Alan & Marcia Leifer’s Remarks
Jewish Theological Seminary Community Leadership Award Ceremony
Gann Academy
Waltham, Massachusetts
April 29th, 2008
Each day as we American Jews go out to work we enter a world that our parents
and grandparents could only dream of.
Today we make our contributions at all levels of American society in fields such as
finance, management, politics, law, media, healthcare, education and the arts. It is
truly a golden age for American Jews.
About one in a hundred of us – one in a hundred – go to work each day in an
organization in the Jewish sector.
Is that enough? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a lot –1 professional for each of
99 Jewish consumers.
As Alan Dershowitz points out in The Vanishing American Jew, “The Jewish
question for the twenty-first century (is): Can we survive our success?”
No longer living in ethnic enclaves where our friends, co-workers, PTA members
and little league teammates are primarily Jews, we moderns have adopted the
habits of America including “bowling alone” and assuming the attitude of the
“sovereign self.”
We have not neglected our Jewish institutions. On the contrary, we build ever
better buildings -- with more parking – as we redo our schools, JCC’s, temples,
camps and federations.
Yet, have we equipped them with modern “insides?”
Our Jewish professionals are the guts of our buildings and of our dreams for an
American Jewish renaissance.
Grounded in texts and traditions, Hebrew and history, our future leaders must also
be fluent in the language of social networking and strategic planning, persuasion
and professional development, Jewish fun and Jewish fundraising.
JTS is one of a handful of institutions in the world that is equipped to attract,
develop and launch the next generation of American Jewish professionals.
We are proud to be supporters of their mission.
And, who knows, with a steady stream of continued support we may be able to
attract 2 out of 100 of us to turn a golden age for American Jews into a golden age
for American Jewry.
We would like to wish Rabbi Harold Kushner a Mazel Tov on his Rabbinic
Leadership Award. We feel it is a privilege to share the dais with you. You have
comforted and inspired millions of people. Thank you for sharing tonight with us.
A huge Thank you to all the dinner co-chairs-- our good friends Shira Goodman
and Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Erica and Gerry Silverman, Lynne Satlof Karas and
Steve Karas and Fran Robins Liben and Rabbi Daniel Liben. Many, many thanks
to the JTS staff and especially Joan Goodman. You have all pulled together an
incredible evening.
To all our friends and family that are here with us -- we are truly gratified by your
presence tonight-- Your support for us and JTS means more than you can imagine
and we can't thank you enough.
And lastly thank you to our children Jessica, Rebecca, Ben and Veronica-- Your
Jewish lives have been formed by what I call the JTS triangle-- your Solomon
Schechter education, your synagogue affiliation @ Temple Emanuel in
Newton and your love of Camp Ramah New England. You and your friends are
the Jewish future and we are proud and excited about what we see.
Community Leaders to Be Honored at “Dinner of Ideas”
Hosted by The Jewish Theological Seminary
For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Sherry Kirschenbaum
Office: (212) 678-8953
Email: shkirschenbaum@jtsa.edu
March 28, 2008, New York, NY
Community leaders Marcia and Alan Leifer, and author and
theologian Rabbi Harold Kushner will be honored at The Jewish
Theological Seminary’s first annual Boston Dinner of Ideas on
Tuesday, April 29. The evening of dining and conversation will begin
at 6:30 p.m. at Gann Academy, 333 Forest Street, Waltham.
Professor Arnold M. Eisen, Chancellor of JTS, will present the
leadership awards.
The conversation will focus on “Too Jewish or Not Jewish Enough?”
a look at Conservative Movement schools and camps. Dr. Jeffrey
Kress, chair of the Department of Jewish Education at the William
Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at JTS, will
moderate. The panelists, who will directly engage with dinner
guests, will include Rabbi Marc Baker, head of school, Gann
Academy; Rabbi Ed Gelb, director, Camp Ramah–New England; Jane Taubenfeld Cohen,
head of school, South Area Solomon Schechter Day School; and Arnold Zar-Kessler, head
of school, Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston.
Recipients of the Community Leadership Award, Marcia and Alan Leifer have been involved in
Jewish educational and philanthropic organizations for nearly three decades.
Members of Temple Emanuel, the Leifers were co-chairs of the
congregation’s Make Your Mark Sefer Torah Writing Publicity
Committee, which was awarded a Gold Prize for Publications by the
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The Leifers are graduates
of Hebrew College’s Me’ah program, and their four children are
current students or alumni of Solomon Schechter Day School, Camp
Ramah–New England, Gann Academy, and Prozdor.
Marcia Leifer is chair of the Creative Arts Committee of the Solomon Schechter Day School of
Greater Boston and a past member of the board of Boston’s Bureau of Jewish Education and
Jewish Big Brother and Big Sister Association.
After retiring from Fidelity Investments, where he held several management positions, Alan Leifer
began a full-time involvement in Jewish communal interests. He is a member of the board of
governors and board of managers of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston,
where he founded the Jewish Community Endowment Pool, a director of the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, and a trustee of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston.
He previously served as vice president of Hebrew College and most recently was appointed Senior
Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Harold Kushner is Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, having served the
congregation for twenty-four years. He is best known as the author of When Bad Things Happen
to Good People, an international best seller first published in 1981. He has also written When All
You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, which was awarded the Christopher Medal for its contribution
to the exaltation of the human spirit. The author of six other New York Times best-sellers, he is
one of the editors of Etz Hayim, Conservative Judaism’s commentary on the Torah. Ordained at
JTS, he has six honorary doctorates.
The couvert is $360 per couple or $200 for individuals. The RSVP deadline is Tuesday, April 22.
Further information is available by contacting Joan Goodman, director of the Northeast Region of
JTS, at (212) 678-8861.
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