Alan Feldman, the newly appointed executive director of JCC MetroWest, said he’s been welcomed with “open arms.”
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July 16, 2009
After a year as its interim head, Alan Feldman is now the official CEO of JCC MetroWest.
The selection of the Bronx native and career JCC executive was announced July 9 by Steve Seiden, chair of the JCC MetroWest board of directors.
Feldman has been serving as the center’s chief operating officer since July 2008 and interim CEO since February, after the resignation of the previous CEO, Michael Hopkins, took effect.
Feldman brings “a broad spectrum of experience and skills from his prior JCC positions,” said Seiden in a news release. “As interim CEO, he has done an outstanding job in leading the development of the business plan and the 2010 budget. We are confident that he will provide the strong leadership that the JCC needs during this critical time.”
Feldman, 57, came to MetroWest after four years as JCC executive director in Buffalo. He was previously executive director of JCCs in Portland, Ore., and Charlotte, NC.
In addition, he has held executive management positions at JCCs in Philadelphia, Tenafly, and Pittsburgh.
“The search committee made the right choice,” Feldman joked during a July 14 phone interview from his office at the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus, in West Orange. “I appreciate the open arms with which I have been welcomed to this community.”
His purview includes the fitness facilities, theater, and wide array of children’s, teen, and adult programs at the Cooperman JCC as well as at the early childhood center and senior activities on the Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany.
Feldman moves into the leadership of JCC MetroWest two years after an extensive renovation and expansion of the West Orange facilities. The JCC is undergoing a campaign to retire debt from the renovation and, like so many nonprofit agencies, is facing budget challenges and staff reductions during the financial downturn.
“We have to find stability in a very difficult economic environment as all of us in the nonprofit community struggle with that environment,” he said.
He said his underlying vision for the JCC is “building Jewish community.”
Feldman is a graduate of City College of New York and the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University.
He lived in Israel for an 18-month fellowship for “Senior Educators” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Melton Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora.
Feldman lives in Roseland with his wife, Chris, and their 16-year-old son, Jesse, who will begin his junior year at West Essex High School in September.
Feldman was tapped after a national search chaired by former JCC president Joyce Goldstein.
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