A European View: Women and leadership

In Jewish family life, the home is important, and the Jewish woman has always been respected, both as a mother and wife.

During the last century the Jewish woman has moved from the domestic role to becoming an active participant in the larger Jewish community.

Still, many of the tasks within the community have been "domestic"-oriented, i.e baking for kiddush or Wizo gatherings, visiting the old, hosting various dinners and likewise voluntary tasks.

Many women work professionally in the Jewish communities, mainly with children and the old.

There are still too few women in other professional positions, for example as executive directors, and there are still too few women in top leadership positions.

Why is this?

Like with the rest of the society, the leaders in politics, in the industry and the business community are, to a large extent, men. Women still have the largest responsibility for the children and the household.

Besides this, many Jewish women are also hard working professionals in the general society, which is time-consuming.

Therefore, there is little time and understanding for a third task; women as Jewish leaders.

Some of us knew at an early stage that the only way to move things, to be part of changes (if needed) was to work towards a leadership position.

Few women dare to speak up and say; I want to be influential, I want to have power, I want to move things. This is much more common, and accepted, among men.

The Jewish communities need good leadership, men and women. The chances to find good leaders increase if we can look for leaders both among men and women.

My reason to address this issue is that I believe that women have a different way to lead, which might even be better for Jewish organisations built on lay-leaders working together with professionals.

- For most women in leadership positions, the main motivation is to contribute with ideas and visions to the community, way beyond personal motives. Women are much less or not at all interested in the prestige.

- Women are better at delegating, maybe because we do not have the time (working triple) to do everything ourselves, but also because we do not need the recognition of "I did it". As a result we manage to involve more people, a good thing for a democratic community.

- We can serve as role models for coming generations, and show that there is a chance to play an important role in the future of the Jewish community, regardless of gender. The important message conveyed to the young generation is that one does not have to be "an old man" in order to obtain a leadership position.

- Decisions made in the community are likely to be more relevant to a larger group, as the diversity of the board reflects the diversity of the members.

My message today is that we as Jewish women need to stand up and say that we want to be part of the leadership.

There is no time to sit around and wait until someone asks us. Maybe they never will.

Our influence might mean different agendas but also quantitatively more Jewish lay leaders who can share the important task of development and progress within our communities, as well as between the community and the society.

I guess that some of the concerns leaders have are much the same regardless of gender; for example how to strengthen the Jewish identity of future generations, how to improve the quality of activities and how to deal with outside threats.

But, the issue on how do divide tasks and influence between professionals and lay leaders, make the community structure less bureaucratic, and separating religion from politics, are issues that most men have not dared to address.

So, all of you women go for it! It is fun to be a leader and it is great to be influential. And to all of you men, we do contribute; it can even be exiting working with us.