Education agency names communal veteran as acting director

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

As he started his first day as acting director of the Jewish Education Association of MetroWest, Saul Andron said he was beginning a new learning experience — in an area he has been familiar with for most of his life.

“My own background is one of Jewish day schools,” he said. “My children’s background is one of Jewish day schools. I went to day school [for] 12 years in Queens and Manhattan. My college major was Judaic studies. I am involved in teaching young people and in lifelong Jewish study.”

Seated at a round conference table in his first-floor office on the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany, the youthful looking executive told NJ Jewish News he spent most of his day “meeting with staff and walking around a lot” as he begins a challenging assignment: part administrator, part fund raiser, and part program developer of an agency undergoing a makeover.

“As acting director, I’m going to work with the staff to solidify the programs for the JEA. I’ll be working with programs that need particular attention. I’ll be working with [the] board on governance matters and leadership development. I’ll be developing [an] annual budget for the JEA and explore other funding sources as well,” he said.

Andron succeeds veteran Jewish communal worker Joel Daner as acting director, a position created with the departure of the JEA’s last full-time director, Deborah Price, last February. When Daner took the job five months after Price’s departure, he indicated that his term would be temporary as he helped to keep the agency on track as it searched for a permanent director.

“I’m thrilled Saul is starting this job,” said JEA president Shelley Levine of Montclair. “He has a strong commitment to the Jewish community and a lot of experience in Jewish education, and he will oversee the strategic planning that will redefine Jewish education in the MetroWest community.”

Declining to specify how long the retooling may take, Levine said Andron’s post will be “acting” while the task is underway. At that point, the JEA board will decide whether to appoint him, or someone else, as its head.

“Right now, the agency is continuing the process of searching for a permanent director,” said Andron. “I am filling the role at the same time as this agency is embarking upon a strategic planning process to determine its future directions. If I can contribute toward helping to get the JEA in a place that can actively both recruit and accept a new executive director I think that would be an accomplishment.”

It is another aspect of a career dedicated to a community where he has always felt comfortable — from his childhood in Queens to his high school years in Manhattan — then onto Brandeis University for a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in social welfare policy.

Since graduation, Andron has worked for Jewish federations in Los Angeles and Boston, spent six months as an associate executive vice president of what is now known as the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey, and served in Israel with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Andron also worked as associate executive vice president of the Jewish Education Service of North America, and is a member of the academic and professional advisory council of the National Center for the Hebrew Language.

Most recently, he was a foundation consultant and program specialist at Princeton Social Capital, whose Web site describes itself as “a team of professionals from Wall Street and academia” committed to “effectively aid philanthropists in their quest to advance their charitable causes and finance social change whether domestic or abroad.”

From two vantage points — agency administrator and foundation consultant — Andron brings a special expertise in program development and grant acquisition, providing “great value in this particularly difficult time for agencies and the fiscal pressures they face to look for partnerships with other agencies [as well as] new funding sources.”

He believes the JEA must become more forward thinking when it comes to using grant monies and dealing with their expiration dates.

“Private foundation grants are usually time limited. You have to think about exit strategies and you can’t let a program die on the vine because your funding sources dry up,” he said.

“Many agencies live off the fat of the funding grant but don’t think strategically enough about how [they are] going to maintain the momentum of a particular program once the finding for that program dries up. It’s a big challenge, because funders like to support new models, innovative models, and they get somewhat weary about sticking with things past a limited number of years.”

His understanding of how foundation grant makers think may come in handy as the JEA explores new revenue streams.

“Givers have become much more entrepreneurial, demanding greater degrees of accountability and transparency, looking for exit strategies, looking for networking, [and] looking for short-term measurable results,” he said.

“Funders are very much more engaged in financing than they once were, and that requires the agencies to be much more entrepreneurial and responsive to these demands for accountability. This is an area I hope to introduce in the JEA staff — [to recognize] the world of funding and the need for greater accountability.”

His job, said Levine, will require him to keep one eye on funding, the other on new programs.

“We, in conjunction with UJC MetroWest, are looking at what can be done for adults, for families, and for people with various needs, so we can get the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to the Jewish education,” Levine said.

As a 10-year resident of West Orange, where he lives with his wife and teenage daughter, Andron’s personal transition is made simpler by a short commute to Whippany. Another daughter is away at college. A third is studying medicine in Tel Aviv.

As he begins his new job, Andron’s thoughts go beyond his family to a set of goals that reflect the path his own life has taken.

“I want to create a set for integrated experiences so that children go through a career growth, leaving their high school years feeling comfortable with their Jewishness and ready to engage the world in college or other experiences feeling they can be comfortable and capable of dealing with issues from a Jewish perspective,” he said.

“I think a dramatic transition period is once they finish high school, going into their college years. They should feel comfortable that their lives are informed by their Judaism and make decisions using a Jewish lens, and see Hillel and other Jewish college organizations as a place they would want to make part of their lives.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.