Departing Federation head looks back on eight years in Dayton

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer
On Oct. 29, the night before 50-plus members of Dayton’s Jewish community were to head to Ben-Gurion Airport for their departure after 10 days in the Jewish state, Hurricane Sandy shut down all airports on the East Coast.

Among the multitude of tour groups stranded in Israel were those with no accommodations and those that had to wait two more weeks to depart.

Not so for the Dayton group. The next confirmed flight out for them would be a week later.

At the first whiff that a hurricane might be headed up the East Coast, the trip’s leader, Jewish Federation Executive Vice President Larry Skolnick — and his staff back in Dayton — were five steps ahead, arranging contingency plans for a second week, including accommodations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, additional tours, refilling prescription medications, and contacting families.

On the morning of Oct. 30, after Skolnick reported back to the group on all of the confirmed arrangements, he was met by a round of applause.

This was the management style that members of the Federation’s executive search committee had witnessed eight years before.

Skolnick, then a candidate to lead Dayton’s Federation, was assistant director of the JCC of the Greater Palm Beaches.

With a storm approaching Florida, they saw him lead the effort to batten down the campus.

Since January 2005, Skolnick has weathered his share of storms in the Dayton Jewish community. Next month, he and his 10-year-old daughter, Sophie, will head to Memphis, where he’ll begin his new job as director of its JCC.

“I came in at a time when there was a lot of transition, a lot of change and financial hardship,” he recalls.

When he arrived, he was charged to carry out difficult tasks the board had already agreed to implement: the sale of the Jewish Community Campus in Trotwood along with significant staff layoffs and budget tightening.

“Coming into the position, the community was very honest with me about the challenges,” he says. “But I had a cadre of dedicated volunteers who were right there with me and an amazing staff. I look at the staff that I’m leaving, a group of professionals who really, at every turn rose to the occasion and helped to move mountains and do incredible things at times when it seemed like those things may not be realistic, but we persevered and we did it.”

Though Dayton’s Jewish population and United Jewish Campaign have continued to gradually decline, since Skolnick’s tenure, the Federation has closed only one year with a budget deficit: the final year the Federation operated the Covenant House nursing home, because of the state’s increased bed taxes.

“This community understands reality,” he says. “This community is willing to make tough decisions, but wants to make sure that whatever changes take place demographically in the community, we’re still meeting community needs.”

He says he’s astounded by people’s continuing generosity.

“The last few years have been incredibly challenging in terms of the economy. It’s impressed me how many of our community members — when I know it was more of a struggle for them — still maintained or increased their (Campaign) gifts because they knew the needs were greater in the Jewish community than ever before.”

Looking back at the Federation’s accomplishments over the past eight years, he points with pride to the DJCC’s Early Childhood Services and summer camp programming, which was held in its entirety at the Boonshoft CJCE last summer for the first time.

“When you look at the future, that’s youth and I think we’ve done an amazing job of revamping programming and engaging kids and young families.”

Skolnick also cites the efforts the community has put into the Federation’s new strategic plan.

“It is a wonderful road map for where this community needs to go,” he says. “I think it is practical, it is realistic. In less than a year we have made some great inroads in terms of enacting that.”

One tangible outcome of the strategic plan, he says, was the recent trip to Israel with members of each Dayton synagogue.

“It was a vision a number of us had as a means of bringing various facets of the community together,” he says.

He believes the greatest challenge ahead for Jewish Dayton is the continuing loss of Jews in the region tied to jobs.

“We’re a smaller community and because of that we have fewer resources. The good news is that most of the organizations in our community have realized that challenge and want to create the most strong, vibrant Jewish community that we can have.”

Skolnick describes leaving Dayton as bittersweet.

“There are a lot of good friends I’m leaving behind and I feel like there’s a lot of work yet to be done. I moved here with a kid who had just turned 2. I could not have expected or imagined a more warm, welcoming, wonderful community. This community embraced us. This has been, personally and professionally, an incredible eight years for me.”