Local NCJW section to leave organization
Independent nonprofit will be called Tovah
The Essex County section of the National Council of Jewish Women is leaving its parent organization. The change, expected to happen this summer, will result in it becoming a new, independent, nonprofit agency called Tovah, the Hebrew word that means “good.”
The move is in response to the National Council of Jewish Women’s new strategic plan, which offers three options to its sections, as its local chapters are called. They are integration, affiliation, or the Essex group’s choice, disaffiliation.
The National Council of Jewish Women was founded in 1893, and has taken the exhortation from Deuteronomy 16:22, “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” as its guiding text. According to its website, ncjw.org, it is “the oldest Jewish feminist civil rights organization working for equity and justice for women, children, and families in the United States and Israel.”
On the national level, NCJW advocates for expanding access to abortion services, promoting and protecting people’s right to vote, keeping an eye on our court system and what goes on there, and working for the rights of women and girls in Israel.
“We have been part of NCJW for over 100 years,” Debra Lewis, the Essex County section’s communications director, said. “When the national organization presented the section with a new business plan in April of 2024, we were interested in chatting with them about it, learning more about it.
“Over the course of the last couple of years, we spent a lot of time and energy and focus trying to understand what it would mean for the community service work that NCJW Essex does on the ground here.”
Those programs include its Back 2 School Store, which, according to its press release, “creates a magical shopping experience each summer to outfit nearly 1,000 children with clothes, coats, sneakers, school supplies, books, and more.” There is also the Center for Women, which, according to the same press release, “counsels and guides hundreds of women on their employment journeys.”
“We are an organization that is about community service, local advocacy, and bringing people together,” Ms. Lewis said. “So, after a long set of considerations, our board decided to separate from the national organization, because we felt our future was as an independent organization. We felt that this is best way for us to continue to do our work. And we are very fortunate to have the financial foundation and the commitment of our leadership to be able to do it.
“We want to continue to be in a position to help women and children.”
Although the group’s legal status and name will change, the work that Tovah does will not, Ms. Lewis said.
“We will still provide volunteer opportunities for anyone who would like to volunteer. The vast majority of our membership is Jewish women, but if others want to be part of it, that’s great. We are nonsectarian and inclusive.”
It’s not easy to find a new name for an organization. “We had a committee that met over many months,” Ms. Lewis said. “You’d be surprised at how many organizations use the words ‘Jewish women.’ So we had a conversation about availability, but we wanted something that was representative of our values. Something that signaled that we are a Jewish organization. And we like the idea of good.”
The new group’s tagline will follow its name, so it will be Tovah: A Community of Jewish Women Who Connect, Volunteer, and Advocate, Ms. Lewis said.
“We do good work,” she said. “We create good opportunities for our volunteers and for our members. We engender good feelings. That is what we are here for.”
Ellen Buchman is NCJW’s vice president for engagement and leadership. She provided some background for the Essex section’s move.
“Late last year we completed our new strategic plan,” she said. “It is a plan to reinvigorate our 133-year-old national organization. We were using an antiquated model that really needed to be updated.
“About three years ago, the board embarked on a project to research NCJW — its sections, its solvency, its ability to maintain solvency from the section level. It got input from NCJW leaders at all levels, but mainly on the local level, to enable a better, clearer understanding of the challenges that individuals and sections were having in maintaining that solvency. We determined that a new way forward needed to be actualized, because experiences like financial insolvency and the inability to maintain an organization professionally and ensure that it could and should continue were increasing, and leadership pipelines were slowly and sadly diminishing.”
The national leaders also knew that it is hard in general for organizations like NCJW to attract younger members, who tend to be less interested in joining groups than their mothers and grandmothers had been.
The result of the information the researchers gathered was the new strategic plan, which will reshape the organization.
“We gave the sections choices to make over the course of a two-year period,” Ms. Buchman said. There are now 49 sections, spread across 28 states; five of them are in New Jersey. Of those five, two are in Bergen County — the Bergenfield-based Bergen County section and the Paramus-based Jersey Hills sections. Two are in MetroWest — Essex, based in Livingston, and the Mount Freedom-based West Morris section. The fifth, in Edison, is the Metro Jersey section. Of those five, only Essex has announced a decision to leave.
The three choices those 49 sections face are to “integrate into NCJW,” Ms. Buchman said. “Join the mothership.”
The second choice “is to affiliate,” she continued. “That choice is not for everyone. It’s meant for the biggest sections, with a budget upward of $750,000 a year.” There are six sections in that category — there had been seven, but the seventh is Essex.
The third choice — Essex’s choice — is to disaffiliate.
“In our 133 years, our governing documents had no language about disaffiliation,” Ms. Buchman said. “We decided we wanted to add it. If sections don’t see themselves as integrating, or if they can’t or don’t want to affiliate, we wanted to give them the option to continue their work. There is enough work necessary to improve lives. We would never say don’t do it.”
So far, only two sections have decided to disaffiliate, Ms. Bachman said. One is Essex. The other is in Arizona. The reasons are entirely different. “They do a considerable amount of litigation, and to retain their standing in their state they have to be an independent entity,” she said. “So becoming an integrated section was not a viable solution for them. So we said, ‘Keeping doing what you’re doing!’”
Disaffiliation wouldn’t be a decision that any section would take lightly, Ms. Buchman said. Many people would have a strong emotional pull toward staying. “Our NCJW leaders are a proud group,” she said. “They are very serious about their association with NCJW. I’m sure that the Essex leadership took quite a while to make that decision.
“We wish them well,” she added. “We were disappointed. We want them to be part of us forever. But we wish them well. And lord knows that there is enough work for all of us to do! We want them to continue to do the great work that they do so well.”
comments