In August, a coalition of women leaders in the Jewish community, including Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women; Idit Klein, CEO of Keshet; and Shifra Broznick, founder of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, authored a piece for eJewishphilanthropy about their experiences as highly qualified and accomplished women working in Jewish communal spaces.
In this piece, the authors offered a 13-step process to their colleagues, calling on the broader community to strengthen Jewish organizations by creating a gender-equal representation that better reflects the populations they serve. To date, the article has nearly 400 co-signers.
Commenting on the article, Klein told the Times of Israel that the piece was meant to send “a strong message that women and non-binary people in our community must lead together, and that we will not settle for being an afterthought.”
The issues that female-identified leaders face in Jewish spaces are not unique to large East or West Coast cities: they manifest themselves here in Tucson as well — albeit differently.
In an effort to uplift the women who are serving the Jewish community in leadership positions, the Tucson Jewish Community Center has recently been selected as one of only five JCCs nationwide to pilot the 2020 Women InPower Fellowship. The fellowship, which will borrow formatting from 92Y’s program of the same name and has been funded by the JCC Association, seeks to bring mentorship and training opportunities to high-potential women across all professional sectors and to advance them to the highest levels of leadership.
With a focus on social impact, fellows will use tools gained in the fellowship to create a better workplace culture and environment for women and men. The fellowship is open to women leaders across all sectors; applicants must be Jewish and/or employed by a Jewish organization based in Southern Arizona. Successful candidates should demonstrate an eagerness to learn new strategies and be open to exploring new ideas and perspectives to help them in their professional advancement.
Applications, which are due Nov. 22, can be found at www.tucsonjcc.org/diversity/women-inpower-fellowship.
Khylie Gardner is the director of communications at the Tucson J. Allison Wexler is the special abilities coordinator at the Tucson Jewish Community Center and will be the program coordinator for the Women InPower Fellowship.
