By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
At the Jewish Community Relations Council, the watchword these days is “nimble.”
Under new chairman Bill Altman and new(ish) director Trent Spoolstra, JCRC is significantly reconfiguring how it carries out its mission. As the principal intermediary between the Jewish community and the community at large, the council often grapples with the most pressing issues of the day.
The JCRC has evolved over the decades to address a myriad of issues but at its heart, it has always been about education, advocacy and engagement. Dozens of members have served over the years and the posting has always been a position of honor in the community. Yet, there is a recognition that the quick pace of a 24-hour news cycle, rising hatred, polarization, and global strife requires new adaptations to meet the needs of the community “right now.” The JCRC continues to grow.
Everyone involved acknowledges that contemporary realities have altered JCRC’s fundamental mission. The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 – in which some 1,200 innocents were murdered and more than 250 others abducted into Gaza as hostages – have dominated subsequent conversations – internally and externally. Coupled with the sharp rise in virulent antisemitism, current circumstances dictate that organizations like JCRC must be prepared to pivot with decisive velocity.
“We are in unprecedented times here in Louisville, nationwide and worldwide as a result of October 7,” Altman acknowledges. This past January he took over as JCRC chair from Beth Salamon, who now chairs the overall Jewish Community of Louisville board.
Bill Altman, chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council
“When I was asked to join the committee and help lead it,” Altman says, “the request was: ‘How should we be thinking about JCRC’s position within the Jewish community in light of these changing times. That was the impetus for taking a look at how things had been done in the past. So we convened a subgroup of the existing JCRC, to see how we could build on the success of JCRC over the years to meet the times.”
Adopting a kind of “best practices” strategy, Altman and several colleagues “looked at other JCRCs throughout the country about how they were structured and how they functioned,” he recalled, “and reached out to many members of the community to figure out how we wanted to structure ourselves.”
Recognizing that there is a value to a large group of learners and leaders–many of whom with vast institutional knowledge and connections–but that there was also a need for quick response and day-to-day action, Altman and vice-chair Jon Salomon spearheaded a novel, two-tier reorganization.
Members who had sufficient time and inclination to get into the weeds of council operations, will make up a 12-person “executive board” slated to meet regularly – “more regularly than the JCRC meets currently,” Altman said. “In addition, we are retaining people who’ve been so important in driving the JCRC agenda over the years as the ‘Advocacy and Education Committee’ that will meet quarterly.”
Both subgroups, like the present JCRC, will operate “as a subcommittee of the JCL board,” he explained, “subject to all the things (term limits, etc.) a JCL-affiliated board is subject to.”
Overall, however, there’s been no shortage of community members who want to serve on the JCRC. “We’re fortunate that we have a lot of people in the community who want to participate,” Salomon says. “That’s a good problem to have.”
Altman outlined three areas of principal focus: advocacy, education, and engagement.
Advocacy would emphasize building relationships with legislators in Frankfort, embracing “issues of importance to the Jewish community in Louisville, regionally, and nationally.” Education typically would include Holocaust subjects, Israel, plus issues related to aspects of Jewish living. “This has been a core focus of JCRC for years,” Altman says.
“What we hope to do is to again bring focus and a proactive approach to identifying what issues are most important,” he explained, identifying “different educational approaches to reach people.
“The third area is engagement,” Altman says. “We view JCRC as one of many mechanisms to attract people to engage in Jewish issues and Jewish life.” Referencing the 2021-2022 Brandeis University-led Study of Jewish Louisville, “we know that there are many more Jews in our community than we ever thought,” he added. “We also know that people who are not currently affiliated or engaged with the Jewish community want more engagement on issues that are important to them – a yearning that’s been significantly amplified after October 7. So, we hope that JCRC will be a place where people can find an opportunity for engagement.”
No matter what the circumstances, A key priority is seeking to be less reactive and more proactive.
“There was a definite consensus that we weren’t being as effective as we could be,” Salomon said, “or maybe not as well positioned as some other JCRCs to meet the needs of this particular time. Being more nimble, more agile – you’re better able to execute in a way – like political campaigns – to be addressing the different types of threats, frankly, that we’re facing right now.”
JCRC Vice Chair Jon Salomon
“One of the things that was uniformly recognized by or pointed out by everyone we talked to is that we need — as a Jewish community, and especially for JCRC — to be in a position to respond to rapidly changing circumstances,” Altman says.
“We at JCRC are often asked to engage in advocacy related to important issues for the Jewish community on short notice,” frequently to news organizations seeking comment from an official source.
“What everyone recommended is that we need to have a core, nimble group of people who can convene and can respond to circumstances more rapidly than we’ve been able to do in the past.”
There’s that word again: nimble.
“Responding to crises quickly can be difficult, logistically, with a large group of people,” says JCRC board member Farrah Alexander. Additionally, “there’s been a need for Jews in Louisville wanting to get together in a Jewish space and talk about issues. The Advocacy and Education Committee component of the reformed JCRC provides an avenue for that.”
JCRC board member Farrah Alexander
Alexander agrees that the new, two-tier JCRC structure will remove – or at least reduce – obstacles to broader participation. “People may be wanting to stay involved for years,” she says, “but they may not have the bandwidth to commit a certain amount of time on a regular basis.” Something as seemingly benign as a noon meeting time could make it impossible for working people to attend.
“Trent has been doing a really good job with the logistics of scheduling,” Alexander says, “and making a (meeting) time that works for everyone.”
In recent years “there’s been a deliberate effort” to involve a new generation of JCRC membership, though success, Alexander says, has so far been sporadic.
“What we’ve seen is that sometimes we bring in younger people with diverse voices, and they often fall off. We’ve talked about what barriers are keeping them from being active on the JCRC.
The flexibility built into the A and E Committee should help attract younger people – a constituency that has been relatively scarce among the JCRC fold.
“Now we’re able to adjust things so it works for them,” Alexander says. “I hope that makes them understand how valued they are in our community and on the JCRC, and that we really want to hear their voices.”
Under JCRC’s revamped structure, there will now be “an annual process to make sure folks who are involved are staying involved – where the president of the JCL board can review the members of JCRC at least once a year,” he explains, “to make sure we’re living up to what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Optimally, “you should want to be done with your service at the conclusion of your term – if you’re doing it right and don’t want to just hang around – to let new blood come in. And there’s always room for folks to come back on the committee after sitting out for a period.”
Whatever its context, the evolving JCRC is no monolith of attitude and individual background. Just as the JCL board “reflects a broad swath of the community,” Altman says, “we hope to populate JCRC – both on the core board and the Advocacy and Education Committee – with a diversity of opinion, so we can sharpen our views on issues of importance to the Jewish community.”