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[DESCRIPTION] Touro Talks intro displaying photos of students and faculty across the university, fading into the Touro University logo.

[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, Navigating and Balancing Jewish Identity - A Conversation with Leaders in Corporate America, May 18, 2023. Touro Talks is sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg.

[DESCRIPTION] Dr. Alan Kadish, David Sable, Debra Benovitz, Allen Fagin, and Nahum Twersky appear in a grid-like Zoom format. The Touro University logo is at the bottom right

[ALAN KADISH] I'm Dr. Alan Kadish. I'm the president of Touro University. I'm not a lawyer, I'm a cardiologist, but will give the Jewish Law Institute a shot, in any case, tonight.

Tonight, as Sam Levine said, we're going to talk about navigating and balancing Jewish identity in corporate America. It's a very complicated time in the United States for identity and for group identity. On the one hand, individual identity and diversity has been celebrated. On the other hand, not all identity is always created equal in the United States currently. And Jews, and observant Jews, sometimes have to deal with the issue of how overtly to express their Jewish identity in the corporate environment.

Will it inhibit their career chances? Will it, in some cases, perhaps be viewed positively? And there are challenges both in terms of general identity, as well as in terms of religious observance, which often have to be dealt with in the corporate environment. And so we're going to try to deal with some of those issues tonight.

We have really a phenomenal panel of extraordinary, successful Jews who have had a great corporate career. And we hope to be able to use their experience to tell our students, as well as others who are interested, about how to deal with some of these tough issues.

So in alphabetical order, our three panelists are Deb Benovitz, who joined WeightWatchers in 2014, and currently serves as Senior Vice President, Global Insights and Innovation. In that role, she delivers strategic consumer insights to drive business growth and manages the Innovation, Insights, and User Experience teams.

She has more than 35 years of experience in leading consumer-focused and digital companies, and has played a key role in the transformation of major brands such as LEGO, Dove, Pepsi, and WeightWatchers. And in those 35 years, she's obviously had a number of different experiences. And I'm very anxious to hear about some of those and the advice that she can provide to all of us.

Allen Fagin began his legal career at Proskauer Rose in 1976. In 2005, he was elected Chairman of Proskauer, and the firm grew to over 750 lawyers and 1,500 employees, and opened offices in several international locations. Following his retirement from Proskauer, he took on the role of Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union, and currently serves as a member of the Board and Senior Advisor to Validity Finance. And in full disclosure, is also on the Board of Directors of Touro University.

Our third panelist is David Sable. David was the Global CEO and Chairman of Young & Rubicam, which is a global creative firm, and he propelled his firm to one of the top five global creative firms. He also expanded the global footprint and managed a merger and consolidation.

He's currently the Co-Founder and Partner of Doable, a brand strategy and marketing collective. He spends a lot of time, however, volunteering for not-for-profit organizations, including serving on the Board of Directors of UNICEF, the International Special Olympics, American Eagle, Ethan Allen, as well as on the Executive Board of the United Negro College Foundation.

So I'd like to welcome the three of you to our panel tonight. I have several questions that we've talked about a little bit in advance, and the questions really are for all of you. So I'll ask one of you the questions, and then we'll potentially go around the panel and see how people's experience differently. So--

[NAHUM TWERSKY] Excuse me one second. We have to unmute each of the presenters.

[ALAN KADISH] It will work better that way. So Deb, I'll start with you.

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] OK.

[ALAN KADISH] So the first question is, can you describe one or two challenges you faced in navigating and balancing your Jewish identity in corporate America? And how did you deal with them, and what was the end result?

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] Sure. So my very first challenge actually started before I entered corporate America, and that was simply that there were no role models of observant women in corporate America at all.

In fact, my favorite story of my career was 40 years ago when I walked into Stanley Kaplan's planning to go to law school, the guy at the front desk said to me, "Wait, I've been watching you for a couple of weeks. You should actually be in corporate America." And I said to him, "I don't actually know what that means. And I'm taking my LSAT." He said, "Well, the GMATs are also coming up, why don't you take that as well?" And I had absolutely no one to turn to.

And very few male role models either in corporate America 40 years ago. You were generous when you said 35, but it's actually 40 years that I've been doing this, and there were no role models then. I will say, that's why I joined this panel. I am thrilled to help anyone who is listening, and I love being a role model today for anybody that is trying to balance observant Judaism and corporate America. So that was the first challenge.

The second challenge, also seemingly small, was once I got into corporate America, I didn't know the language to even explain that I was an observant Jew. My second-favorite story is when I took the job-- and by the way, I did take the job without telling them about my practices, and then walked into the HR office to explain, and I said-- and I still cringe today, 40 years later, to the Director of HR, "I need to explain something to you. I turn into a pumpkin like Cinderella at 3 o'clock on Friday."

And the lovely director turned to me and said, "We call that a hard stop." And I started to then learn the language around how to explain the rules and practices that I was going into the job with. So that was a second one.

And then the biggest one that I'm sure everyone faces, and I still face today, and it is a challenge, is that not only do we have a hard stop on Friday, but there are days where we are completely inflexible, and that does make it hard in a career where flexibility is the name of the game, and we work weekends when we need to roll up our sleeves.

And to that, I'll say that that is still a challenge, but I think you can overcompensate by working a bit extra hard on the days where you can, and being really clear in advance about the days that you can't, and being super consistent.

[ALAN KADISH] So let me ask you a couple of questions about that. So, first of all, that particular challenge of not being available at certain times, do you find that that's as you've advanced in corporate America, and now you have a senior role, has it gotten easier or harder?

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] So it's a good question. Just two weeks ago, WeightWatchers, we're transforming again, and right now, I manage brand transformation. And we were purchasing a company. We purchased a weight loss medication company. The closing of that purchase, we were going to announce it on a Monday, and we were flying out on Thursday night to San Francisco to meet the company and to get all the paperwork and get everything done for the announcement on Monday. That required weekend work.

And that-- it was the most exciting thing to happen to WeightWatchers in our 60 years. And I knew that everybody was going to be working the whole weekend. So it's still a challenge, but you get very good at compensating. So I wrote the first draft of the deck before Shabbos, and then jumped right in on Saturday night.

So I think it's gotten easier because I've learned to compensate, but it still hits you hard. We have a board meeting every Simchat Torah, and I have to figure it out. When I had younger kids, they didn't want to be in a hotel in Manhattan for Simchat Torah. But today, it's much easier.

[ALAN KADISH] One more question, and then we'll head to our other panelists. Do you ever find-- do you think that not being able to work on certain days has hurt or helped your productivity?

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] It's a great question. Because I overcompensate, I think it helps my productivity in a big way. I've also learned great time management skills, but it's more about just never wanting to be the person that couldn't work. So working extra hard when I could work. So I think that has helped.

[ALAN KADISH] Great. All right, I'm going to turn to Allen Fagin next. So, Allen, before I ask you the same question, I wanted, perhaps, knowing that your specialty was employment law, the issue that Debra raised about whether she told her prospective employer about her practices before she accepted the job, do you have legal and practical advice for our listeners about that issue? You're still muted, Allen.

[ALLEN FAGIN] Sorry. I've given up on giving legal advice quite a while ago, but I can tell you that the law is reasonably clear. There is no obligation to tell a prospective employer that you are a Sabbath observer or about your unavailability for Shabbos and Yontif.

There's a fairly convoluted exposition that an employer can go through. They can tell you what their hours of necessity are for the workday. And they can ask you whether, with or without a reasonable accommodation, you're able to work on a schedule that conforms to what the employer needs, but it's a fairly convoluted kind of legal conversation. I don't think the issue is a legal one.

And I've been asked this question innumerable times, primarily by law students, saying, "Do I tell my employer or prospective employer during the interview process?" And I have almost always given the identical response. From my perspective, I would absolutely tell an employer. And I say that for two primary reasons.

First, I think it's the right thing to do. And I think one of the most important things that we can do is to maximize the likelihood that we are seen as honest and ethical and of integrity. And to the extent that it matters, and given the fact that almost any service enterprise now is a 24/7 enterprise, indicating in advance what your limitations are I think is the appropriate thing to do.

Second is a much more practical reason. If there's an employer out there that doesn't want to hire you for that reason, better that you know it before you get there than to be surprised by the stifling of your career with an employer for whom this really is a serious issue.

Unlike Deb-- and I think the one place perhaps that my experience differs from hers, even 40-some-odd years ago, when I was first interviewing for a position, there were role models. Most of them male, some female, but primarily male. So indicating that I was a Sabbath observer for many firms was not coming as a huge surprise.

And finally, it's not going to be a huge secret from someone's resume that you can tell when you think someone is likely to be a Sabbath observer. And for that reason as well, I think just as a practical matter, it doesn't make sense to try to hide it.

[ALAN KADISH] Great. So tell us about-- have you faced any challenges balancing your Jewish identity with your professional career? And is there anything you want to share about that?

[ALLEN FAGIN] So I think, for me, the answer is yes. I've been blessed in my life, with one significant exception, of never feeling that I was held back because of my religious identity. The only time in my life that I felt that way was when I was graduating high school and applied to Yale, and was asked during my interview at Yale whether the Yeshiva High School that I had attended had only Jews attending. And that was pretty much the end of the interview.

If I had had sufficient presence of mind back then, I think I probably would have sued, but I didn't. The result of that was I decided, at the end of my college career, that I wasn't going to apply to Yale Law School. But short of that, I've never had any significant impediment as a result.

I do think, though, that there is the following challenge, and that is that when you take your religious observance into the workplace, everybody knows who you are and what you are, and that imposes, I think on all of us, an enormously important obligation. We can either participate in sanctifying God's name or besmirching it. And that's a daily concern that I think we all share.

The way we behave in the workplace, the way we speak in the workplace, the way we treat with our colleagues in the workplace reflect not only on us, but reflect on us collectively as observant Jews. And that's an enormous responsibility and an enormous challenge.

[ALAN KADISH] And I think you're absolutely right, and it's extraordinarily important, and a challenge that we hope that the students we educate are up to. So David, you've been quiet up till now, I haven't asked you anything. So the same question, really--

[DAVID SABLE][INAUDIBLE] you know?

[ALAN KADISH] Same question for you. Have you had challenges navigating your Jewish identity in the workplace? You've been in a very different kind of workplace.

[DAVID SABLE] So I think there's always challenges, but I think Allen and Deb hit it exactly. I had a boss who was fairly famous in the world. He used to tell everybody, I work 24/7, David works 24/6. And I felt really good about that. I felt the fact that he would actually brag about that and talk about it was important. And by that time, I was pretty far along in my career, but I'll go back to when I started.

The truth is, I agree with Allen. I think that it's incumbent upon us to tell people that we are Sabbath-observant, that we keep Shabbat, that we keep Kashrut, whatever it is that you do. And as Deb said, you have to be consistent. So if you're going to wear a kippah at work, if that's what you're going to do, in my view, if you don't show up at your interview with a kippah, then you're false. You're setting the wrong practice upfront.

You have to tell people. And you have to work harder than everybody else. When I started, the advertising industry-- Deb was on the right side of the business. She was with the clients. We were their servants. So if they worked hard, we had to work twice as hard. That's just the way the industry works.

And so Thursday nights, when I started, I used to literally work through the night. I would come back sometimes Saturday nights, I worked all day Sunday. That's how it was.

Now the truth is, in those days, I was just a cog in the wheel. I wasn't particularly important. So if I didn't show up for a Shabbat, it really didn't make a difference. If I had finished whatever I needed to finish and they would leave it for me Saturday night, it was fine. I will tell you that over the years, much like Deb's Simchat Torah story, my kids spent many a Shabbat at the Waldorf Astoria and elsewhere with dinner from Mendy's and Shabbat lunch from Mendy's when I went into the office.

And I would go, I would go to shul first, and I'd walk to the office, everybody knew that I wouldn't write, I wouldn't do anything, and it was important for me. Now, I understand that there are people listening who wouldn't do that, and that's fine. You needn't do that. I did it, and I will tell you that the payoff is that people understand that you've done something, but that you're keeping Shabbat for them. In other words, they get it, and it means a lot to them that you've done that.

And it does make a difference. Because if you are in a team and if you've made that choice of career, there are times you just can't walk away. Quite frankly, I would suggest find another career. Find another company. Because if you're not prepared, if you're not prepared to be present-- you don't have to be in the work, but you have to be present somehow, sometimes, then you're never going to get ahead. And so you're only going to get bitter, you're going to get everybody else angry, and it's just not worth it.

But as Allen said, if you do it all from the point of view of a Kiddush Hashem, I think that that is the key. Now personally, I never wore a kippah at work. And I still don't. And one of the reasons is because I tend to curse. And I think it's totally inappropriate. But I hope that I have a reputation as being somebody who has always been a mentor, who treats people in the right way, who is ethical and moral.

Because I'd rather that people say, "You know, that David is an Orthodox Jew who does A, B, and C" rather than "He's an Orthodox Jew who curses or who treats people inappropriately, God forbid." And frankly, there are plenty of people that I know who wear kippot who do that. Who are not appropriate in the workplace. And we all know them. And you read about them and you see them and we know them. That is the worst that you can possibly do.

I'll also tell you just one final piece, just a personal story of something that happened and how sometimes the unintended consequences of doing the right thing. So I always found-- and Deb, you might have found this too. Somehow, you go a whole week, and everything's going great. And I can tell you, Friday, it hits the fan.

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] Oh yeah.

[DAVID SABLE] I don't know what it is, but there's a rhythm. It's like Friday, and particularly in the summer, it's not a problem. In the winter, it hits the fan. So one Friday, I get woken up by this same boss-- he was in London. 4 o'clock in the morning. Friday, there's this huge crisis, something's hit the papers, he needs my help. We solve-- I thought we solved the problem. 20 minutes before Shabbat, we have a house full of guests coming for Friday night dinner, my daughters are here. It just reopened. Everything that we thought we had solved, we solved.

So I quickly made some calls, put a bunch of things in place, and I was really in a quandary. I didn't know what to do because this was major. This was something that could actually hurt the company.

And honestly, I was in such a-- I had no idea what I should do. And I said to my wife, "Look, if I'm feeling it, I'm just going to go. Look, I can't, I just don't know what to do." But I did. Didn't touch my phone. Didn't touch-- and not-- zero.

After Shabbat, I got on-- and by the way, I'll come to the end of this-- I'll just get to the very, very, very end, which is that I've never-- there's never been an issue-- there's never been like a crisis that took anything down over Shabbat. I can tell you, in the course of my entire career, no matter how many times I thought, it never happened, so that's the good news.

But, I went back, I quickly got on the phone, and nothing had happened. And my daughter came to me and said, "Daddy, I just want to tell you, I know how stressed you were. And you sat at the table Friday night, and you sat at table, Shabbat, and you never said a word, and nobody knew. And I knew you were--" and she said, "I'm just so proud of you." And it meant so much to me.

And I realized then that that was the unintended consequence of being able to keep both sides of my life going, and I think it's one of those things that I just won't forget.

[ALAN KADISH] So I think collectively, you've raised a number of very interesting issues. I want to address the issue of that you just did about how people behave. And I think there's a duality that I see here. On the one hand, we expect to be better. And all of you have talked about the fact that we need to work-- that sometimes you've had to work harder, and try to figure out a way to behave better because of the way people look at you. And I think that's an expectation that we should have of ourselves.

But it's a little bit of a double-edged sword because I don't think it's an expectation that's fair for others to have of us, because after all, people are people. And while I want to stress that I hope we're better as observant Jews and the way we treat each other, the way we treat others, the way we behave, it's unfair of others to expect us to be better because it's our personal choice of what we do.

Now that, of course, is probably not human nature, but I think some of the challenges that we've had in the way Israel is viewed, the way Jews are viewed is that people tend to adopt the higher standard that we sometimes articulate, that we hold of ourselves, that they also hold us to a higher standard.

And while I'd like to feel that we can meet a higher standard, I don't think it's fair of others to expect us to meet a higher standard, even though the practicality is that they probably do, and as we express our Jewish identity in the workplace, it's inevitable.

So the fact that it happens doesn't mean that it's necessarily just or right, but it does happen, and I think we have no choice but to continue to raise ourselves to a higher standard.

I personally have had a little bit of the experiences that all of you have talked about. I had an interview at Columbia Med School, which was somewhat like Allen Fagin's interview at Yale. And I went to another medical school, but when it came time to do my residency, I did it at Harvard. So that was the way that I experienced working harder and trying to overcome what we experienced.

At Touro University, which is identifiably a Jewish university, we face some challenges, too. And I don't want to go into all of them, but the 5:00 PM on Friday email of something we've been waiting for for two months that one particular organization seems to always send us is a manifestation of the fact that it's not all gone.

And so I want to use that to lead into the next question, is-- I sort of alluded to this when I asked Deb, so I'll start with David this time. Do you think it's gotten easier for observant Jews to succeed in the workplace as people have understood what we stand for, and as more Jews have gone into corporate America?

[DAVID SABLE] So can I just add one second? I just want to go back to what you said about the expectation. See, I'm a firm believer in Ohr L'Goyim. I have lived my entire corporate life by the notion of Ohr L'Goyim. So I have always held myself to a higher standard, and I have held everybody who works for me, who is religious, to that higher standard, and I demand that they do. Because I think we have to. You see, I don't believe-- this is where I've been. I apologize for disagreeing, but--

[ALAN KADISH] I love it.

[DAVID SABLE] I really do believe that if we want to go out there and wear a kippot and keep kashrut and be respected, then we have-- and claim that we're Jews, so therefore, we're whatever we are, we have to hold ourselves to the higher standard, and I want people to expect that we're going to behave better.

[ALAN KADISH] Fair enough. I agree with--

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] --on that.

[ALAN KADISH] I agree with you about the first half.

[DAVID SABLE] I am so-- I am so passionate about that. I can't begin to tell you. But let me go back to your other question. Do I think it's easier? Yes. I think that what's happened-- and I see it-- I see it in my former company in Young & Rubicam. There are a couple of people who wear kippot. I know somebody at the NBA who I heard an awesome story yesterday. He actually worked at a public accounting firm with lots of Jews around, never wore his kippah, didn't feel comfortable, went to the NBA. And they said to him, "Well, if you're Orthodox, why aren't you wearing a kippah?"

And so he wears his kippah because it gets back to Deb's point about being consistent. They wanted him to be consistent. They were happy to see him wear a kippah. I think it's much easier. Every year in my industry, we have a big event in Cannes called the Lions Festival. And when I became CEO of the company a number of years ago, I realized-- and my company had been spending a lot of money doing these big parties that were useless, and I realized there was an empty moment in the week. It was the last full night, which was Friday night, and it was an empty. There was a space between 7:00 and 10:00.

And I decided-- so I've had a-- I have a custom, wherever I go in the world and I travel-- about 60% of my life I spent out of the US. I was out many Shabbatot. Friday night, I always made Friday night. Wherever I was in the world, I have never, ever not been able to find a kosher meal and get a kosher bottle of wine. And whoever was with me, I invited for Friday night. Mostly non-Jewish, and everybody came. Sometimes to be in my room, sometimes I would do it in the restaurant, sometimes I would take-- didn't make a difference.

So I decided that at Cannes, I was going to do the same thing. And we took the most beautiful space on the beach. I found the best kosher caterer in France. And rather than do the typical curated dinners that people had where they invited only very specific people and made you sit-- like, if you weren't important enough, you didn't sit at this table, you only sat at that table.

All open seating, all family-style. Challot on every table, which you knew was a challah if you did. Otherwise, you thought it was some funky French bread, like you didn't have an idea. Only wine served by yeshiva boys. You can't even imagine this. And it was-- and there was no music. There was no presentation. It was nothing.

I never said it was a Shabbat dinner, but everybody in the industry called it David's Friday Night Dinner, and everybody came. And this year I'm not going. I've given up that Cannes thing. It's like, I had enough, I did it for 25 years. I can't tell you the number of emails I got. "Are you going to be doing Friday Night Dinner? Can we come to the Friday Night Dinner?" And to me, that was a beautiful thing. Like, they saw it. They got that it was different.

Now, I don't think you could have done that 30 years ago. 40 years ago. I don't think anybody would have done it. I think that it would have been different. People wouldn't have understood. Even the Jews wouldn't have understood. But here you are with a group that's mostly not Jewish, although all the Jews here-- all the Israelis who were in Cannes showed up.

People who lived on La Croisette, who lived across-- you know, like from the-- La Croisette is like the boardwalk. Would come-- there's an old couple who came for 10 years every year. This is-- just a wonderful religious guy. I have no idea who they were, but they heard there was a kosher meal, they came. And we invited them in. So you couldn't have done that 20, 30 years ago. But today you can. So I do think it's easier. I think we've made it easier.

[ALAN KADISH] It's tremendous.

[DAVID SABLE] To Deb's point, there's role models, there's people. And all the guys, by the way, who wear kippot, who behave in the best possible way, like most of the people I know, those people are leading the way for all of us, they make it easier for all of us.

[ALAN KADISH] Great to hear.

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] Yeah, and I'll say just on a broader spectrum, it's easier in the world. One of our values at WeightWatchers is make it safe for people to be themselves. Encourage vulnerability, quirks, and differences. That value is brand new. That value would not have been around 10 years ago. People now welcome bringing your whole self to work.

So I think the world has made it easier, but again, it doesn't-- it still requires that you function with integrity and function at a higher level because people are looking at you. You are bringing your whole observant self to work. But I think the world has made it easier.

I have two observant employees, women, who [HEBREW] in their cubicles every day. And it's easy, but then they are required to, A, be consistent; and B, uphold that standard and everything else that they do.

[ALAN KADISH] Allen, you said it wasn't that difficult for you when you started, but have you seen a change over time?

[ALLEN FAGIN] Yeah, I actually think it's harder. I would agree with David and with Deb that from the perspective of the respect for diversity and different identities, I think it is easier. I think it's harder in the following two respects.

First, the impact of technology has changed the way we all work. When I first started practicing law, if I wanted to hide out easily from sundown Friday to sundown on Shabbos and tell a client, "I will get back to you on Sunday, I need to read the papers, I need to get the papers, I need--" whatever I need, I could do that with some reasonable degree of facility.

Now the expectation is immediate response and immediate response 24/7. So I do think that that itself has made life a bit more difficult, and it makes the requirement that you explain what you can do and what you can't do within the workplace that much more important.

Second, and this is not necessarily an issue that is, by any means, exclusive to observant Jews, but I think it has a disproportionate impact on observant Jews. And that is, there are substantial cracks in the notion of meritocracy. That you succeed by virtue of the quality and skill that you bring to your job, and by virtue of the hard work that you engage in. And I completely agree. We all pride ourselves on the notion that we're going to excel in the workplace because we're going to work harder and we're going to work smarter.

When those two values are no longer necessarily preeminent in terms of determinations of success, I think there's a disproportionately negative impact on Jews generally, and perhaps on observant Jews in particular. That was always the ticket to our successful advancement of our careers. No matter how different we were, if we worked hard and if we were very good at what we did, we were going to get ahead. And I think there are some substantial cracks in that kind of gestalt at the moment that affects a whole variety of things.

[DAVID SABLE] But Al, wouldn't you agree, though, that that-- you're right, and the whole issue of meritocracy, but it affects everyone.

[ALLEN FAGIN] Yeah, it affects everyone, but it may affect-- it may affect-- look, when you start out somewhat behind the 8-ball, and Jews in general, and observant Jews in particular, do have certain impediments. There are things they can't do. There are ways that they can't entertain. There are all kinds of things that, in the natural scheme of things, would likely hold them back.

And what has propelled us forward is our work ethic and our smarts. Our ability to do a fantastic job has overcome all else. When those things cease to be almost automatic drivers of success, I think there is an impact. And yes, I think there's an impact societally, but it may be somewhat more disproportionate than we realize.

[ALAN KADISH] So to the extent that admission to elite colleges and universities is a harbinger of future success, we have seen what Allen described. The percentage of Jews at highly selective colleges and universities has been plummeting, and that's been true about Orthodox Jews as well. In fact, it's reached levels that are lower in many schools than it were during the quota era.

And whether that has been due-- whether it has been intentional, whether it's been because colleges and universities are balancing other interests, it's not completely clear, and I don't want to say. But the reality is, is that on a percentage basis, the percentage of Jews, and particularly observant Jews, attending highly selective colleges and universities has plummeted. And that plummet is not an exaggeration.

And what that means is, to the extent that attending those places can help propel future success, it's made it harder. And it has been, without question, minimizing the importance of standardized tests, minimizing the importance of achievement, and focusing on other the factors that has propelled that. So I think, at least on the educational side, we've seen what Allen has talked about happen in the workplace. It's actually been good for Touro, but we've seen what Allen has described happening in the educational sphere.

[ALLEN FAGIN] Yeah, but to be fair, it's also been good for other colleges as well. See, I would argue that-- you're right, I mean, we've all watched this. In fact, I was just reading a whole bunch of papers on this this week. So I'm involved in some-- around an issue of publicity around that particular thing. I don't think we've seen it in the workplace. Deb was talking about the two women in her firm who were [HEBREW] in their cube.

Honestly-- so if the two Jewish kids don't get into Harvard, they'll go to Maryland or they'll go to Emory or they'll go wherever they go to, they're going to be as smart. I think there's also-- and we've heard this, and you can follow the literature, there is definitely a change in the look of where you go to school. I think it's less important in this particular age we're in than it was 25 years ago.

I think it means going to just-- having a college degree and being smart is worth a lot, and is worth almost as much as it was-- maybe the same as it was depending on the school you came out of. So I think that in my view, I think that the corporate side, we still have that opportunity. Jews still have every opportunity to work and to be valued for who they are, and to work well.

And in fact, if you look at the Jewish ERGs, the Employee Resource Groups, so as you know, ERGs is part of the whole DEI thing, and I don't want to get into discussion here about DEI because DEI in corporate is different than the DEI in college. It's the totally different issues. It's not the same. Jews are not suffering.

And there are-- interesting enough, there are corporations like Walmart, it's not allowing religious ERGs on purpose. They say it's like religion doesn't count, we don't want it because they don't want to get into those issues. Other ones do. They let anyone do it. And Jewish ERGs have an issue because they don't know what to do.

And the reason they don't know what to do is because we Jews today, we look up, and we have plenty of role models who are Jewish, we have plenty of CEOs who are Jewish, we have plenty of people we work for who are Jewish. So they're sitting there wondering, "OK, so I've got this Jewish ERG, but I'm not having a particular problem getting ahead."

And so the biggest problem we have is giving our Jewish ERGs a purpose to exist. Giving them a reason to be there. And maybe that reason is Ohr L'Goyim. Maybe what they should be doing is helping the other ERGs.

[ALAN KADISH] So tell us what-- tell us what an ERG is for those in the audience.

[ALLEN FAGIN] Oh, it's an Employee Resource Group. It's what. It's what corporations have done in taking groups of people-- so it could be Black, it could be Asian, it could be LGBQT. It could be any group-- or it could be any subset of any of that. They create a group, they give them a space to meet, they give them a moderator, usually it's somebody who can help them, a facilitator.

And the idea is to bring to the fore the issues that they're having in a safe environment, and then be able to bring it up the ladder to, if necessary, redress those issues, or to find ways to help these people move ahead. Very often, it's getting people mentors. Sometimes it's just changing a policy.

I can tell you an interesting one. Hyatt took their Jewish ERG and they said, "All right, we're going to help you." And they sent out the person who's head of DEI, that Tyronne. Wonderful, wonderful man. Just-- in fact, he presented the [INAUDIBLE] today. Pre-Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, he sent out an email to the entire Hyatt Corporation, globally.

And he said, "I just want everybody to know this is the New Year, the Jewish New Year is coming up. Here are the customs. Apple and honey, great custom. If you want to make your Jewish-- like, be welcoming to your Jewish things, your Jewish employees, bring apples and honey to work, or Jewish employees, feel free to bring them to work. Here are the dates. Here's the thing."

He gets a call-- this is no joke. This year, he gets a call from corporate headquarters in Zurich who say, "Oh my God, Tyronne, thank you so much," much to Deb's point, "we've been holding our ELT meeting every year on Rosh Hashanah and we never realized. And it wasn't that they had Jews. They felt bad that it was wrong to do and they changed the date.

[ALAN KADISH] Well, that's great to hear. So I think there's a diversity of experience, and hopefully the experiences that have become more positive will persist and continue. So we're out of time for this part of the discussion. I'm going to ask Sam Levine now to moderate questions and answers from the audience.

[DESCRIPTION] Sam Levine joins.

[ALAN KADISH] And we have a number of them-- we have a little under 10 minutes to try to address some of those questions. So, Sam, I'm going to turn it over to you. And I'm going to say thank you very much to our panelists.

[NAHUM TWERSKY] Sam, permit me a point of personal privilege.

[SAMUEL LEVINE] Please.

[NAHUM TWERSKY] To ask the panelists, which I think is in one of our questions, did you experience, as I once did eons ago, a difference between how the Jews might have felt in your companies, and if you will, the non-Jews?

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] I found my greatest challenge was by the Jewish people-- not all, of course, but by some who misunderstood, notwithstanding, I think, that I also came from the corporate world, from the advertising world, and they just-- it irked them in their Jewishness that I was up and leaving early Friday afternoon. So that's in one of the questions. Permit me, if I may, to ask you that question.

I always found it was harder to have a Jewish boss who wasn't observant because the other people would say, "Shavuot? Really? That's a holiday?" I haven't seen Alan Hassenfeld, who is my very, very first boss at Hasbro, ever celebrate Shavuot. So that piece was difficult if there were others in the organization that were Jewish. I found my non-Jewish bosses to be far more sensitive.

But I think that has changed, and it's changed because we are the Jewish bosses now, and I think we have tried to bring a different feeling into the corporate world.

[NAHUM TWERSKY] Thank you. Sam, sorry for interrupting.

[SAMUEL LEVINE] Thank you. And I just want to thank Dr. Kadish and all the speakers once again. Although most of the conversation appropriately has focused on your experiences, your personal and particular experiences, sometimes the particular is universal as well. And as a professor at Touro Law School, most of my students are not Jewish.

And I think my students, I hear many of the same questions that my students, Jewish or not, ask about their own identities, and navigating their identities entities in the corporate world, in the legal world, and they will gain so much from your answers.

There's one particular question that stood out at me from the audience, and you all touched upon this, the notion of Kiddush Hashem, the notion that you have the opportunity, that if you wear a yarmulke or you're visibly observant in the corporate world, you can set an example, you can demonstrate that you're doing the right thing.

One of the questioners made the point that he does not wear his yarmulke for that very reason-- I doubt that he's concerned that he'll do something wrong, per se. I imagine he's a very moral, ethical person, but the anxiety of having to set that example, and what happens if he does something wrong. And he asked for your advice on how to navigate that aspect of the dynamic.

[DAVID SABLE] Look, at the end of the day, like I said, I don't wear a kippah, but everybody knows who I am. I assume that everybody knows who he is. Like, you can't-- you see, it all goes back to what Deb said at the beginning. There's a consistency here. So if you are the Orthodox person in the room, everybody knows you, whether you wear a kippah or not. It's just wearing a kippah, to the point that we've been making, to non-Jews is an added statement, and you would better be the best.

And so that's fine. If that gives you anxiety, then just be the best and don't wear it, and everybody will say, "Look at that guy, look how amazing he is. Look at that wonderful Orthodox Jew." And then if that makes you feel even better, put your kippah back on. What can I say? But you shouldn't-- if you think you can do it, then you should wear it. Absolutely.

[DEBRA BENOVITZ] And at the end of the day, I feel like I have a gift now because it's helped me live with integrity. It's helped me be better because I know people are watching me. So what starts as anxiety may change to a feeling of it's a gift.

[DAVID SABLE] Sam, I just to-- you touched on something really critical, though, and I think that I just want to amplify it for a second. The notion of what we feel is not unlike what others feel. So we as Jews, we as Orthodox Jews, have a particular-- we have this panic that has been articulated here in one way or another, and we all deal with it in a different way.

But if you're Black, if you're Asian, if you're whatever, it doesn't really make a difference. People are struggling with their identity and how best to portray who they are. And I think that the more that we understand that we're not alone in that, it's easier and more important for us, and I think it makes the Ohr L'Goyim that much more important.

Because the fact is, that other people look at you. They don't look at you just because you're a Jew. They look at you as somebody who's proud of an identity, and it has the confidence-- forget pride. Has the confidence in who they are to be who they are.

And I think that that is a great leveler and a great convener of people. The fact that you're able to portray that makes it easier for other people to connect with you, because you become a role model more than just for some other Orthodox Jew, you become a role model for everybody.

[SAMUEL LEVINE] Thank you. And, Allen Fagin, this may be a chance for some final words on this question or any of the other topics that we've touched upon.

[ALLEN FAGIN] Yeah, look, I must say that I agree with David entirely. That not only do I think it is fair for others to look at us differently and to have different expectations of us, but I think that imposes on us unique responsibilities, and responsibilities that are critical. The only other comment that I would make here is that we've been talking for the past hour about how to navigate between two worlds.

And I want to suggest that it may proceed from a somewhat flawed assumption, that there are, in fact, in our lives, two separate worlds. That our life of faith and our life in the workplace are two separate existences. That when we get on the train in the morning and we leave behind one life and we're about to enter into a second aspect of our existence, in fact, I think, that they're not independent. They're absolutely interdependent.

We import into the workplace a life of faith. It touches every aspect of our existence. It touches every aspect of our behavior. And I think if we're being true to ourselves, that that's the case, and I think that likewise means that when others view how it is that we behave and comport ourselves, they're looking to see something that's different.

And particularly now, and I would say in the last-- at least in the last decade, maybe longer, as we see this burgeoning trend towards secularization in American society and cultural values and norms, that there is the notion that communities of faith do have different perspectives, do behave differently. And I think that imposes on us a very, very unique responsibility.

If you want to call it Ohr L'Goyim, you can characterize it that way. If you want to characterize it as being [HEBREW], you can characterize it in that way, but I do think it imposes a unique responsibility.

[SAMUEL LEVINE] Thank you, Allen. Very well said, and very consistent with the goals and the mission of the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law Center to study, examine, and explore the relevance of Jewish Law and the Jewish experience and Jewish religion within the broader expectations of our legal and, more broadly, professional lives. So thank you all.

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[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, touro.edu/tourotalks

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