I read with interest Tamar Snyder’s article on the “Jewish Community’s $20,000 Gender Gap” (Dec. 3) about women not holding top professional positions in the Jewish community. I have been very troubled about this for many, many years.
I was appointed director of the American Jewish Congress in 1971 and served until 1978, when I left to become a vice president at New York University. Since then neither the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai Brith nor AIPAC, etc., have appointed a woman to a top professional position. While women were appointed to lay positions (mostly those who made major gifts), this has not happened in the Jewish professional community. I do not know why. Indeed, corporate America is much ahead of the Jewish community in this area.
During the last 25 years that I have been the senior vice president at NYU, I have found that in the academic world — as in corporate America — women are far more represented in top positions than in the Jewish community. Among the seven vice presidents at NYU, three, including myself, were women.
Chair and Executive Director
NYU George H. Heyman,
Jr. Center
for Philanthropy and Fundraising
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