Gerry Cantor, starting his second term as president of the Central federation, says only his family has made him happier than did his first term as president.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
July 17, 2008
From the outset, Gerald “Gerry” Cantor has made developing future leaders a major goal of his own leadership, and he sounds exhilarated by the challenge.
But then Cantor speaks with passion about his entire involvement with Judaism and the Jewish community.
“Apart from my family, this is what I love most in my life,” the 74-year-old personal financial adviser said.
He took over as president of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey on June 17, his second time in office. The first was 14 years ago from 1994 to 1996. And one of the very first things he did this time around was lead a mission to Israel designed to provide 12 younger activists with insight into the federation’s work there.
“It was very exciting,” he said, interviewed in his office in Short Hills last week, just days after his return. “These are young people who already get it” — “it” being the importance of the federation’s work. “They are already donors, and they are already leaders or people showing leadership potential. I want to see them cross that line, to total commitment — to getting how fulfilling that can be.”
He cited Bob Kuchner, the immediate past president, as an example of such a leader, and the Wilf brothers, Zygi and Mark, who have also taken their turns heading up the federation.
“If we’re going to be handing over control of the federation to these younger people — and we are — we want to share with them what our values are and how we see things, and we want to learn from them,” he said. “Look, they are the ones who are going to be defining the future — not me.”
‘I’m not good at denomination politics; rather, I have this Pollyanna view of the world, that I can do things that serve all Jews.’
Philanthropy is evolving, he said. Donors these days want more control over where their money goes, and seek to support specific projects rather than giving to a “global catchall.”
Some things don’t change, and there he is glad to share his expertise. One of his slogans — usually put in slightly different terms — is: “You must never alienate the donors.” That means both fostering good relationships — a diplomatic challenge at which he excels — as well as creating the right charitable options.
New approaches to fund-raising and project financing are embodied in the strategic plan recently adopted by the federation. Cantor had no part in its formulation, but he made a point of familiarizing himself with its parameters, meeting individually with the people who took the lead in its shaping.
Cantor respects the desire of those donors who want to pursue their own agendas.
“But there is a fine line,” he said, citing another of his favorite lines: “Everyone can’t buy their own fire engine.” At times it’s essential, he said, to pool resources and decide on shared priorities to be effective, and that is where federation comes in, even for the wealthiest givers.
That’s especially true in times of crisis, he said, “and there are always crises.”
‘We didn’t know’
As a boy, growing up in Jersey City in the World War II and post-war period, he saw his parents’ valiant efforts to raise funds for Holocaust survivors hoping to settle in what was then Palestine.
“Remember, when I had my bar mitzva in 1947, there wasn’t a State of Israel yet,” he said.
It was a comment of his father’s that inspired Cantor’s involvement 40 years later in the struggle to free Jews from the Soviet Union. “I asked him how they could have let [the Holocaust] happen. He said, ‘We didn’t know.’ I knew what Soviet Jews were going through, so if a son of mine asked that question about them, I could never give that answer.”
Meeting and becoming firm friends with refuseniks, and later visiting with Jews in the various parts of the former Soviet Union — areas like Samarkand and Tashkent — have been among the “coolest” parts of his life, he said.
Just how deep those relationships go was borne out this past weekend. One of his seven grandchildren, 16-year-old Molly, is in Israel on a Young Judaea trip. She told him on the phone that she was going to spend “family” time not with relatives but with the daughter of his friend, former refusenik Lev Shapiro.
“How cool is that!” Cantor exclaimed.
He was taking delight in her response to the country, as he did with the first-timers on the mission.
“The first trip to Israel blows almost everybody’s mind,” he said. He recalled how his wife, Dorothy, whom he described with affectionate pride as “a most remarkable person,” cried when she first arrived there and their cab driver said, “Welcome home.”
He and Dorothy have been members of Temple Emanu-El in Westfield for much of their 51-year-old marriage, and he is a devoted attendee of its lay-led morning minyan.
Displayed in his office, amid the artwork and ranks of family photos, are just two certificates: One is a declaration from the New Jersey Legislature honoring his community service when he was federation president-elect in 1993; the other is from the course he completed in 2002 at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati to become a shliach k’hilah, a synagogue emissary or associate. Its holders are capable of leading services and officiating at most lifecycle ceremonies, which he has done.
In addition to working full time, he has served as chair of the Interfaith Council for the Homeless, on the board of the United Israel Appeal, and as president of Rutgers Hillel. He also plays tennis and walks as much as five miles a day (whenever possible he walks the one hour to Scotch Plains to attend federation meetings). He and Dorothy spend time with their son Joshua and his family, who live nearby, and travel once a month to visit their daughter and her family in Cincinnati.
“I’m not good at denomination politics,” he said. “Rather, I have this Pollyanna view of the world, that I can do things that serve all Jews.”
He didn’t have any intention of becoming the federation’s first “recycled” president. While talking with people on the nominating committee, he idly answered a question from lay leaders Toby Goldberger and Eleanor Rubin, and executive vice president Stanley Stone, about what he felt about his term as president back in the 1990s.
His answer was just the green light they were waiting for.
“I told them that aside from times with my family, those were the happiest two years of my life,” he said with a rueful grin. “That was my big mistake!”
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