New American Jewish Committee president to focus on outreach

by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

If you’re a good generalist and a problem solver, you can do anything, Herb Horowitz likes to say. It’s a philosophy he’s putting to the test in a new role these days: president of the Central New Jersey Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

“I’ve always seen myself as a problem solver in most of what I’ve done in public finance,” said Horowitz, an investment banker specializing in health care.

“It’s problem solving and, I think, also the ability to relate to different constituencies,” he said as he sat in his living room in Princeton. AJC has a crucial role to play in such hot-button issues as immigration and relations with Latinos and Muslims, he added. “I would like to do what I can to help this chapter play a continuing and expanded role in that kind of dialogue.”

The 65-year-old Horowitz brings to that task the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscopic career. A native of Detroit, he graduated from Wayne State University in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in history. His first stop was the Foreign Service, where he carried out assignments in Guatemala and then on the Latin America desk at the U.S. State Department in Washington. Along the way, he studied business and public administration at George Washington University.

But Horowitz soon shifted course, moving to New Jersey in 1968 to work as budget director for the state’s chancellor of higher education. He then became an assistant commissioner in the Department of Institutions and Agencies, forerunner to the state’s Department of Human Services. At the NJ Health Care Facilities Financing Authority, a quasi-governmental authority, he served as executive director of financing and auditing. In 1983, he changed direction once again to enter the world of investment banking, commuting to firms in Philadelphia and then New York.

“My life is a series of accidents,” he said with a smile.

But it’s no accident that Horowitz has always been involved in Jewish affairs. He and his wife, Carol, a therapist in private practice, are longtime members of The Jewish Center in Princeton, where he served as president of the men’s club. Horowitz is also on the board of Greenwood House Home for the Jewish Aged in Ewing, serving as cochair of the long-range planning committee. About 10 years ago, he joined the local AJC chapter, soon rising to the positions of board member and executive board member and, most recently, serving as cochair of development for the chapter.

“I liked the work they were doing in human rights and for Israel,” he said. “I like AJC’s approach — what I would describe as thoughtful advocacy. It’s very easy to be an advocate sometimes without thinking about all the issues or just understanding how you can be effective with other groups. You come from a Jewish perspective on all these issues, but you have to engage the world. You can’t insulate yourself. And I liked the way AJC approached that.”

Over the years, Horowitz has been honing his leadership skills with AJC in a number of ways. In 2003, he attended an AJC mission to Israel led by the organization’s national director, David Harris, and he has also been involved on a national level with AJC’s program of dialogue with representatives of the German government. In addition, he was one of about 10 members of the local chapter to participate in a major new AJC initiative known as Engaging America. According to the organization’s Web site, www.ajc.org, Engaging America is designed to empower AJC members and staff to be effective domestic diplomats in an ongoing nationwide project of interethnic and interreligious engagement.

“The idea was to train people to be effective in outreach to others — how to engage in dialogue,” Horowitz said. “This was a very focused effort to take people from the various chapters who would have the skills and resources to go out and do this.”

As he begins his two-year term as chapter president, Horowitz said he hopes to apply his Engaging America training to reach out to Muslim and Christian constituencies in the area. “Let’s go out and engage some people. Let’s open up channels of communication to talk with each other,” he said. “I hope to put some meat on the bones.”

Horowitz also hopes to do some “inreach” within the Jewish community, building up the chapter, which currently has some 280 family memberships, and getting the board more involved.

“I don’t think AJC has reached out to the community as much as it can,” he said. “AJC is not a substitute for involvement in a synagogue or the federation, but it complements that very nicely for people who want to get involved from a Jewish perspective in the broader issues of this community.

“The mission of AJC is more important now than ever in some ways,” he added. “I kiddingly say that AJC functions as a Jewish State Department in terms of outreach to all kinds of constituencies.”

Horowitz is taking on the chapter presidency at a time when he is cutting back on his full-time work. “I’m excited,” he said. “This gives me a very nice way to reallocate my time. I’ve always been involved in the community. This gives me the opportunity to do more. I think there are a lot of positive good signs in terms of what’s going to happen.”