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Economy Rabbis

CCRJ Working Conditions Study 2020: Developing a Structure for Comparing Canadian and United States Rabbinical Employment Conditions

In early 2020, the Reform Rabbis of Canada (RROC), Canadian Council for Reform Judaism (CCRJ), the URJ, and the CCAR commissioned David Baskin to look at the question of how we compare United States and Canadian rabbinic salaries. Baskin is a lawyer and wealth management professional in Toronto with deep ties to our Canadian Reform Jewish community. We are grateful that he threw himself deeply and enthusiastically into this challenging puzzle.

For years, rabbis and congregations have confronted the issue that while both Canada and the United States refer to their respective currencies as “dollars,” the purchasing power of those dollars differs greatly because of their relative value to each other and the structural differences in the social and economic systems of both countries.

This document lays out the areas that should be considered when comparing compensation packages in the U.S. and Canada.

As Baskin points out, “A very common error is taking a U.S. package of, for example, $150,000 USD and saying, well, that’s equal to $200,000 Canadian dollars, so those are comparable salaries. This ignores a lot of nuance and complexity.”

A slightly better approach is to compare after-tax packages, which will vary from state to state and province to province. This is easy to do with online resources. Even better, if more complex, is to look at after-tax and after-healthcare costs. The RPB and the CCAR do not have comprehensive data on U.S. health care benefits, and this can be a major component of the cross-border comparison.

Finally, it is a mistake to ignore “soft” factors such as purchasing power, employment standards, parental leave, human rights protections, and child-related expenses. 

This document is a first-of-its-kind and a long-overdue attempt to help both rabbis and congregations make better use of the CCAR Rabbinic Compensation study data and comparisons as it relates Canadian congregations and their rabbis. (The CCAR is currently at work on the next iteration of the compensation study.)

A huge thank you to David Baskin for his diligent work on this project, and to Pekka Sinervo, Sandy Pelly, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Rabbi Ron Segal, Rabbi Hara Person, and Rabbi Cindy Enger for their help and support for this project.


Rabbi Dan Moskovitz serves Temple Sholom in Vancouver, BC and also serves as the Chair of Reform Rabbis of Canada.
Please visit our website to view the full CCRJ Working Conditions Study 2020.

Categories
Economy

Wandering in the Wilderness: Jewish Leadership, Values, and Partnership during an Economic Crisis

Perhaps this is your congregation: Your board is very worried as membership and school fees are slow to come in. Their search for solutions has started: Cut all employees’ salaries for the coming fiscal year by a set percentage? Significantly decrease the congregation’s contribution to employee health insurance? Lay off employees?

We Jews have a long history of wandering in the wilderness, the unknown, but it does not necessarily make difficult financial decisions during this crisis easier. Both professional and lay leaders wonder how to find a path forward in a manner reflecting the sacred partnership between employer and employee.  

The economic crisis caused by the pandemic is not going away and, in fact, could get worse. As a result, downsizing or payroll reductions are part of current congregational conversations. Amid this stressful context, principles of equity and fairness can get lost. Instead, we urge Jewish professional and lay leaders to ensure that short-term fixes do not become worse than the problem. These fixes can break trust in the sacred partnership among clergy, staff, and community, harm the reputation of our congregations, and can lead to smaller, disconnected communities down the road.

First, the best practices of decision-making must be utilized. We are all operating, perhaps fearfully, in new territory. The health and well-being of the congregation is a shared communal responsibility—neither the rabbi nor the staff nor the lay leaders nor even the biggest donors can ensure congregational health alone. With that recognition, a process of careful, collaborative decision-making is needed. What sometimes appears to take too much time in terms of consulting with all stakeholders, gathering options, ensuring that there is understanding and acceptance allows the board to move fast once the decision is made. Furthermore, transparency—who made the decision? what factors were evaluated?—leads to more trust from stakeholders as well.

Second, keep equity in mind and bias at bay. While most claim gender is not a factor in employment, we often see this bias in unspoken assumptions. Sometimes these come straight from the worst assumptions in business—that an “ideal” worker is one who can devote the most time to work and has no other priorities. Under this fallacy, anything less than a full-time position is devalued (“if it’s so important, why isn’t it full-time?”) and employees with childcare responsibilities are assumed to be less committed. Bias also comes from assumptions that the woman’s salary is the “second” salary of the household and, therefore, not as needed (“let’s protect the male ‘breadwinner’ salaries at the expense of the ‘second’ salaries”).

A third consideration—we should not assume a fixed pie of assets or a fixed set of job descriptions and that there is nothing a congregation can do other than cut salaries. Here too, good processes can help. Some congregations have moved up or added to their fundraising calendars (successfully) to ensure their budgets are intact. For others, the congregation has been able to find creative ways to cut costs or shift personnel to new tasks (i.e. Zoom guru.) And, when budget cutting is unavoidable, consulting with those affected is crucial: Is health care coverage and pension more important than salary; is furloughing better than shifting to fewer hours; even gauging interest in early retirement or voluntarily reduced hours. Brainstorming with the Jewish professionals might reveal ideas that the board leadership have not considered. 

Our top suggestions to promote equity in a crisis:

  1. Check your bias—reflect on what assumptions go into how reductions and downsizing are decided.
  2. Double-check after scenario planning that there are not unintended consequences that particularly harm women, people of color, and other vulnerable populations—and then track this data. Correct, if needed, before continuing with the decisions. Repeat this process when re-staffing occurs: Who is brought back to full pay or full-time?
  3. Equity and equality are different. Fairness does not mean everyone is treated equally. People have different needs and are in different situations (i.e., across the board pay reductions are far more devastating at the lower end of the pay scale).
  4. The most highly compensated can take the lead on pay reductions or voluntary give-back donations. Publicize this broadly. This does not mean breaking contracts or strong-arming employees, however. Concessions should be free-will offerings.
  5. Balance between the economic health of the community and of the clergy and staff. For communities where the economic impact has not been so harsh, it is incongruous to insist on pay reductions. On the other hand, in communities hard hit, difficult decisions made in partnership are necessary.
  6. Consult with key stakeholders (community, clergy, staff, board, and other legal and financial experts) throughout the process. Go slow to go fast.
  7. Consider transparency at every step to build trust.
    • Make the decision-making process transparent (i.e., this is who we consulted) even when employment outcomes are private.
    • Consider the timing of announcements and the sharing of information, as well as the balance of what is private versus appropriate so that everyone feels included and supported.
    • Consult with affected parties how outcomes should be communicated (i.e., when layoffs are announced; with names or just positions; by whom and to whom).
  1. Trust is hard to build and even harder to rebuild—assume the relationship is a long term one and act accordingly. Even those laid off from a congregation often stay as members and are part of the community. The ripple effects of broken trust—feeling unfairly treated—will permeate the larger community.
  2. Remember that decisions made now accrue to the reputation of the congregation. These can both create stronger reputations when a crisis is handled well or can harm a reputation when decisions are poorly made. And, of course, this reputation affects future relationships among clergy, staff, the board, and the community.

At times of crisis, we want to move quickly, reacting immediately. However, that can yield unintended damage. In this wilderness, the financial unknown, we must lead with our Jewish values, utilizing the best practices of process to ensure equity and maintain the sacred trust in our communities.



Rabbi Mary L. Zamore is the Executive Director of Women’s Rabbinic Network, co-leading the Reform Pay Equity Initiative, and her most recent anthology is
The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic (CCAR Press: 2019). Andrea Kupfer Schneider is a Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Marquette University. 

[1] An earlier iteration of this article appeared in The Forward, Scribe Blog on July 7, 2020. This is based on a presentation available in the URJ Tent, produced in partnership by the Union for Reform Judaism, National Association for Temple Administration, Women of Reform Judaism, and Women’s Rabbinical Network on behalf of the Reform Pay Equity Initiative with funding from the Safety Respect Equity Coalition.

Categories
Economy omer Shavuot Social Justice spirituality

Economic Stability: An Ageless Quest

Last fall, my husband and I ordered a new sukkah decoration straight from Israel. The package arrived with a free magnet, imprinted with the image of a woman holding an umbrella, walking in the rain. The magnet had one word on it. Sasson (“joy”). It took me a moment, and then I realized my cultural gap. Living in New Jersey, joy is not the word I associate with rain. However, in Israel and other arid climates, rain is pure joy, because it is desperately needed. 

This week’s Torah portion, Emor, includes a section on the holidays, a calendar chiefly driven by the agrarian cycle. Theses verses are relevant to modern Jews because, thousands of years later, we still celebrate the holidays, albeit with layers of development around our rituals, but at the core, these holidays are still the same. But to be honest, the descriptions of the biblical holiday sacrifices, meal and fruit offerings, and animal sacrifices, do not resonate when compared to my modern observance of Judaism. 

For example, the parashah describes the counting of the Omer, the annual schlepping of grain offerings for seven weeks. This daily offering of grain bridged the barley harvest of Passover to the wheat harvest of Shavuot. But how do I count the Omer today? Do I schlep a bundle of barely to the Temple, to be offered, in recognition of God as source of all? Not at all! Today, an app on my phone sends me a reminder every night at sundown, and I count the Omer, with words. Done. 

Given the vast differences between now and biblical times, it is easy to forget how scary the harvest cycle would have been for our ancestors. In the winter they waited nervously to see if there would be enough rain to sustain the growth of their crops to feed their family and their animals. Then after the rains of winter, once the crops were planted, it was a waiting game. Would they be able to harvest the crops before something bad happened? The possibilities for failure were endless: too much heat, not enough water, locusts, or some other plague. It was a precarious time.

As the modern plague of COVID-19 unfolds, we are foremost concerned about life and health. However, we also hold our breaths as we watch the world’s economy spin out of control. Therefore, this year, while we count the Omer, we also count our balances in checking accounts and retirement funds. We wait to see if jobs will continue or salaries will be cut. And we deeply understand the fears of our ancestors, who prayed to be sustained by their storerooms. The biblical fears are near to us as ever. Our holidays, with their deep agrarian roots, are ultimately about the basic human need, shared by every generation, to have enough to sustain us, even when times are tough.

This desire for economic stability and sustenance is voiced in the following passage, added in some communities historically, at the conclusion of the daily morning service.

First, the community would read the passage from Exodus 16 about the manna and then add something like this example: 

יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, שֶׁתַּזְמִין פַּרְנָסָה לְכָל עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וּפַרְנָסָתִי וּפַרְנָסַת אַנְשֵׁי בֵיתִי בִּכְלָלָם, בְּנַחַת וְלֹא בְּצַעַר, בְּכָבוֹד וְלֹא בְּבִזּוּי, בְּהֶתֵּר וְלֹא בְּאִסּוּר, כְּדֵי שֶׁנּוּכַל לַעֲבוֹד עֲבוֹדָתֶךָ וְלִלְמוֹד תּוֹרָתֶךָ כְּמוֹ שֶׁזַּנְתָּ לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ מָן בַּמִּדְבָּר בְּאֶרֶץ צִיָּה וַעֲרָבָה:

May it be Your will, Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, to provide sustenance for all Your people, the House of Israel, and sustenance for me and all the members of my household, with pleasantness and not with suffering, with honor and not with degradation, through permissible activities and not forbidden activities, so that we will be able to serve You and to learn Your Torah, just as you sustained our ancestors in the wilderness with Manna in a dry and desert land.[1]

Our Torah portion and this liturgical addition are examples of the human desire for economic stability. Our tradition does not suggest we merely pray for sustenance, but rather balance our longing for stability with financial literacy, community resources, educational opportunities, and generosity to others through tzedakah

Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Elders, 3:17 teaches these famous words from Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya: 

אִם אֵין קֶמַח, אֵין תּוֹרָה. אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה, אֵין קֶמַח.

If there is no flour [meaning ability to earn money], there is no Torah. If there is no Torah, there is no flour [ability to earn money]. This is frequently interpreted as: the religious, spiritual, and ethical teachings of Torah must co-dwell with the mundane matters of earning money and sustaining ourselves. One realm should not exist without the other. 

The line in Pirkei Avot just before the flour/Torah teaching adds: 

אִם אֵין בִּינָה, אֵין דַּעַת. אִם אֵין דַּעַת, אֵין בִּינָה.

If there is no knowledge, there is no understanding; if there is no understanding, there is no knowledge.

Perhaps, at this time of economic instability, we can read these lines together to understand that economic stability must be built on the best of Jewish values and the best of secular financial knowledge. 

May you and your loved ones know health and financial security, Torah and generosity, and therefore know sasson, (“joy”).

[1] Robert Scheinberg, “Money and Transaction in Jewish Liturgy and Rituals” in Mary Zamore, ed., The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic (New York: CCAR Press, 2019), 335.


Rabbi Mary L. Zamore is the editor of and a contributing author to two acclaimed CCAR Press Challenge and Change anthologies, The Sacred Exchange: Creating A Jewish Money Ethic (2019) and The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethic (2011). The Sacred Table was designated a finalist by the National Jewish Book Awards. She is also the Executive Director of Women’s Rabbinic Network.