Scott and Marcy Lazar say their shared commitment to the Jewish community and tikun olam has made it easier for them both to serve the community in a variety of roles.
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August 4, 2009
It’s all in “the ask,” Scott Lazar says of volunteering. His wife, Marcy, got involved at the JCC of Central New Jersey and served as its president in the late 1990s, but as long as no one asked him to help out, Scott was happy to keep a low profile.
On the nights when Marcy had meetings, he would come home to Westfield, where they still live, and take over the care of the kids, seeing to dinner and homework. He was, as he put it, “a spousal unit.”
All that has changed. Scott, a lawyer, is now president of the JCC. Their offspring — Rachel, 23, and Max, 20 — are out of the house, and it would be hard to say which of their parents is busier serving the Jewish community.
Marcy said she wasn’t particularly interested in community involvement as a kid, though her mother — determined to get her and her brother connected with other Jewish teens — regularly drove them the half hour from their home in Edison to Perth Amboy, where there was a Jewish Y.
As a student at Brandeis University, she studied animal behavior and psychology and was more interested in working for animal rights than human ones. She said, “Then I began to realize there were probably more people concerned about animals than there were Jews available to work for the well-being of the Jewish community.”
She and Scott met in 1978 at a party. “Marcy offered me a slice of cake, and it was love at first sight,” he said.
They settled in Westfield and when Rachel was two, Marcy enrolled her in the Central JCC’s preschool program and started helping out there. As a stay-at-home mom, the volunteer work was welcome intellectual and social stimulation. Then executive director Richard Corman asked her to serve on a committee. From there, she was appointed to the board, and the rest — as they say — is history.
“As I like to claim, ‘I got thrust into greatness,’” she said, “but actually it happened gradually.”
Marcy Lazar, as a vice president of the Central federation, presented a community service award to Steve Karp at the federation’s annual meeting.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
Scott’s being there with the kids in the evenings notwithstanding, Marcy said, she still suffered pangs of guilt about missing school functions. “I’m very lucky our kids turned out to be really reliable and responsible,” she said. It did get easier as the kids got older, however, and she would still advise people “not to wait until their kids are older before they get involved.”
With the two-year JCC presidency behind her, Marcy began helping out with programs of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey. She started working part-time a few years ago at the architectural firm of fellow federation member Steve Needle — but that hasn’t meant cutting back on volunteering. These days, she is a vice-president with the federation and chairs its community planning and allocations committee.
In her self-deprecating way, she said, “I’m really good at spending,” and added more seriously, given how tight federation finances are now, “or at least, I’m good at accepting our limits and still feeling good about what we can accomplish.”
‘Inspiring role model’
Scott said he had no interest in volunteering or community service as a kid in Brooklyn, or as a student, first at the University of Pennsylvania and then earning a law degree at Boston University. When his children were growing up, he coached kids’ soccer and baseball, and performed each year in a show put on by parents at their school, but that was it.
At the Central JCC’s June 8 annual meeting, incoming president Scott Lazar, center, is congratulated by JCC executive director Barak Hermann and outgoing president Mindy Goldberger.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
He said he had no problem with Marcy’s growing involvement. “When you see how much someone loves doing something and what a strong contribution they’re making, how can you resent it?”
After Marcy’s presidency at the JCC ended, he was asked if he would like to join the board. Until then, he said, “I wasn’t on the radar.” He joked that he said yes just because Marcy was so sure he wouldn’t, but, he admitted, “I do find it hard to say no.” He reckons he isn’t alone in that. “People like to be asked. It’s very seductive.”
He has also said yes to more involvement with their synagogue, Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, serving on the board and conducting Sunday minyanim. Earlier this year, he chaired the annual Leil Iyun, the Night of Jewish Learning hosted by the Central federation and the JCC, and will do so again next year with JCC vice president Stacie Friedman. As he said, in his wife he had “a very inspiring role model.”
The key, he said, is balance. “There’s a fear of over-committing yourself. You want to be able to do things right, without screwing up.” There is definitely less time to kick back after work and watch the Yankees or the Mets on TV, he said, but he finds it fulfilling to be doing so much. “It stretches you. You get much more accomplished, and that’s gratifying.”
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