samson Family Jewish Community Center and the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. Esther Leah was one of the first Jewish women to rise to national prominence, holding numerous elected positions in the U.S. and international Jewish communities, among them chair of our own Jewish Community Centers Association (then called JWB), vicepresident of the Council of Jewish Federations and vice-chair of Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. It is so fitting that generations of new leaders learn under her name the leadership skills she held so dear and fiercely practiced. Meryl Ainsman, chair of the 2012 ELR Emerging JCC Leaders Institute, said it was a privilege to spend time with these bright, engaging young leaders. It gave Ainsman a window into how this next generation thinks about leadership and about the value of the JCC in their communities, and that, she believes, will serve her well in her own leadership roles in her home community of Pittsburgh and as a JCC Association board member. As part of this year’s institute, JCC emerging leaders learned about motivating and inspiring others from Dr. Erica Brown, writer, educator and scholar-in-residence for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, who later in the day went on to keynote the opening plenary of the Biennial. They got an up to the minute look at the state of the JCC Movement from JCC Association’s president and CEO Allan Finkelstein. With artist Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen, they worked collaboratively to create a community mural, a process that taught them about setting priorities, leadership style and creating a shared vision. Rounding out a full morning of
“I picked up ideas and techniques that I will use in our own board training.”
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