Rebuilding the Tent of Abraham and Sarah

Rebuilding the Tent of Abraham and Sarah

Zach Benjamin | Chief Executive Officer, Jewish Long Beach

Seven years ago, I realized my professional calling to transition from a 10-year career in international business development to a new adventure as a Jewish communal executive.

The genesis of my decision lay primarily in a deep sense of personal responsibility and commitment to the future of Jewish life and peoplehood. I felt strongly that any professional knowledge, skills, or abilities that I might be able to contribute should help ensure the welfare and continuity of the Jewish people.

The transition from “civilian” to life as a “professional Jew” marked the culmination of a three-year self education process. I researched a wide variety of Jewish communal movements, from Israel advocacy to anti-genocide activism, eventually settling on the Jewish federation system as the setting in which I felt that I could help make the most swift and significant Jewish impact.

I asked him why the Jewish discursive reflex appeared too often to be a hostile one... “I think this is just how Jews interact with each other.”

Comparatively few people are fortunate enough to merge the causes that feed their souls with the work that pays the bills. An inherent risk of disillusionment exists in serving a professional purpose to which one is emotionally and ideologically attached. Workplaces, communities, and bureaucracies are complicated structures that often operate at the mercy of human nature, which itself can be volatile and unpredictable. Most of us do not always feel the sense of fulfillment in the workplace that we experience when volunteering, advocating, or engaging in activism, especially when carrying out mundane day-to-day tasks, navigating the complexities of management and supervision, and facing the paradoxes of community politics.

Nonetheless, my experience both within and outside of the Jewish professional world has convinced me that the advantages outweigh the drawbacks to serving professionally in a movement that matters personally. However, the realities of this path have not always matched the expectations.

I began my Jewish communal career with the perhaps naïve expectation that, despite the rich ideological, cultural, socioeconomic, and religious diversity that exists among the Jewish people, all of those who work and volunteer in Jewish communal spaces must certainly be bound by a shared sense of responsibility to the Jewish future. Surely, we must occupy enough common ground to eclipse our differences and disagreements, and perhaps this highly collaborative Jewish communal infrastructure—galvanized by millennia of challenge—would prove to be one of the secrets to the long-term success of the Jewish people in diaspora.

I still chuckle to myself thinking back on those early assumptions about organized Jewish life. The Jewish communal environment is, as most of us understand, less than sanguine. I began my Jewish professional career in New Mexico, a community that, like many others, featured Jewish institutions that existed largely in siloes, viewing each other primarily as competitors for donor dollars, carving out and defending their territory, and generally eyeing each other through a lens of suspicion. Collaboration was the occasional exception to the rule of isolation. Congregations viewed the JCC and federation not as gateways to Jewish life for the unaffiliated, but rather as agencies nefariously committed to poaching their members and resources. Conversely, the non-denominational Jewish agencies questioned the motives of the congregations when they did seek collaboration, completing a vicious cycle of miscommunication and distrust.

Happily, by the time my family and I left New Mexico for Long Beach, the prevailing attitudes and environment had shifted 180 degrees, from siloed to collaborative. We achieved this through the hard work of difficult, sometimes distressing conversations, commitment to constant communication and candor, and a determination among our Jewish communal leaders to power through resistance and toward the vast landscape of common ground that we, as Jewish institutions, all shared.

Early in my tenure at the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, after a particularly acrimonious conversation with a member of the clergy, I remember calling the then-president-elect of our board of directors to lament the nature of the discussion. He was a seasoned lay leader who had helped build congregations and Jewish federations in multiple communities throughout his 60 years of volunteer service. I asked him why the Jewish discursive reflex appeared too often to be a hostile one. He paused for a moment, clearly reflecting on his deep wellspring of experience and Jewish communal knowledge. His answer still evokes both my laughter and my reluctant agreement: “I think this is just how Jews interact with each other.”

While the comment was certainly offered with an element of jest, it was also founded in what I believe is an indelible truth. Valuable messages sometimes arrive in ugly packaging. Similarly, bad faith often enters our sphere cloaked in pleasing window dressing.

The Jewish culture and experience arose from both triumph and trauma, the vestiges of which are encoded in our DNA and passed from generation to generation. Perhaps ironically, it is unlikely that our history would be so rich, our present so fulfilling, and our future so promising were our skin not calloused with the scar tissue of past and current travesty. We are a people who do not trust easily, and who often do not forgive readily. This caution has helped sustain us, but it is a tendency that has also created firewalls within our own Jewish communities that too often trap us in a cycle of small-minded conflict, rather than allowing us to rise above the petty, to survey the broader landscape, and to settle among our commonalities.

Over the course of the past two years, and especially in recent months, I have committed myself, both personally and professionally, to dwelling primarily in the big picture of life’s blessings, rather than in the weeds of its blemishes. This sea change in my default mindset, much like the metamorphosis that I observed in the New Mexico Jewish community, requires persistence, perseverance, and maintenance to achieve, ultimately resulting in a more peaceful, productive existence. Inevitably, regression is also part of the journey, and as long as we use those setbacks as springboards toward learning and growth, they too are an important element of the process.

Similarly, we as Jews would be well-served to acknowledge our traumas and challenges, leveraging the learning opportunities they yield to assist us in minimizing future endangerment. However, we must also avoid sliding down the coattails of trauma’s aftermath to a reflexive suspicion of each other’s motives and toward the assumption that others are encroaching upon our limited space under the Jewish communal tent. Rather, we must retrain ourselves to dwell above our fears, working collaboratively to build a bigger tent that, like Abraham and Sarah’s, is open on all four sides to all who are committed to the Jewish future.

JEWISHLONGBEACH.ORG | 5782 TAMMUZ – AV – ELUL | 3