It's Who You Know! The Podcast · Michelle W. Malkin: Nonprofit Jewish Professional

Making Your Own Path with Rabbi Noah Farkas, President & CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

·1 hr 5 min·2 clips

The conversation starts with a warm welcome and a small correction about whether Noah Farkas is the CEO or the president and CEO; technically, it is president and CEO. Michelle W. Malkin quickly hands him the microphone and asks him to tell his own story. He offers the short version first. He spent 14 and a half years as a pulpit rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino. Before that, he was in New York as a student. He also worked with a synagogue in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Along the way, he spent time in innovation spaces and next-generation Jewish engagement. The interview then moves from biography to institutional work. Farkas describes the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles as much more than it appears from the outside. He says the organization partners with its donors and with hundreds of thousands of people to decide what is best for the Jewish community. He points to a major strategic planning process that included hundreds of interviews and panels. That process began last October, before he arrived in the role. He says the plan is to reveal what the Federation learned by Rosh Hashanah. He stresses that the work happens breath by breath and step by step. He says every person there is thinking about how to help the Jewish community every day. He also says they wish more people understood what the Federation actually does. He adds that they wish they had more money to give away because that is the core of their pride. The conversation then opens up into specific programs he had not known about before taking the job. He mentions an office in Israel that lifts Israelis out of poverty. He points to work that brings Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews together in the name of social cohesion. He describes the Federation's rapid mobilization in response to the Ukraine war, including $5.6 million to help move 40,000 Jewish refugees out of harm's way. He also talks about workforce development in Israel so people can be absorbed there. Another surprise is the only Russian-speaking and now Ukrainian-speaking Jewish full-time summer camp in the country. He says the Federation flew refugee children from around the country to California for two weeks of camp. The exchange closes on gratitude, Shabbat Shalom, and a clear sense that the role is both administrative and deeply communal.

As heard by us

A grounded look at Jewish communal leadership as practical, ongoing work.

Rabbi Noah Farkas frames a new title in terms of the work it actually requires. After 14 and a half years as a pulpit rabbi in Encino at Valley Beth Shalom, he moves into the wider demands of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, where donor partnership and strategic planning…

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Curious how a Federation leader thinks about community from the inside?

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