Volume 101, Number 16 www.kcjc.com April 22, 2021 10 Iyar 5781
jewish chronicle The KANSAS
CITY
Reflections on the legacy of Ron Goldsmith By Josh Sosland Special to The Chronicle Early one morning in 2012, Ron Goldsmith and I met for coffee. Ron was about to complete his three-year term as president of the Jewish Community Foundation (JCF) and asked to meet for a briefing to help me prepare to succeed him in the role. It was a sunny morning, and Ron was affable as always, quick to put me at ease. But once we sat down with our coffee and exchanged niceties, I was struck by Ron’s focus. He didn’t spend much time recounting the many accomplishments achieved during his tenure as president, including the affiliation he was instrumental in engineering between JCF and the Jewish Heritage Foundation (which then created an institution with combined assets of about $172 million, amazing for a community the size of Kansas City). Instead, Ron delivered an ordinary but infinitely valuable laundry list of issues I needed to understand regarding the Foundation, its staff and board. He affirmed my understanding the JCF was a well-run organization (it still is) and offered a few tips to keep in mind while sharing his perspective on what issues he suspected might be around the corner. When he finished, he pledged to help me in any way he could, though he cautioned that he and Susie travel much of the year, which could limit his availability.
Ron Goldsmith (right) with his daughter, Michelle (middle) and wife, Susie. (Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City) Then he added, almost as an afterthought, that he had just been diagnosed with cancer and would be starting treatment shortly, which also could affect his availability. Of course, this disclosure shocked and saddened me, but he delivered the news in a reassuring and hopeful way that was a hallmark of how Ron had always dealt with challenges. The treatment regime he was about to start was far more difficult than he shared, and the commitment and leadership Ron showed by the simple act of meeting someone for a cup coffee (given his situation) has stuck with me powerfully for many years.
I am among innumerable members of our community who have benefited directly from the wisdom and leadership of Ron Goldsmith of blessed memory. In the days since Ron’s death April 4 at the age of 76, I have thought about his legacy of leadership and community service and what it means for the rest of us. Speaking with several other community leaders who worked with Ron over the years, much is said about his remarkable skill as a board member, about his penchant for listening patiently to deliberations and then, often near a meeting’s end, to quietly interject in a
manner that made everyone around the table lean forward and listen intently to what he had to say. And more often than not, what he shared was an impactful insight, taking the discussion in unforeseen but valuable new directions. Beyond his considerable achievements as a leader — he was a past president of Congregation Beth Shalom, the Jewish Federation and JCF — it is important to note Ron became active and involved in community affairs from an early age. He was in his 30s, and it was a period when giants of their time — names like H. Paul Rosenberg, Don Tranin and Arthur Brand — were powerful and effective leaders who represented what may have been thought of as “traditionalists.” Despite this challenge, Ron was at the vanguard of a group of peers who did more than redirect deliberations at meetings. Time and again he demonstrated the vision and ability to set the large ships that are our Jewish institutions on an entirely new course or toward new ways of thinking. For example, for many years after the school’s founding, the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy was not a recipient of Jewish Federation funding. The idea was vigorously opposed by a number of longtime Federation leaders. It was while Ron, a young parent at the time, was on the Federation board that HBHA was first recognized as a community asset, not just a religious school. From a starting point of zero, See RON, PAGE 8
Community Leadership Forum builds trust among leaders of Jewish agencies By Beth Lipoff Contributing Writer Leading a Jewish agency comes with unique challenges, and a new program from the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City aims to foster cooperation among those at the top. The Community Leadership Forum held its final monthly session in March, concluding nearly a year of regular meetings among a handful of people holding top leadership posts — or about to be in those positions — in the community. The program drew from a cross-section of organizations, including The J, KU Hillel, Jewish Family Services, Village Shalom and more. “One of the goals of the program is
to provide top agency leadership with the skills and experience they need to lead their agencies,” said Andi Milens, senior director of community building for the Federation. “Equal, if not more important, was building a community of leaders and helping develop relationships between them. A lot of them knew each other but didn’t necessarily have relationships around their leadership capacities.” Slated to start last year just as the pandemic took hold, the program had to adjust quickly. Speakers conducted every session online and altered the way they addressed some topics to keep them relevant with the challenges people were encountering. “It went more smoothly than we imagined. We were still learning how
to use all features of Zoom at time,” Milens said. Despite not meeting in person, Milens thinks participants bonded by discussing common issues. “This was a place where trust could be built. They got to know each other and saw connections that they may not have seen otherwise,” she said. That was true for Shanny Morgenstern, chair of The J, who participated in the forum. “I think the most valuable part to me was just building connections with the other chairs. We had a fairly small group, and people were honest with each other. I now have a name and face with people I didn’t necessarily know before,” she said. Topics of discussion included everything from potential changes in demographics to what past heads of agencies wished they had known when they started. “I’m hopeful to see more organizations working together to create for the community, to build the community, to fill any gaps there are in what the community needs — certainly not
Shanny Morgenstern competing with each other, but identifying needs together and responding as a community,” Milens said. Morgenstern said it was interesting to see the different challenges agencies faced as a result of the pandemic. Whereas The J was concerned See PROGRAM, PAGE 8