New York City’s Jewish federation has tapped Michael Kay, the leader of Westchester County’s Leffell School, as its next leader.
Kay will become CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, which says it is the world’s largest local philanthropy, on Oct. 5, the organization announced on Tuesday. He will replace Eric Goldstein, who has been UJA’s CEO since 2014. Goldstein will delay his departure, which had been planned for June, until Kay’s arrival.
“I step into this role with humility, and with a deep desire to listen and learn — motivated by the conviction that we are witnessing an unparalleled resurgence in Jewish commitment under difficult circumstances, and that we have an obligation to nurture it,” Kay said in a statement.
“Working together, we will reimagine how we engage the next generation, deepen our partnership with Israel, and mobilize the full breadth of Jewish communal wisdom to address the defining questions of the present and craft the Jewish life of the future,” he said.
Kay is being tapped to lead a philanthropic behemoth that annually brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to fund a wide swath of not-for-profit entities, including social services, Jewish security efforts, advocacy organizations, educational programs and identity-building projects. It also contributes significant amounts to causes in Israel.
During his tenure at The Leffell School, a coeducational Jewish day school that was until recently formally affiliated with the Conservative movement, Kay has spoken about the importance of teaching a love for Israel, which has become more contentious in some pockets of the Jewish community. During a 2024 streamed discussion called “Zionism and Antisemitism on Campus and Beyond,” Kay laid out his school’s vision for Israel education.
Noting that Leffell is one of few high schools that includes a visit to a West Bank village during its Israel trip, he said, “Nuance and complexity are not incompatible with the goal of promoting love of Israel.”
He has also navigated encounters with antisemitism. In January 2024, Kay responded to an incident in which players on the girls basketball team at Roosevelt High School in Yonkers were accused of hurling antisemitic slurs while playing against Leffell’s team.
“The players conducted themselves with midot (ethical values) and grace, and they thoughtfully processed and debriefed the incident,” Kay wrote in an email at the time. “Importantly, I would also like to commend the response of my colleagues in the administration of the other school involved.”
Before joining The Leffell School in 2013, Kay, 46, held a range of leadership and teaching positions in Jewish education, including serving as the upper school principal at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland; teaching at The Weber School in Sandy Springs, Georgia; and directing Camp Givah, a Jewish summer camp in upstate New York.
Kay, a graduate of Harvard University, has a doctorate in education and is currently enrolled in a rabbinical ordination program operated by the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the New York State Association of Independent Schools.
“From the very outset of our search, Michael distinguished himself as a singular and compelling leader — a truly original thinker whose intellect, moral seriousness, and vision for Jewish life set him apart,” Linda Mirels, UJA’s president and the chair of the CEO search committee, said in a statement. “He is an eloquent and persuasive communicator with a long record of inspiring the next generation of proud Jews and Zionists.”
Kay’s appointment makes UJA the second major New York City Jewish institution to reach into the education world to find their new leaders, after the Jewish Theological Seminary last month announced a longtime Hillel director as its new chancellor.
UJA broke the mold with Goldstein’s appointment, too, drawing him not from Jewish professional communal leadership but instead poaching him from the law firm Paul, Weiss. During Goldstein’s 12 years at the helm, UJA responded to increasing political polarization, rising antisemitism, a global pandemic that disrupted Jewish life and Oct. 7 and its aftermath, which included widespread pro-Palestinian protests and a spike in antisemitic incidents that discomfited many Jewish New Yorkers.
Under Goldstein, UJA responded to Oct. 7 by rallying the city’s Jews locally and beyond, sending buses from across the area to a mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. An emergency UJA appeal raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ravaged communities in Israel. In 2025, it also sent $1 million to an Israeli humanitarian group providing aid to civilians in Gaza in coordination with the Israeli government, eliciting criticism from some in New York.
The federation is responsible for providing funding to Jewish communal institutions and social service programs across New York City, including in Westchester County, where Leffell is located and Kay lives. It also supports local Jewish nonprofits. (70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and New York Jewish Week, receives UJA funding.) In 2025, the federation raised $316 million and allocated $276 million in grants.
Kay takes the helm as the city adjusts to a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who opposes Israel and has eschewed ties with major Jewish organizations in the city. Some Jewish New Yorkers supported Mamdani, while most did not.
Dara Klarfeld, CEO of DRG, a firm that has led a number of Jewish federations’ CEO searches, said ahead of Kay’s selection that UJA’s next leader could neither fully oppose the mayor nor be fully aligned with him.
“They have to hire somebody who understands the notion of community-building, and that whether you like it or not, multiple of the voices are valid,” she said, without commenting specifically on UJA’s selection.
UJA hired the firm Heidrick & Struggles to lead its CEO search. The firm has led searches for a number of Jewish leadership positions in the last few years, including for OneTable, the American Jewish Committee and the Israeli-American Council.
As anticipation mounted in the days ahead of UJA’s announcement, Jewish leaders in the city outlined their hopes for the federation’s new leader — sometimes offering diverging views.
“UJA has historically been our community’s ‘big tent,’” Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Sarah Reines said in a text message. “As we are becoming more diverse, and also more fractured, a gap is growing between legacy organizations and the lived reality of a significant part of the Jewish population.”
She continued, “I believe UJA is uniquely positioned to bridge these divides, but it requires a conscious effort to listen to the voices that currently feel on the margins.”
Rabbi Marc Schneier, the founder of the Hampton Synagogue and a vocal critic of Mamdani, said UJA’s next leader should instead seek to change some Jewish New Yorkers’ views.
“The fact that in the last election, Mamdani garnered 30% of the Jewish community demonstrates how we are failing miserably at educating the younger members of our community — particularly when it comes to the centrality of the State of Israel,” Schneier said. He concluded that the community needs to “go on the offensive,” and that he’d like to see UJA’s next leader prioritize Jewish education and the importance of Israel.
At The Leffell School, Kay guided the institution following its departure from the Schechter movement and rebranding as it merged into Jewish day school network Prizmah. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kay also oversaw extensive preparations to bring students back for in-person learning.
“A number of families have been economically impacted by the pandemic, and to be able to provide financial support to them has been crucial,” Kay said at the time. His efforts to address the pandemic was aided by a UJA grant.
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