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Show Joel Shapiro 6/9/82 tp 1 pg 9 L Last time, when we got done with the talk, you le ctured me on the fact that I didn't ask about the institutions. At the time before the war, did your father, or your mo t her , or were you involved, at all , in the struggle in maintaining the congretation? Lid you know anything ab.out that then when you were .•. JS i·,:y perceptions of the struggles of main taining the congregations would be perceptions, I supp ose, (that) took pla ce in Jewish congregations, perhaps, all other kinds of s0cial--of religious institutional forms in this country. The years in which both congregations were supported by tneir memberships, were years in the 20 's and 30's, in which you're really talking about --! mean, these are the years that --of my youth, and I suppose not dissimilar before that . These were not affluent years for middle class Jews . ~here were some rich Jews , yeah, but their numbers were extremely small, at least in this part of the country , or this city . You had a merchant class, which would represent the better- off group , and they weren ' t such a heck of a lot better off . And then maybe so~e others that were employees of this , that , and the other , who were less better off . Now, those were the days before everybody had a management awareness . Now , every institution or refor m we have not only hires executive managers or institutional managers , or ivffiA ' s who-- I think our whole American class institutional struc ture has a high level of management conscliousness . where this has come from--the general culture, obviously . Now , when you got back to the 20 ' s and 30 ' s , and the management of a religi ous congrega tion , the Jewish religious congregation, in my memory, there ' s no management philosophy . Things went on and a board of trustees met , or a board of directors --they used to like to call themselves ' board of trustees'. The very word suggests that they weren't managers . They were trustees -to see that that thing continued. One of the trustees ' job was to meet crisis after crisis after crisis . \'/hether it was personnel, the rabbi leaving, an illness, crisis of charity, crisis of getting books, the leak in the roof, the broken sewer pipes, etc, etc, etc. They proposed budgets, and they proposed dues . But, in the meantime, during the course of the year , it would seem to me, if my memory is any good on this, and I go back , again, to being with my father, there was always some- |
