Michael Sonduck, right, and Federation Board Chair Brian Tauber.

LA JOLLA, California – Michael Sonduck, soon to retire as chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, on Sunday, June 10, urged a roomful of well-wishers representing boards, staffs, and financial supporters of some 120 local Jewish organizations in the county, to look beyond their individual organizations and put the welfare of the overall Jewish community first.

After seven speeches from various admirers, Sonduck expressed wonderment that the bruncheon meeting at Congregation Beth El was filled with so many people. “At some point in the last 10 years, I have really ticked off at least all of the people in this room,” he said to some laughter of acknowledgment. Yet, he added, “we found ways to stay colleagues and stay friends and work on the future on behalf of the community.”

Many years ago, the Jewish Federation was the umbrella Jewish agency in San Diego County, with the funds it raised being allocated by its board for local needs, help for overseas Jewish communities, and aid for Israel. There was a “primacy” period when other Jewish organizations refrained from fundraising to permit Federation to conduct its campaigns. That no longer is the case. Once there was a time when the main agencies of the Jewish community (Jewish Family Service, Seacrest Village Retirement Communities, Lawrence Family JCC, Hillel, and the Agency for Jewish Education) and the Jewish day schools (Soille, Chabad, San Diego Jewish Academy) could anticipate automatic grants from the Federation. That is also no longer the case. Today, agencies, day schools, synagogues, and other Jewish organizations raise funds for their own projects year round, while ever more Jewish organizations spring up, with competition for the Jewish dollar becoming that much keener. The Agency for Jewish Education has been merged into the programming of the Lawrence Family JCC.

With private philanthropy funneled through the offices of the Jewish Community Foundation having become a larger source of grants than the Federation’s allocations, the Federation has assumed a far more modest role than it once played. Under Sonduck’s leadership in these changing times, the Federation has retooled its allocations process. It favors providing seed money for collaborative efforts bringing together the resources of multiple partners within the Jewish community. The surviving agencies and schools must compete for grants based on needs that the Federation board decides are most pressing for the community. Additionally, the Federation has taken on the role of convener, coordinator, and instigator as new community needs survive. Whereas, once there was near unanimity in the community for the Federation’s support for Israel, that support has eroded, both under the pressure of domestic needs and controversy over Israeli policies toward Palestinians and toward non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

Taking a tip from the poet Dylan Thomas, Sonduck did “not go gentle into the good night,” but instead remonstrated with his listeners that too much preoccupation with single programs, at the expense of the overall Jewish community, can be harmful, even destructive.

“When the prosperity of any one organization within our community becomes more important than the overall community, the seeds of failure will have been set in motion,” he said. “It may well be irreversible.”

“As a result of the competitive landscape in which we live,” he added, “there is public divisiveness, name calling, and an utter disregard for civil discourse in our community. Are we really served by our western-gunslinger, every-man-for-himself-or-herself culture? As you know already, I don’t think so."

“We live in one of the most prosperous and generous communities in North America and yet there is poverty that we don’t address; Holocaust survivors who live in substandard SRO [single-room occupancy] housing; interfaith couples feeling excluded from Jewish life; single parents unable to pay for a Jewish education; mentally challenged young adults with insufficient funds to meet their own needs; and physically and economically challenged members of our community who feel like outsiders, and the list goes on and on.”

Sonduck said such issues “cannot and will not be addressed by any one organization in the community.”

“Without raising our eyes to see the whole community, we will not see the path to their solution,” he said. “We must dedicate our zeal to the whole community regardless of the board on which we are members, or who pays our salary, or which synagogue we belong to, or whether we believe that one should never criticize Israel in public, or whether we believe that as in a loving family, we should call out our brethren when they don’t live up to our shared vision.”

Sonduck reminded his audience of Rabbi Tarfon’s adage from Pirke Avot that “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.”

He concluded his remarks by saying, “May God give each of us in the organizations in our community the strength to ... occupy ourselves with the needs of the community.”

With a catch in his throat, he added: “Thank you for giving me the privilege of doing that.”

To some degree, Sonduck’s comments were presaged by those of Rabbi Philip Graubart, the former rabbi of Congregation Beth El, who related the biblical story of the followers of Korach, “a band of rebels who come before Moses and Aaron and the earth swallows them up.”

“That is something you’d sometimes like to see if you are a leader,” Graubart quipped. There is a midrash that the followers of Korach really didn’t die, that God set up a space for them on a shelf – on the lip of the earth – where they still are today, singing songs – lamentations.

“That is an amazing image,” commented the rabbi. “It is an amazing, profound comment on dissent in the Jewish community. Sometimes, we want to bury it, or swallow it. We don’t want to hear it.  But actually it is a song. The question is, ‘What do you want to do with the voice of dissent?’ Very often you want to bury it, but if you can bring yourself the empathy and the intellectual rigor to listen, because it is right there on the lip of the earth, then it becomes a song, it becomes a melody, a harmony that you can institute right into your institutions.”

Without mentioning by name Michael Steinhardt, the founder of the Birthright program, Graubart told how he had been confronted by opponents of the Birthright program which provides young Jews with free trips to Israel. The opponents were calling on Jews to refuse the trips, to return their tickets in favor of Palestinians being able to return to lands their families once occupied. There was a photo of Steinhardt brandishing his middle finger at the protesters. “In the photo,” said Graubart, “there is incredible bitterness and anger on his face” as well as on the faces of the protesters.

“I was thinking ‘That is us, that is what we have become.’ What do we do with dissent? Are we giving it the finger? Is there a song there, a melody, a harmony that we can incorporate?”

He added, “One of the outstanding qualities of Michael [Sonduck] is his ability to listen; a complaint isn’t a complaint, it is a kind of song, a kind of melody.” With Sonduck leaving, “it is something we are going to miss a lot.”

Sonduck’s and Graubart’s commentaries contrasted with the nostalgic tone struck by most of the speakers who had come to honor Sonduck’s service to the San Diego Jewish community.

First up was Claire Ellman, who told of a meeting on March 23, 2012 with Sonduck in which as board chair of the Federation, she steered Sonduck to the kitchen of a La Jolla restaurant to find a private space “to sign his first president and CEO contract. What a place to do it! Why didn’t we wait to do it in a more professional space or even in a car? I have no idea, but all I do remember was a sense of future relief once it was signed. I had a commitment from the man who would be my partner… until the end of my term before passing it on to Teresa (Dupuis) and Brian (Tauber). Michael’s previous six years from 2006 to 2012 as COO and then six months as interim CEO proved to us all that his dedication and commitment were steadfast, and his passion for our mission was of utmost importance and value.”

After Graubart came Emma Sonduck, who attended with her brother Noah the ceremony to honor their father.

She said their father’s lifelong commitment to the Jewish faith was an extension of his parents’ lives: His father was a co-founder of Temple Beth Shalom in Park Forest, Illinois, and his mother a committed member of the Sisterhood, B’nai B’rith, and other charitable and social justice organizations.

She said when she was 10 years old, her father began taking her to Saturday morning minyan. “In a small back chapel at the far end of the building, a devoted group of older temple members and our associate rabbi would meet. I was almost always the only child present, and often the only female, and yet I was welcomed. I was invited to ask questions and to participate.”

She added that her father “has always looked to connect the next generation to Judaism.”

San Diego City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, president pro tem of the San Diego City Council, presented a proclamation of the Council that was signed by Mayor Kevin Faulconer declaring June 10 to be “Michael Sonduck Day” in the City of San Diego. “I got to know Michael when I served on the board of the Jewish Community Foundation and as chair of the Jewish Women’s Foundation’s Advisory Board. … When Michael took over at Federation it was a very challenging time, and I remember having a meeting with Michael and with Claire Ellman and I was actually wary of Michael’s ability to turn Federation into a relevant organization that would meaningfully address the next generation. Well, Michael, you have proved me wrong. You have done an amazing job, and I have become a Lion of Judah [a title for those who contribute $5,000 or more to the Federation] in your honor.”

Next at the dais was Michael Hopkins, CEO of Jewish Family Service of San Diego. He quipped that he is “one of the four Michaels who helped lead our community.” In addition to Sonduck and Hopkins, he referred to Michael Rabkin, who recently left his post as director of Hillel of San Diego to take another position in the national Hillel organization, and Michael Cohen, who recently retired as CEO of the Lawrence Family JCC. “I think now I will be the only one standing,” said Hopkins.

Referring to Sonduck’s husband, David, with whom he rehearsed the line, Hopkins said, “He is stepping down as the First Lady of our community. It’s a little sad.” From the audience, David Zeligson responded with a cheery smile and some gay humor, “There will be more time for shopping!”

Hopkins recalled that when he and Sonduck first started having lunches together, they were 100 percent business, but over time, they became 50 percent business, 50 percent personal in which they talked about their children, and their ex-wives.

He said that Sonduck would bring together the various agencies of the community whenever he felt combined efforts were necessary, as for example, preparing for the occasional wildfires that sweep through San Diego communities, leaving many people homeless, and in despair.

“He took seriously his role as a convener, and with us as executives, that was his place. … He is not only an amazing listener, he is an amazing communicator. … You know exactly where he stands; you know exactly his perspective … and [he is] very open to different perspectives.”

Three members of the Federation staff – Melissa Chapman, Susan Halliday, and Darren Schwartz – thereafter engaged the brunch crowd in a “blackout bingo” game in which they read off various “Sonduckisms” – that is sayings that Sonduck used to employ during staff meetings. With a “free space” in the middle of a card with nine spaces in total, they took turns reading some of them. Audience members were to cross out the saying on their cards, until every space on the card was crossed out.

“Get it in US dollars”
“Get out of the weeds”
“When you have a chance, but as soon as possible”
“Don’t get caught in your underwear”
“It’s your nickel”
“Bless her heart”
“Work thru the knot hole”
“Don’t let the tail wag the dog”
“How you start is how you finish”
“Do more with less”
“They have Boku Dinero”
“Let’s unpack that”
“It’s both, AND”
“This is in your wheelhouse”

The staff members cleverly calibrated their readings so almost the entire room called out “Bingo!” at the same time.

They were followed by Brian Tauber, the current board chair of the Federation. “For Federations across the nation, for a long time, clouds have been gathering on the horizon,” he said. “San Diego, almost singularly, had the courage to seek change. It is not change around the edges, this is paradigmatic change of an organization that in San Diego is 84 years old… The most difficult kind of leadership there is, is change leadership. It’s Michael’s vision and commitment on this journey that has put us on the leading edge, that has created an environment and has gotten this Federation out front and to fulfill a critical role in this community. Rest assured we are being watched by the rest of the nation to see how this works…

“It was Michael’s vision, his strength of conviction, through firestorms and the blinding spotlight of public scrutiny that has gotten us to get this ship moving in a different direction,” Tauber said. “Michael has an undying commitment to community, a commitment I share. It’s about Federation being a part of the community; it’s not about Federation being the community. It is an important distinction … and this has led to a new era of amity, collaboration, and cooperation where community is at the forefront of what we want to serve.”

The final speaker was Theresa Dupuis, a former Federation board chair, who thanked Sonduck for his leadership, “for always pushing us to be better,” and for the “impact that you had on our community and that you will have for generations to come.”

Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com.