Where Are the Women?
Solender, Elsa
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? BM SOLENDER MORf AND MORE, DOUG THE SAME JOBS AS THE MEN A new breed of woman has entered front and center on the American Jewish scene. She is— most often—rich,...
...A much more common attitude is the sheer enjoyment of face-to-face encounters experienced by Judy Slater in Boston or Lilliane Winn, who is active in the New York campaign and also serves as first woman president of an otherwise totally male organization, the American Sephardic Federation...
...Peggy Tishman, the first woman to head New York's key Committee on Communal Planning, speaks for most top women leaders when she says she never hesitates to ask for money for a good Jewish cause...
...In some cases, they've played on the heartstrings to loosen the purse strings...
...Lerner also neglected to report on a fol-lowup session between JFO of Baltimore-Washington (which no longer exists in its original form) and leaders of the women's division of the Baltimore federation...
...When her husband challenged her to do something for her fellow Sephardic Jews, she rose to the test and entered Jewish philanthropy, wholeheartedly and with missionary fervor, so that she could champion the Sephardim in world Jewish councils...
...Few women argue with the need to open up more leadership opportunities for women, but there is genuine reluctance to adopt a strident or hostile tone...
...No Lady Bountiful to be wooed and flattered for philanthropic plums and rewarded with a testimonial luncheon, she now claims in return for her support a real piece of the action and a significant share of the power...
...Interestingly enough, though, New York and Baltimore women have in recent years selected chairmen for their women's campaigns whose personal gifts fell below the "magic" $1,000 mark...
...Peggy Tish-man of New York hopes the example of her alma mater, Wellesley College, which offers alumnae training in personal finance and estate planning, will be followed elsewhere...
...Clusters of women's min-yans and local JFO groups still exist, but there is no coordinated effort and very little communication among them...
...Cardin reports that the present Baltimore JFO, an organization with about 25 active members, recently joined the Maryland Federation of Jewish Women's Organizations and has avoided confrontation tactics...
...Just recently, though, Elaine Winick and Lil-liane Winn of the UJA/New York Federation Joint Campaign became the first two-woman team, soliciting a world famous male jeweler...
...She is— most often—rich, good-looking, smart and ambitious...
...While it would be foolhardy to predict an incoming tidal wave of womanpower, a new "Old Girl Network" is now operating nationwide to identify and nurture fresh talent—which insures that the advent of women to positions of general Jewish leadership is not merely a passing phase, but the presage of a new era in Jewish life...
...The "agonizing" of Barbara Weinberg of Los Angeles, who in 1974 became the first woman president of a major federation in some fifty years, is rare among the top women...
...She considers herself "a soldier of Israel" when she goes out to raise money...
...Some federations now offer crash courses in finance...
...Anne Lapidus Lerner, in her pamphlet, "Who Hast Not Made Me a Man," a study of the movement for equal rights for women (published this year by the American Jewish Committee), echoes Elazar's concerns regarding women in Jewish organizational life...
...Their combination of dynamism, strong Jewish commitment, personal leadership style, and ability to impress men in power has created a breed of woman leader distinctly different from the old stock characters among organization women, the "grand dames," the antiseptic "clubwomen" and the "do-gooders...
...Winn says she particularly enjoys talking to audiences of women, measuring her effect upon them, sensing the instant when they are about to decide whether to respond to her appeal or waver...
...Mrs...
...Five years ago, her only ambition was to be the first Jewish woman tennis champion in Florida...
...After their meeting with the women of the federation establishment, several of the protesters did make and fulfill pledges and expressed an interest in closer collaboration...
...It should not be forgotten that the federation is still, first of all, the fund raising arm of a Jewish community...
...But the women fund raisers also enjoy the astonishment of their male associates as they demonstrate their grasp of the details of finance and the intricacies of the stock market...
...and beyond the women's divisions, many the first women ever to occupy those offices...
...Success in the women's divisions remains the standard route up and into the major arena...
...What Ms...
...If there is glamour in American Jewish philanthropy, she is it...
...Traditionally, the power-structure has been reluctant to admit women to decision-making councils in more than token numbers, but it's hard to argue with success in the arena that still matters most—getting the big gifts...
...Names like Adele Rosenwald Levy of New York, Florence Heller of Chicago, and Helen Dalsheimer of Baltimore still command respect bordering on adulation in Jewish philanthropic circles...
...So, too, are the top leaders of the women's groups in an ex officio capacity, which is sometimes translated into meaningful participation but frequently remains simply ex officio...
...The fact that wealth is a prerequisite for leadership posts in federations for women has aroused some criticism...
...Lerner also refers to the well publicized protest organized by the Jewish Feminist Organization of Baltimore-Washington (JFO) in which feminists said they would "submit their pledges...
...Elaine Winick, Special Gifts Chairman in New York (which means that every gift over $5000 comes under her aegis) served earlier in various women's campaign posts...
...then she thought it over, decided no one could do the job better than she could, and accepted the assignment...
...As Charlotte Jacob-son, president of the World Zionist Organization American Section, observes, the "climate" has been especially favorable for women in the last two to three years, partly because of the impact of the women's rights movement on American society...
...One is their attitude toward the actual business of asking other people for money...
...No woman professional directs a major campaign in any large Jewish community...
...A few women work at fund raising assignments outside women's divisions, but no clear career line in professional fund raising exists yet...
...Shoshanna Cardin, current chairman of the Baltimore women's division, reports that five of the seven women who signed the feminist protest had never pledged or donated money to previous campaigns...
...Besides the willingness to ask other people for money, the "leading ladies" of American Jewish philanthropy also possess another common quality: they have money, or access to it...
...There are things I enjoy more than fund raising, but it's not something I would ever retreat from or avoid...
...Direct solicitation of men by women is still rare in most communities, but evidence of success will surely encourage more experiments...
...There is also great reluctance to abandon women's divisions, which meet the needs of women in family situations with large blocks of free time during weekdays...
...Annette Newman of St...
...She is a specialist in fence-mending...
...Lerner failed to report was that the women at the CJFWF meetings did not rally behind the militant calls to action but actually received the speeches rather lukewarmly...
...They are a fascinating group of women, the ones who have "made it...
...This enabled the special gifts chairman to "compensate" for the chairman...
...Other campaign "firsts" for women are also reported in smaller cities...
...Every city of size now boasts at least a handful of women in posts above Elsa Solender, a free lance writer, recently completed a tour as the UN representative for an international Jewish women's organization...
...The usual formula has been a two-on-one solicitation, with one of the two being a man...
...A formula was worked out so that a talented woman could serve in the top spot and the "special gifts" chairman serving with her would be an individual whose gift was exceptionally high...
...I have always solicited both men and women," she says, "and I actually love to ask for money...
...Until recently, though, the men who mattered nationally could probably name all the women who mattered in federations or UJA campaigns in one breath...
...Very wealthy women who have a record of independent activity are admitted to the governing councils of major Jewish institutions and organizations...
...The worst thing that can happen is that someone will say no...
...Despite her electric effect upon men, Mrs...
...And those women who have tried it have had considerable success...
...A small but growing number of women across the country now solicit men as well as other women for major gifts...
...Conviction and commitment are transmuted into a fiery passion when Lilliane Winn undertakes a fund raising assignment...
...One woman whose spirit of independence as a leader might have earned her credentials with the Jewish feminists is Elaine Winick...
...But much credit for the advances must go to the individuals involved...
...but that they will not be paid until women are equal to men, regardless of their choice of career...
...Any woman who wants to make her mark in the Jewish philanthropic field must establish an independent identity as a substantial donor in her own right, someone who does her "fair share," a very substantial fair share...
...Frances Green, before moving into the presidency of the federation in San Francisco, was general campaign chairman...
...She has moved into new prominence locally and nationally, and she is no longer content to limit her sphere of influence to women's divisions and women's organizations...
...Only 36 years old and already on the boards of UJA and the World Jewish Congress, Lilliane Winn is determined to use her rapidly increasing leverage as a fund raiser to alert Jewish leaders to what she believes to be the most urgent Jewish problem, "the rape of the Sephardim...
...The striking, Moroccan-born wife of a New York businessman, Mrs...
...In fact, when asked what other women can do to prepare themselves for high-level posts in federations and campaigns, the top women advise a thorough grounding in legacies, endowments, stocks and bonds...
...Judy Slater of Boston, after an unprecedented second term leading the women's campaign, will be the first woman to move into an important role in the general drive...
...Curiously, the opportunities for women professionals do not yet begin to match those for lay leaders...
...One promising element in the situation is that many more women are not only establishing themselves as "big givers" in their own right, but are also demonstrating that they can be effective and aggressive fundraisers, willing to pitch in and do their part in the indispensable "bottom line" work of direct solicitation...
...There is no easily identifiable "type" among the new women leaders, but certain common traits can be isolated which help to characterize them...
...It remains a basic axiom of Jewish fund raising that you do not send someone to ask other people for large sums of money unless he or she contributes comparably large sums of money...
...It's a challenge...
...It would require something of a revolution in fund raising to convince campaign directors to abandon that tried and true principle...
...Perhaps these precedents will encourage further experiments and open up new possibilities for talented women...
...I'm not going to get hit over the head, and I never take a refusal personally...
...and the existing situation of separate women's and men's divisions has been changed...
...Besides her important assignment with the New York campaign, she is also a vice-chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee...
...I have asked everyone for money, even Mrs...
...Winick was the first woman ever to claim her right several years ago to go on the prestigious Prime Minister's Mission to Israel for presidents of major organizations and donors of $50,000 or...
...Aviva Cantor-Zuckoff, one of the "founding mothers" of JFO and an editor of Lilith, a new journal of Jewish feminism, admits that efforts to form a national Jewish feminist network have failed...
...They were also alarmingly ignorant of the women's divisions' actual operations...
...At the same time, she characterizes herself as "a man's woman," alert to the chemistry of the individuals and audiences she meets...
...She reports on two forceful speeches made at meetings of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds (CJFWF) urging more major roles for women...
...I'm really doing something for the greater good of all of us...
...Statistically, women do not yet occupy anything like their full "share" of leadership positions, but there is a new visibility of women in top or near-top positions...
...Tishman frequently takes on unique solicitation assignments, people for whom the campaign directors lack "a handle" or people who have been "turned off' for one reason or another...
...Daniel Elazar, for example, in Community and Polity: the Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry, says, "With some exceptions, women decision makers in the Jewish community function in environments segregated from male decision makers...
...But wealth is no more a prerequisite for women who want to be leaders than it is for men...
...Associates say she is very hard to resist...
...Winn says the cry of the Black Panthers in Israel a few years ago became the call of the shofar for her...
...Wilma (Billie) Tisch, first woman to chair the prestigious Distributions Committee in New York, refused the first time she was invited to make a campaign speech to a high-powered group of male department store presidents...
...And the women who have already "made it" point confidently to others coming up through the ranks behind them...
...The exceptions are significant for what they reveal...
...Paul became general campaign chairman there after heading the women's campaign and the special gifts section...
...American Jewish philanthropy has always numbered outstanding and generous women among its leaders...
...Astor...
...Today, that situation has changed, and the pace of the change is accelerating...
Vol. 2 • June 1977 • No. 8
