JCC names new executive director

Jacob A. Schreiber will start work Aug. 17 as the new executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, the board of directors announced last week.

Schreiber comes to Kansas City from Atlanta, where he has been with the Hillel organization since 2001.

Schreiber replaces Cary Minkoff, who led the JCC for four years until he resigned in June 2008. For the past year, the Center has been led by interim co-executive directors Jim Sluyter and Jill Maidhof. Upon Schreiber’s arrival, Sluyter will return to his position as director of finance, and Maidhof will continue as associate executive director.

The 95-year-old Center is in the midst of a $5 million endowment fundraising campaign, and membership is at a five-year high.

A native of New York City and its modern Orthodox day-school system, Schreiber’s career has alternated between journalism and working for Jewish communal agencies. While living and studying in Israel in the early 1990s, he became a freelancer and then a staff writer for The Jerusalem Post. His stories included some “undercover” reporting from Jordan and Syria. Schreiber holds a master’s degree in Arab-Israeli Affairs from The Hebrew University.

“I thought I’d be an Israeli diplomat or a professor of Middle Eastern studies,” Schreiber said.

However, a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease — revealed upon his Israeli army induction examination — changed Schreiber’s plans.

Upon his return to the United States, Schreiber worked as editor of a California business lifestyle magazine while his wife, Edna Levy, attended graduate school. She holds a doctoral degree in political theory. They now have three children.

Schreiber and Levy returned to Israel in 1997, where he took a position as assistant director of the Anti-Defamation League office. While in Israel, Schreiber also worked for the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and served as an adviser and speechwriter for Israeli Labor Party politician Avraham Shochat.

Schreiber, Levy and their children returned to the States in 2000, where he took the job as editor of the Atlanta Times. The following year, the Hillels of Georgia post opened up, and he took it. He oversaw chapters at the University of Georgia at Athens, at Atlanta’s Emory University and at Metro Atlanta Hillel, which serves students at Georgia Tech, Georgia State and other colleges and universities.

“We re-engineered the place,” Schreiber said last week during a visit to Kansas City area. “We initiated an $8 million capital campaign to build the Marcus Hillel Center at Emory. The annual budget went from $700,000 to $1.1 million when I left.

“One significant program that I was involved in creating was Campus Superstar, which is an ‘American Idol’ rip-off, and we give a $5,000 prize for the best Georgia singer.”

The idea, he said, was to change the perception of Hillel from “the place you go on Shabbat … to the best damn organization on campus.”

‘Bullish on Jewry’
Schreiber said the success of “Campus Superstar” has implications for the JCC, with its Jewish and non-Jewish members.

“Studies show that Jews, and particularly young Jews, feel very much like their peers, so it’s important to have programs … based on Jewish culture and history. It’s also important to Jews to be able to play and eat and socialize with everybody,” Schreiber said.

“At the Center … certainly we are here to help Jews explore their identity and find meaning and joy in their Jewish heritage and lives. We are also a place where Jews interact with the community; where we invite the community into our backyard and help them find meaning and joy, as well.
“Assimilation used to be a dirty word. But Jews don’t only assimilate into society at large; they assimilate into us, too. It goes both ways. So to strengthen your identity, you have to do that by comparing it to something; to somebody else’s identity.

“I’m bullish on Jewry. I don’t believe there is a crisis. It is what it is. More Jews are learning than at any time in our history.”
Given the economic recession, Schreiber knows he will have to innovate on a tight budget.

“We have to be relevant,” Schreiber said. “Every Jewish organization does. And in these challenging economic times, we will really find out who people think is relevant … by which products they purchase and which institutions they invest in.

“All American Jewish organizations need to start to change and adapt. We have to be more focused and targeted. We have to listen to what the people want. I am a believer in the collective wisdom of the Jewish community.”

“It is with great confidence and enthusiasm we welcome Jacob to our Center team,” said board president Grant. “I am thrilled to bring on board an exceptional leader to head up the Jewish Community Center in providing a dynamic future for our agency, as well as for our community at large.

“I am extremely grateful to Jill Maidhof and Jim Sluyter as well as the entire Center staff for all they have done to lead this organization and help it not only succeed but thrive during this economic downturn,” Grant said. “Saying thank you is simply not enough.”

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