Max Kleinman, second from left, with fellow World Council of Jewish Communal Service officials, from left, Ted Comet, Howard Weisband, Dorit Ram, and Marc Cohen at their 2008 conference in Jerusalem.
Photo by Assaf Astrinsky
December 4, 2008
After serving for more than four years as president of the World Council of Jewish Communal Service, Max Kleinman likes the sound of the word “emeritus.”
But the executive vice president of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ expects to continue playing a strong role in WCJCS, even after finishing his term.
Kleinman stepped down on Nov. 19 as head of the council, an international body that brings together professionals from Jewish communities in Israel and the Diaspora.
Kleinman was succeeded by Steven Schwager, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
“Past presidents don’t disappear,” Kleinman noted as he sat in an armchair at his office on the Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany, three days after returning from the WCJCS conference in Jerusalem.
Its two-day meeting on Nov. 19-20 followed Kleinman’s appearance as professional head of the UJC MetroWest delegation to the national United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly in Jerusalem.
After the GA ended, some 265 Jewish communal professionals gathered at the Maiersdorf Faculty Club at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem for the WCJCS conference on “Communities in Transition.”
“The council represents all stripes of Jewish people in action — whether you are executives or fund-raisers or community organizers, whether you’re from the former Soviet Union or Australia or Latin America or Israel. We are one,” Kleinman said.
“We had three principal focuses — promoting Jewish peoplehood, generational change, and dealing with emergencies.”
Kleinman visits with new immigrants from Ethiopia at Boys Town Jerusalem, which he visited after attending the United Jewish Communities General Assembly and the World Council of Jewish Communal Service conference in the Israeli capital.
Photo courtesy Boys Town Jerusalem
According to Kleinman, the delegates spoke of coalition-building, coping with physical challenges ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the bomb attacks in Sderot, and promoting solidarity among the diverse Jewish populations in Europe, Latin America, and Israel.
“One thing we work on as a Jewish community all over the world is a sense of peoplehood,” Kleinman said. “We are a religion, but we are also a people. We come from many different geographic locations, but we face many of the same issues. There are a lot of things we can learn from our colleagues and a lot of things they can learn from us.”
To Kleinman, serving as the WCJCS president was “one of the hallmarks of my professional career. In 2007 we had 2,000 participants from more than 30 countries attend our quadrennial conference. We made a special effort to have 65 professionals from the former Soviet Union. We had four or five other conferences plus a ‘webinar,’” a virtual conference linking delegates by the Internet.
“I am very proud of what we accomplished,” he said.
A visit to Boys Town Jerusalem, a residential facility for middle and high school students, symbolized for Kleinman the importance of the work being done by Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders around the world.
Boys Town takes in “very bright students — most of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Kleinman explained. “They go to a residential program and study a terrific curriculum. They learn Judaica, academic and scientific studies, and programs in computer training. They have training programs in cooperation with the Israeli Air Force. I am happy to help them in whatever way I can.”
--TOP--
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
