In last week's JC, Rabbis Brawer and Romain addressed the thorny issue of rabbinic remuneration and particularly the extent to which members of a community should know how much their spiritual leader is paid. Neither felt it was particularly fair that the rabbi's pay-packet should be made public, but both conceded it was probably best if the figure was not concealed.
The publishing of salaries is still treated suspiciously. When this paper listed the Jewish community's highest paid charity executives there was much consternation. Behind this discomfort is the idea that the earnings' league table is made available just to satisfy our voyeuristic tendencies.
But there is another side to this, the point barely touched upon by Brawer or Romain, that rabbis are public servants and should be scrutinised as such. It would be unthinkable nowadays that anybody paid by the taxpayer should be able to hide how much they are taking from the purse. If you want to earn a living funded from the income of others, it is only right that those paying know where their money is going. More importantly, we should know what to expect in return.
The role of the rabbi in a modern community, particularly a community that is looking to grow, needs to change. It is illogical to think that an outstanding local GP would also fill the role of the practice manager, and thrive in both positions. A Jewish community is no different.
Those synagogues with thousands of members need to stop looking at their rabbinic appointments in isolation. Communities have a variety of members with a variety of needs. Some will be spiritual, others, for example, will be social- or welfare-related. Instead of trying to take on all these roles, the rabbi must work as part of a team to deliver a multitude of services to their congregants.
Rabbis earn more than many in their flock
We are selling ourselves short if we continue to expect a rabbi to be a master of all trades. Similarly, all too often, rabbis involve themselves in areas where they have little or no practical experience. It is time congregations looked at allocating their budgets differently.
A good rabbi is still, undoubtedly, a priority for all communities. But understanding where his or her skills fit in to the wider needs of the congregants and where they need to be supplemented by other professionals, is what will really enable communal growth. The rabbis should see themselves in this light.
If more and more people want to come to shul to hear a sermon, or have a certain rabbi address their child at bar- or batmitzvah, then financial representatives will be rubbing their hands with glee as membership figures and revenues soar. Of course, the opposite is no less true…
What was most telling in the responses of the JC's rabbinic problem-solving duo was that they said more about the way rabbis see themselves than how we see them.
It seems that our clergy believe they are overworked, underpaid and undervalued. Yet this really does underline an outdated mindset. Nowadays, rabbis can earn considerably more than many congregants. Add to that a generous pension, entertainment allowance and, in some cases, housing as an untaxed benefit, and the picture becomes one of a relatively well looked after professional.
That is, of course, until you compare the rabbinic salary at a flagship UK community of 1,000-plus members with a similarly sized congregation in the States.
In London, the Rabbi would do well to be paid £90,000 a year. In America, the average is $250,000 sometimes even nearly twice that. Assistant rabbis can take home $100,000 a year, dwarfing their UK counterparts.
No wonder that even the biggest jobs in our own community fail to attract applicants from across the Atlantic.
The role of a rabbi, no less than the role of a community, is integral to engaging with and inspiring Jewish life. If building dynamic communities is important to us, then we should be looking to financially back our leadership, spiritual and otherwise, in order to ensure the best possible return on what is without question our most important long-term investment.
It might be the unsociable hours. Or perhaps the unreasonably high expectations from congregants. But it should no longer be the case that a rabbi's salary is what makes it an inappropriate career choice for a nice Jewish boy or girl.
