Some 44 years after he took his first job out of graduate school as program director at the West Bronx YM-YWHA, Joel Daner will be honored Thursday, Dec. 7, for a lifetime of achievement in Jewish communal service.

Daner, a West Orange resident, will receive the Saul Schwartz Distinguished Service Award at the annual meeting of the New Jersey Association of Jewish Communal Service.

The roster of positions Daner has held fills two pages of a resume, including vice presidencies at Jewish federations in New York and Baltimore and directorships in planned giving, leadership development, and Jewish education at United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

Daner has “touched the lives of countless professionals, positively influenced the agencies for which he has worked, and promoted the field of Jewish communal service for over 30 years,” said NJAJCS president Amy Cooper.

He will be honored Dec. 7 at a daylong program at the Wilf Jewish Community Campus in Scotch Plains.

Schwartz, who died in 2001 at the age of 87, held one office for the duration of his professional life — associate executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Essex County — a forerunner of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

Daner and Schwartz actually crossed paths in 1968 when the younger man moved to what had become the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest. As associate executive director, Schwartz was his supervisor.

In 10 years, Daner moved from a planning associate to a director there, working in the areas of Jewish education, leadership development, and bequests and endowments. He was instrumental in beginning the philanthropic fund that is today the Jewish Community Foundation.

He then moved to Baltimore, where, from 1978 to 1987, he served as vice president for social planning and human resource development at its Jewish federation before becoming a vice president and director of professional resource development at United Jewish Communities’ national office in New York.

For much of 2004 Daner was interim executive director of the Jewish Education Association of MetroWest, a body that has evolved into the Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning. Since then he has worked as a consultant for a variety of Jewish organizations, including Hillel, the Jewish Education Service of North America, and several federations.

“The truth is that in some respects, other than being a full-time executive director, I’ve probably held more portfolios in the federation world than anybody,” he noted.

And as an Orthodox Jew, he takes special pride in what his work has meant to others in his religious community.

“I’m probably one of the first observant professionals in this field,” he said. “You could barely find a handful in the beginning; you could barely get a minyan. I was a role model for many others on both a lay and professional basis. A lot of people became active in the federation here in MetroWest because I urged them to do so. I represented the Orthodox community in the halls of the federation, when the Orthodox community felt excluded. They didn’t used to feel comfortable in the federation.”

On a lay level, Daner’s participation remains strong, with his presidency of the Jewish Service for the Developmentally Disabled and membership on the boards of NJ Jewish News and the MetroWest federation.

To Cooper and others on the awards committee, his choice was an obvious one.

“It was an easy decision because he was so deserving of it,” she said. “I’ve known him and worked on committees with him over the years. He’s a mensch, and that’s the best thing you can say about anyone.”