This interview with Moisés Romano inaugurates a series of interviews we will be featuring, entitled "Facing Challenges". The objective of the series is to investigate the nature of the current educational landscape; the challenges facing the leaders of community institutions, and the strategies they use to succeed in what they do. We hope you enjoy these enriching perspectives as much as we do.

 

Moisés Romano Cohen is one of the Jewish communal leaders in Mexico. He has had a long career as a representative of different community institutions, and today he is the president of Vaad Hachinukh Mexico, an organization that brings together all the Jewish educational institutions in the country.

 

 Below are some excerpts from an enlightening interview with him:

 

To begin with, we would like to ask you about your current position. What do you do every day and what are the challenges you face?

 

Moisés: I am currently president of the Vaad Hachinukh Mexico, a committee that brings together all the schools that are part of our community. We have 12 schools: seven traditional and five orthodox, including the religious sector - that is, the yeshivot. We are all together and we can sit at a table and talk. That is the objective of this committee: to establish dialogue, to establish points of contact between all these institutions, and be able to work for the good of all. What we are looking for is the many things that the schools have in common and the common benefit to all.

 

With respect to the challenges, as it happens with many Jewish communities in the world that are getting smaller, with an economic situation that is perhaps a little more complicated, the enrollment in the schools is affected. There is a need for more support, including financial support. This situation causes strong competition between the community schools, each of which is trying to increase its enrollment figures. But it is a zero-sum competition. That is one of the serious problems we face: for one school to have greater enrollment, another has to decrease its numbers, and another has to do poorly. In addition, there is ongoing emigration of community members to Israel and to various other countries. Another factor is that families are having fewer children. So the community hasn't grown. The competition between schools also has a positive aspect: they are all making very important efforts to take their institutions to a higher level, with strong investments.

 

Currently, as Vaad Hachinukh, we are heavily engaged in a community project. A few months ago we held a training seminar with all the presidents and members of the schools. We left Mexico City and took them to engage in activities that allowed us to reflect on what it is to think in terms of community. We told them that each of them is a community leader; the work they are doing in their schools is to be community leaders. We wanted them to get out of the mindset of their schools a bit and to think in terms of our community and its future. The result of this activity was very good. They proposed the creation of three inter-institutional forums: an academic forum, a values forum, and a financial forum. Each forum comprises personnel from the boards of each of the schools. They are working for the good of all the schools. This has provided new impetus, leading us to launch projects that are for the good of all. It is giving us incredible results.

Another of the biggest challenges we have at Vaad Hachinukh Mexico is professionalization. We want to professionalize the Vaad Hachinukh, which is made up of a strong group of professionals. Of course, we need volunteers but it is mainly the base of a group of strong professionals that give it continuity. If there is no proper professional work, there is no guaranteed continuity for our institutions.

 

 

What was it that led you, early on in your life, to dedicate time to community work?

 

M: I participated in the Noar le-Noar (Youth for Youth) movement, which was an arm of Habonim Dror México. That sparked in me an interest in the importance of community work. It not only captivated me, but it changed my life. It instilled in me a different sense of responsibility. The foundation of the volunteer work that I have is informal education, not formal, and that was a great achievement. I was much happier in my days in the youth movement than I was in school, and that made me very strong. Then I became president of Moetzet Hatnu’ot, which is the union of all the Jewish youth movements in Mexico. Later I was president of FEMUJ (Federation of Jewish Universities of Mexico). Later I got married, had a family, and was away for a while until they invited me to join the Tarbut College Board of Trustees, and I was there for several years until I ended up being President of the Board of Trustees of the College and later a member of the Council. Today, as I said, I am the President of the Vaad Hachinukh. When they talk to me about youth movements, they have all my support because I think they are a seedbed for community leaders. I don't want to say that there aren't community leaders everywhere, but without a doubt, the youth movement is a hotbed.

 

 

What place does education occupy for you in the Jewish community, in a broad sense?

 

M: Well, I think that education is the most important thing, not only for the Jewish community in Mexico but for the whole world. The development of a community, of a country, and the development of humanity, is based on education, both formal and informal. The better prepared the people we have, the better the future we will all have. And if we do it well, I am sure that the future of the community, of the country, and of the Jewish people will be much better.

 

How do you see the Jewish community 20 years from now, and what message would you like to leave with the leaders of the communities?

 

M: I think that all communities have the responsibility to think today about what we are going to do tomorrow, and anyone who isn’t doing that is making a serious mistake. In Mexico, we are a very cohesive community, with little assimilation, but nothing guarantees that this will be sustained. Like many communities in the world, ours has built its institutions in accordance with countries of origin - I mean Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Halabi. I believe that this is going to change, that this will eventually come to an end, and what we are experiencing today is part of that change. I would even dare to say that reality is moving much faster than our institutions. What do I mean by this? Previously, marriages were within the same communities, but today this is no longer the case. I think that this change is going to come from below, and part of that below is the schools, all of which are already inter-community institutions. Our responsibility is to plan the future of our communities. That is very important and if we don't think about it I think we are making a mistake and leading our communities in a bad direction. Sure there are going to be some failures, but the more planned our future is, the better off we are.

 

 

Thank you Moisés for sharing your time and your thoughts! It is motivating to see reflected in your career the values that we seek to transmit in our International Master's degree in Jewish Education.

 

We invite you to follow the upcoming interviews of the new series, "Facing Challenges".