Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program

My career path has been far from a straight trajectory although looking back there were opportunities that inadvertently led to one another.

I grew up in a traditional 'Commonwealth' Jewish home, first in Johannesburg, South Africa, and then in Sydney, Australia. I went to Jewish day school and participated in a youth movement. Living Jewishly was always entwined in how my family understood and navigated the broader society in which we lived.

Having volunteered extensively within the Jewish community for my entire student life, I never really considered or was interested in Jewish communal work. That part of my life was in the volunteer bucket. However, after a series of serendipitous events during college, I did an internship in the education department of the Sydney Jewish Museum which ultimately turned into a part-time and then a full-time job.

There was a string of serendipitous events that led me along the path I'm on today and in a direction I hadn't actually planned out.

Essentially, it was in the middle of my third year at college when I led the Australia March of the Living contingent. This led to an internship at the Sydney Jewish Museum and then ultimately a full-time job.

I totally loved it. It was my entrance into the Jewish communal world as a professional. If I hadn't participated in March of the Living, and if a few other pieces hadn't come together, I wouldn't have found myself working at the Jewish Museum.

I'm incredibly grateful for the Australian Jewish community for giving me this start. Together with my family, they grounded me with a strong foundation.

I learned so much about myself at the museum where essentially I hit the trifecta, where my personal values aligned with the organization's values, and then aligned with the job that I was doing.

It was also there that I realized I could have a plan and it should be flexible enough so I could take advantage of opportunities that might arise but that might not appear to be exactly part of the plan.

After working at the museum for three years, it became clear that (1) I could see a future for myself in the Jewish professional world; and (2) if I followed that path, I doubted there were significant advancement opportunities for me in Australia. It became clear to me then that the next logical step should be graduate school in America which is how I joined the Hornstein Program.

After a short time in the program, through discussions with professors, fellow students and Jewish communal professionals, I realized that if I truly saw myself as a nonprofit professional, then I would need to gain development experience, and the U.S. was the place to be for that. Here I could learn how to fundraise strategically, meaningfully and ethically.

In my last semester of the Hornstein Program, I explored development positions, mostly in New York City, ultimately deciding to join the Birthright Israel Foundation overseeing all the Federation funding for Birthright Israel.

After almost two years in this position, the opportunity arose for me to join the team at Hazon as their director of outreach. While I had anticipated my next move to be within the fundraising/development world, this position allows me to further build skills in my professional toolkit, including how to develop strategic partnerships, how to plan strategically, how to be an effective supervisor and what it means to sit on an organization's leadership team.

Additionally, Hazon is an organization that tackles global issues on a local level, believing intrinsically in sustainable Jewish communities and a sustainable world for us all.

Hazon's leadership, vision and mission resonates to my core, and thus my mantra of “have a plan and be flexible and open to opportunities” has rung true yet again. In March 2016, I joined the team at Hazon.

I'm trying. I think some days I feel it more than others. For me it's about developing a strategy with flexibility, to know when something great presents itself and to be able to distinguish when something might not be part of the initial strategy but would be an important opportunity which I could accept.

There are a number of factors but ultimately I'll examine the opportunity in terms of what it might mean for me professionally. The two key pieces I consider are whether it's a move forward or backward. It might be okay to move backward a little if it's within a particularly spectacular organization. So (1) Is this a move in the right direction? (2) Are the people great? Are there people at this organization who might serve as mentors or are outstanding and inspiring, that I could learn from? (3) Does the mission of the organization align with my own values and mission?

I have found that, for me, the mission really matters. To figure this out I need to understand my own values and the issues I care about most. I need to know what excites me. Once I know these I can find a good match.

I work with an amazing team and with leadership who has a strong vision and mission and strategy for how we're going to get where we want to go. Hazon believes we can create a more sustainable Jewish community and a more sustainable world for us all. That's something so easy to get behind! Who doesn't think we should be more conscious about where the food we eat comes from or what it means to really consider the physical mark we're leaving on the world? Are we doing damage to the world we live in? If we are, what are the implications for leaving a damaged world to our children and our grandchildren?

It's so important to me to be able to internalize that at a local level in terms of who I am, and then expand that into the context of the Jewish community, and then again more broadly towards positive impact globally. This kind of “think global, act local” philosophy resonates deeply for me. What we do and how we do it matters in the context of the Jewish community and the world. We don't exist in isolation.

As for my role, essentially it consists of three components. First, there's creating and building Hazon's strategic partnerships and, most importantly, ensuring that these partnerships are mutually beneficial. We can't be one-sided if we want to work effectively.

Hazon merged with Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center about a year and a half ago and so another component of my work is ensuring that organizations know about the center. Here at Hazon we believe fundamentally in transformative experiences and whether that means taking your staff away or bringing a group of students to the campsite, we believe that the moment you're removed from the routine of everyday life, opportunities arise for significant transformation.

The third component of my work is building Hazon's visibility and presence in the New York region, in efforts that often funnel through our strategic partnerships and through the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center.

Sustainability is precisely the link. The more each person and each community adopts lifestyles that are sustainable, the better our world is.

I think there are always situations or moments when I've doubted the decisions I've made, probably like a lot of people and probably a very human response. In those circumstances, it's about how to take a situation and pivot it towards a different direction.

I try to but I have good days and bad days! [Laughs.] That's the story I like to tell! [More laughter.]

I see myself running a Jewish organization. Right now what I'm doing is building out my skill set so that I am a well-rounded professional and I can take on a very senior executive if not a chief executive officer role. How that will look, I don't know, but it will have to be with an organization whose mission deeply resonates with who I am.

I also feel, as a woman who has been given so many opportunities, a tremendous sense of responsibility to take a leadership role. I don't remember growing up and having female role models in positions of leadership. Maybe there were one or two in serious leadership positions in the context of the Johannesburg and Sydney Jewish communities, but not many. I feel a deep sense of responsibility as a woman to take a leadership position and lead responsibly and well, because women historically haven't had these opportunities open to them.

Definitely my family versus one person in particular. For as long as I can remember, Jewish life has been and continues to be deeply integrated into my family in terms of who we are and how we live, mourn and celebrate. It's the glue that holds us together. It was values that were framed Jewishly that defined my childhood, and were epitomized by my grandparents, my parents and my extended family.

For the most part, wherever I traveled or lived (having lived on five continents), I sought out the Jewish community in one way or another. For me, the Jewish community has offered me a sense of belonging in times/places where differences can be both exhilarating and overwhelming.

My Jewish identity serves as a North Star, firmly rooting me to that which is familiar in an ever-changing world.

I do enjoy traveling and living in new places. I have no plans to move out of New York right now though. I'm incredibly happy just living in New York. Coming here was a very positive move for me.

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. When I was 14 we emigrated to Sydney, Australia. Before college, I went to Israel for a gap year with my youth movement, and when that was over I returned to Sydney for college. I went to the University of New South Wales. During that time I took part in their exchange program and went to live in Sweden for just under a year. When that was done I moved back to Sydney to complete my degree. I worked at the Sydney Jewish Museum for about three years and then moved to Boston for the Hornstein Program, and then to New York City when I took my first job at Birthright Israel Foundation.

To say that moving is not stressful would be a lie. There's always an element of stress involved with trying to re-establish oneself, for me at least. All those questions and concerns bubble up at the same time as the real logistical work of packing up and going or leaving.

I feel lucky to live in a day and age when these sorts of moves are far easier than they've ever been. Smartphones and Facetime mean I can pick up the phone and call whomever I want pretty much whenever I want with only the time zone to remember. Everyone I need is at my fingertips. I can get on a plane and go when I need to. I'm lucky to have that flexibility and the privilege to be able to do that.

Did I know for certain when I moved to America that it would be a phenomenal move, that everything would turn out well, and that I'd love living here? I had no idea, but I had to get on the plane to figure it out. If it would have worked out disastrously, I would have gotten on the plane and gone back, right? I knew I could go back home and I was okay with that.

Technology today gives us so much freedom. When my grandparents moved from Lithuania to South Africa at the turn of the last century they pretty much knew they were stuck with their decision. Maybe some people went backwards and forwards but most people then knew they were picking up their life and starting again, for better or for worse. Of course I didn't have that kind of pressure to contend with. Even to this day, I know that if something doesn't work out, the opportunity to return home to Australia is there and it's relatively simple. It's not like I can't go back ever again.

That said, I have no immediate plans of returning to Australia. I am incredibly grateful for the confidence placed in me by the American Jewish community, especially from the Hornstein Program and the Wexner Foundation, my employers, and Nigel Savage at Hazon whom I first met as our commencement speaker when I graduated from Hornstein.

Hornstein faculty and Wexner staff have been so incredibly generous! And I mean generous with — finances aside, which by itself is hugely significant — their time and spirit and their investment in me and my professional growth. I never would have had these opportunities had I not come to America. I'm incredibly grateful for that. It's terrifying in a way; I can't mess this up. So many people have invested in my professional development. Sure, faculty have to teach because that's their job, but there's so much more that people gave so freely: the mentoring, and support, and confidence and consideration… How can I ever pay that back? Maybe paying it back happens only by paying forward.

I feel totally unqualified to give anyone or any class advice so I offer up the mantra of “have a plan, and be open to diverging from it.” This mantra, and an incredibly supportive and loving family, have opened doors to opportunities I never imagined. It's provided me with good guidance. Perhaps it can be helpful for someone else too.