Daniel Nussbaum
The work he loves, the person he's becoming
Fresh out of college in May 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and keen interest in the social sciences, Daniel Nussbaum applied to and was hired to work at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies as a research specialist. The summer that followed was a chaotic period. Lown, the building at Brandeis University where the Cohen Center resides, was undergoing renovations and reconstruction, which relocated all faculty and staff to temporary offices around campus. Danny’s workspace was in a dormitory with the rest of the Cohen Center staff.
Not long out of college, the dorm was a familiar environment, save for the air-conditioners rumbling in every dorm room. But that’s not what he remembers most.
“My first impressions working at the Cohen Center were that the people were so friendly, welcoming and knowledgeable,” Danny remembers. “I had an incredibly nice officemate, and it was wonderful to get to know other research specialists and associates during lunches off-campus. The colleagues on my team were (and are) amazing. It was clear from day one that they were invested in my success.”
The Cohen Center’s director is Professor Len Saxe, also the chair and a faculty member of the Hornstein Program. “At the Cohen Center, we aim to guide our young staff in choices they have that affect their career,” he says. “Danny was a perfect candidate for the Hornstein Program and we encouraged him in that direction.”
So after a few months on the new job, Danny also applied to Hornstein on Len’s recommendation. Danny sped through the application process and was accepted into the MA/MPP (Public Policy) track.
Len and other faculty suggested that Danny do the program on a part-time basis and keep working at the Cohen Center. Instead, Danny started the first semester as a full-time student while continuing his work at the Cohen Center, and he hasn’t looked back. Over the past year he’s learned that he can manage the demands and rigors of both a full-time graduate level dual-degree program and part-time work.
“I have definitely grown academically, professionally and personally through this first year,” he observes. “I am continually finding out new things about myself, including how much I can handle, what interests me and what does not,” he says. “I’m more knowledgeable about the pressing issues facing different Jewish organizations and communities, how they’re talked about and how research informs our understanding of them. I’m more aware of and value religious pluralism, and I recognize prejudices I personally held about different Jewish populations.
“I’ve also become comfortable with more Jewish things in my life because I didn’t have much of that in college. It’s nice to get back to that. I am more comfortable now and feel more like I belong.”
Knowledge he’s gained from his Hornstein and Heller coursework is proving useful in the work he’s doing at the Cohen Center, helping to draft their set of value codes. “We have a values statement subcommittee of which I'm a part where we're drafting these core values in a document,” says Danny. “We're on our second draft right now and working on a process to get it finalized.
“Professor Mark Rosen’s Organizational Behavior class has helped me a great deal in thinking about these value codes. I reviewed materials from class before meetings and it helped me focus on how I could help shape the conversation around our values, point us to a code that reflects both our internal values and external values, and just keep us focused on what we care about and our process.”
This summer isn’t much quieter than last. Danny’s team at the Cohen Center is releasing updated population and demographic estimates of the American Jewish population. “That work is my main focus for the summer,” he says, “and we are working tirelessly to get the estimates finalized.”
“In addition to this work, I have an independent study for Hornstein on diversity in the Jewish community, specifically focusing on Jews of color. I’ll be working with Len to define the project. And in August, I’m going to Tel Aviv for a Hebrew ulpan. It will be my first intensive Hebrew course, and I am very excited. I’ve been taking a couple online Hebrew lessons each day online to get into the mindset. Hopefully that will help!”
While it is not required that Hornstein students know Hebrew when they enter the program, they must achieve various levels of proficiency, depending on their degree track, by the time they graduate.
“Because of my current course and work obligations and a month in Israel, I will be doing my field work next summer,” says Danny. “Fieldwork will give me a chance to work in a new organization and try out something different. I’m leaning towards work in either research or program evaluation. We learned a little bit about that in our Statistics and Evaluation for Jewish Professional Leaders class and how to apply logic models to different organizations for program evaluation. I think it would be interesting to do that in practice!”
Having gone directly to work at the Cohen Center following graduation, Danny’s been fascinated to learn about the many different Jewish organizations that are out there.
“We’ve met with so many [organizations] it's hard to keep track!” he laughs. “Even though we’ve visited so many organizations, each one has offered something memorable and meaningful. There have been many opportunities for students to meet people, network, hear different perspectives, and learn about the different types of organizations and job roles out there, from the traditional to the non-traditional.
“I think Hornstein has done an amazing job of providing experiential learning opportunities both in terms of traveling (to Israel, to Argentina, to D.C.), and in providing us with opportunities to meet with different organizations and different Jewish professional leaders,” he says.
Danny’s most memorable event since he’s been at Hornstein is the World Jewry Seminar to Buenos Aires that both cohorts participated in last February.
“Every organization we visited informed and shaped my understanding of the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, and it was eye-opening to hear such a broad range of perspectives,” not to mention that “I just generally love traveling to new places. Beyond learning so much about the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, it was wonderful to learn about Argentina’s culture and history, to practice my Spanish, to explore the cuisine and the city, and to meet and learn from interesting people.”
“And have you seen Club Náutico Hacoaj, their Jewish community center?” he asks. “It’s jaw-dropping, the best resort I have ever been to!
In His Own Words, an Interview with Daniel Nussbaum
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Yes, I studied psychology at UMass Amherst, and I also enjoyed biology, economics, mathematics, and statistics. My interest in social science began before my thesis, but the project helped me realize that social science research would be a great area for me to continue in. After graduating, I knew I wanted a challenging, interesting, meaningful and enjoyable career. Social science research seemed like it would check all the boxes.
I was a math major in college up until my junior year. I was also very interested in biology. In high school I'd taken a couple of biology classes and I was a teaching assistant for one of those classes, so I continued with biology into college. I was especially interested in the topics of neuroscience and neurobiology, so I decided to take a class called behavioral neuroscience. It was such an interesting class because of how it connected science with what happens in the brain and then how that translates into behavior and action. Because of that class I decided to take a couple more psychology classes and loved all of them. The teachers and professors were amazing in that program so I decided to switch.
My interest in social sciences came when I took a “psychology-of-groups” course when I was studying abroad at the University of Kent in England. That was so interesting to learn about how people behave in groups and interact in social settings and why.
I think the Meyers-Briggs typing test is too dichotomous. The way it categorizes people is you're either this or that, at one end of the spectrum or the other, whereas in reality, human behavior is more like a bell curve with most people somewhere towards the middle. If Meyers Briggs had a third category of neutral it would make more sense. As it is, someone could be 51 percent on one side of the spectrum of extrovert/introvert and they'd be categorized as extrovert when they should really be categorized in the middle as an ambivert.
I also don’t think it’s reliable over time. A person can take the test today and get one categorization and then retake it a couple months later and get a completely different score.
When I read the descriptions of the various categories I find that in certain situations, I’ll fall into one category and then in a different situation, a different or even opposite category makes more sense. I guess a lot depends on the situation I’m in: the people I'm interacting with and the setting. I think those are all important factors.
I have taken the test but wouldn’t try to describe myself using the Meyers-Briggs types. I am definitely in the middle between extrovert and introvert. And I’m more on the thinker side.
In most cases I personally don't think that a person’s answers to the Meyers-Briggs questionnaire translate well into the specific skills needed for any particular job.
My dad, a Heller MBA grad, found the listing for my job on the web and forwarded it to me. I read it and thought it would be a perfect fit. I applied, interviewed, was accepted, and started a few weeks later. I can confirm — it is a perfect fit.
My first impressions working at the Cohen Center… the people were so friendly, welcoming and knowledgeable. I had an incredibly nice officemate, and it was wonderful to get to know other research specialists and associates during lunches off-campus. The colleagues on my team were (and are) amazing. It was clear from day one that they were invested in my success.
My team leader’s late dog, Murphy, was the sweetest. He passed away last year but now my team leader, Liz Tighe, has another dog named Ripley and he's also very cute. Fern Chertok, who is moving to the office next to me, has a German shepherd named Joe. And one floor below me is Rachel Minkin who has a little Havanese named Ernie. He's very cute too.
Yes, it was quite a quick process last summer. I think the entire application process took less than two months. The upside was that there was no time to even worry about the GRE or other parts of the application — I just had to do them!
When Professor Ellen Smith, Hornstein’s director, introduced the program to me, I became aware of the aspects of the program, but the idea of an academic program for becoming a professional Jewish leader… I couldn’t really wrap my head around it. Thankfully, I now understand what Hornstein is!
I think in many instances a Jewish professional leader is someone who leads an organization that is guided by Jewish values or is explicitly Jewish. These Jewish organizations need trained people to lead and manage their organizations and the people within their organizations so that they can be successful in whatever they do, whether it's helping the Jewish community, helping the greater community, or whatever their mission is.
I think of a Jewish professional leader as someone who is a visionary, or who has the charisma or skills to lead their organization and the people within it. I think they could also be someone who practices leadership roles outside their formal work organization as a volunteer, or someone who is in a non-Jewish organization where they outwardly share their Jewish values and practice leading through a Jewish lens.
I have definitely grown academically, professionally and personally through this first year. I am continually finding out new things about myself, including how much I can handle, what interests me and what does not. I’m now knowledgeable about the pressing issues facing different Jewish organizations and communities, how they’re talked about and how research informs our understanding of them. I’m more aware of and value religious pluralism, and I recognize prejudices I personally held about different Jewish populations.
I’ve also become comfortable with more Jewish things in my life because I didn’t have much of that in college. It’s nice to get back to that. I am more comfortable now and feel more like I belong.
The skills and information I have gained from my classes, work training and independent learning have been invaluable. For example, my classwork in Hornstein’s Organizational Behavior greatly informs my work on a committee to develop a values code for the Cohen Center.
At the Cohen Center we're working on creating a statement of our core values and recreating our mission statement and possibly a vision statement. These will help guide us in our work. We want to be explicit about what we care about and what we're doing. Many people have shared ideas about what they want the Cohen Center to be and what they want it do. It’s important for me and for a lot of us working at the Cohen Center to have these core values written down so that we can refer to them when we need to.
We have a values committee which is the full committee for developing our values and mission statement. And then there’s the values statement subcommittee of which I'm a part where we're drafting these core values in a document. We're on our second draft right now and working on a process to get it finalized.
Professor Mark Rosen’s Organizational Behavior class helped me a great deal in thinking about these value codes. I reviewed materials from class before meetings and it helped me focus on how I could help shape the conversation around our values, point us to a code that reflects both our internal values and external values, and just keep us focused on what we care about and our process.
Internal values are things we care about as a group within the Cohen Center — for example, our interactions with one another. External values are more about what we value in terms of our work as it's undertaken and published, and how we work with external groups like Jewish Federations or JCCs.
Later this summer, my team at the Cohen Center, the American Jewish Population Project, is launching an updated website, and releasing updated population and demographic estimates of the American Jewish population. That work is my main focus for the summer, and we are working tirelessly to get the estimates and website finalized.
In addition to this work, I have an independent study for Hornstein on diversity in the Jewish community, specifically focusing on Jews of color. I’ll be working with Professor Len Saxe to define the project. And in August, I’m going to Tel Aviv for a Hebrew ulpan. It will be my first intensive Hebrew course, and I am very excited. I’ve been taking a couple online Hebrew lessons each day online to get into the mindset. Hopefully that will help!
Our visit to Buenos Aires was the most memorable experience. Every organization we visited informed and shaped my understanding of the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, and it was eye-opening to hear such a broad range of perspectives. Also, the Jewish community center “country club” was jaw-dropping. It was basically the best resort I have ever been to, but it was a Jewish community center! I wonder if we can have something like that here in the US… Also, I just generally love traveling to new places. Beyond learning so much about the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, it was wonderful to learn about Argentina’s culture and history, to practice my Spanish, to explore the cuisine and the city, and to meet and learn from interesting people.
I think Hornstein has done an amazing job of providing experiential learning opportunities both in terms of traveling (to Israel, to Argentina, to D.C.), and in providing us with opportunities to meet with different organizations and different Jewish professional leaders. We’ve met with so many it's hard to keep track! Even though we’ve visited so many organizations, each one has offered something memorable and meaningful. I have enjoyed that very much. There have been so many opportunities for meeting people, networking, and getting different perspectives, and so many different types of organizations. It's been so interesting for me because the Cohen Center is my first job out of college. Through Hornstein I’m finding out what it’s like to work at these other places, what their cultures are like and that there are many different types of jobs out there.
Because of my current course and work obligations and a month in Israel, I will be doing my field work next summer. Fieldwork will give me a chance to work in a new organization and try out something different. I’m leaning towards work in either research or program evaluation. We learned a little bit about that in our Statistics and Evaluation for Jewish Professional Leaders class and how to apply logic models to different organizations for program evaluation. I think it would be interesting to do that in practice.
My parents are my personal mentors, helping me with personal advice. Professor Saxe and my team leader, Liz Tighe, are my professional mentors for advice, decision-making and help with figuring out how I want to grow professionally, how I can build skills, as well as with things like identifying different options for my professional path and weighing pros and cons. Len is also my academic advisor at Hornstein. He helps me decide which classes I should take and how to make my Heller and Hornstein coursework most meaningful.
I think there are several people I model myself after, many of whom are family. I hope to be as caring, intelligent and thoughtful as my parents and my late cousin, Norma Adler, who was like a grandmother to me.
Gwen Margolis, my nana (and a former state senator and senate president in Florida), and President Barack Obama are two people I look up to for their leadership, political prowess, and public service work and accomplishments. I’m grateful for them, and for those I've met through Hornstein, who I believe will be models and mentors in my future.
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