Growing up, I remember that if I ever inquired into what is showing at the Jewish Museum in NY, there was a 95% chance the answer would be Chagall. I remember Yeshiva requirements that popped up requiring us to make the trek into Manhattan. The Museum offered the bright colors of Chagall downstairs, and pretty Menorahs upstairs. Though I did not know much of art back then, art aficionados must have thought of the museum as not worthy of the name or the premium space on Museum Mile.
Now, I look forward to the Museum’s avant-garde selections from Chaim Soutine to the most recent, Amadeo Modigliani and even Frida Kahlo. This involved a distinct change in core beliefs of what constitutes Jewish art. Does Jewish Art always involve Jewish Subjects? (Certainly, the pretty menorahs do hold a permanent spot at the Museum). Should the artist be Jewish and identify as Jewish? (Chagall will always be the quintessential Jewish artist, with his focus on shtetl life and biblical scenes and his devotion to the Jewish nation). Or has Hitler made the choices for us? (Frida Kahlo’s father is Jewish and yet the threat that lineage would have posed loomed large in her life).

To see an artist usually exhibited in the Met or MOMA, such as Modigliani, exhibited in these more cozy corners draws a large crowd – large enough to form lines around the block all day every day. It draws a crowd enthusiastic enough to not utter a single whimper at having to pay a $4 surcharge above the normal $10 admission fee. It feels like a discovery of something new, or more accurately, a discovery of a new facet in an old love. Modigliani did not lead a Jewish life but did not hide his identity either. He loved French women and idealized their forms in the Mannerist tradition. The curators had to stretch a bit to make these paintings, that Modigliani modeled on Byzantine statues, Jewish. In the end, they came up with a lot of Christ analogies and general feelings of “otherness” but basically, nothing that would make them Jewish beyond a shadow of a doubt, without the Jewish motherhood to fall back on.

Will the Jewish Museum continue to stretch these connections? Probably, considering the potential earnings. Where does that leave assuredly Jewish artists? Without a mystique or name recognition, is there no room for them at the Jewish Museum? That’s like asking if they will ever serve chulent at La Marais. I do hope the Museum will take chances on Israeli artists. Israeli artists, as a whole, tend to offer bold, fresh perspectives on biblical stories, holidays and Jewish history and thought. But, the only way to get them is to go to Israel or to become informed in the downtown art scene where the emphasis is on buying, not looking. In the meantime, the other Jewish Museums and Jewish bookstores continue to feature Judaica, an art form all its own, rather than art.

Some countries have banned wearing religious symbols. Though they claim the purpose is to prevent anti-Muslim hostility, in reality, they seek to prevent all religious hostility by creating a ghetto mentality. Shh. Don’t let anyone know you’re Jewish so you won’t have any problems. Has the 21st Century turned into a recycled 19th Century?

What does it mean for the modern day workplace?
For the most part, magen davids are non-essential. Observant men must wear kippahs according to most Orthodox Rabbis (many choose a simple black leather one which almost blends into the hair). Many observant women wear skirts and wigs to abide by Orthodox modesty standards. For the most part, these are hidden from those who do not know what to look for.

Magen Davids however are optional and have become politically charged Jewish and Zionist symbols. The small golden charms you received as a Bat Mitzvah gift is not what we are referring to. (For the most part, that is appropriate for an open workplace when you are not conducting official meetings as a representative for your company). Now Magen Davids are big, silver and unisex, in the same vein as rappers’ name chains and crosses. Behind it is an in-your-face Israeli mentality that we will not meekly accept the anti-Semitic criticisms of Israel and anti-Semitic actions to Jews everywhere. These, like your Kahane Chai headbands, Haam im hagolan bumper stickers and UJA T-Shirts, can remain at home or for use on weekends.

Rabbis have always taught us religious lessons, could they be teaching us business lessons too?
Those of us who attended Hebrew school may recall the immensely philosophical discourse “lashon hara, lamed hay, go to H-ll the easy way”. Some frequent Upper West Side Jewish Event Attendees may even have the coffee table foldover sign likening Lashon Hara to Smoking. Lashon Hara literally means “bad tongue”, it is loosely defined as gossip. So, what does this have to do with the Modern Jewish Professional? Plenty.

Let’s face it – work can be boring. PCs have made many processes practically brainless, not to mention sedentary, for the average Jewish Professional. With most employees spending more waking hours with coworkers than with spouses or friends, things are bound to happen. What kinds of things? Well, I’ll leave the really exciting stuff for trashy romance novels. For the rest of us who value our familial ties and ethics, a little gossip makes the day go faster, don’t you think? At the proverbial watercooler talking about the latest way Bob sucked up to the boss or Sally did something so ditsy or this company is going to hell in a handbasket makes the day fly. Hey, it’s not Dorothy Parker’s round table at the Algonquin but you have to be there to really understand.

This is where our 7th grade Rabbis oh so distant voice should come into our heads saying “blah, blah Lashon Hara blah blah” (that’s not a direct quote). Anyway, it’s a bad thing. Whether true or not, bad or good, gossip hurts. The speaker, the listener and the subject. Perhaps the non-Jewish coworkers do not grasp the effects but that is our responsibility. I once heard a good rule of thumb, you should not say anything to a coworker you would not want printed in the New York Times. I have found this simple tidbit of advice to be the most influential one of my career. Time and again, I have come across individuals at work who seem innocent enough and seem like your friends at the time but will not miss a beat before sharing information they receive. Now, I heed the advice stated here and steer clear of disclosing too much but I watch others fall into the same traps. “Oh, I didn’t think she would tell him I said that about him. I can’t $!@#$% believe it.”

To add on the modern edge, these days, internet and email add a particularly scary twist to this ages old story. It has been known to happen that emails pass from one hand to the next, and sometimes to a hand you did not want and to the whole company and their friends. To be safe, keep your writings professional and gossip free as well.

So, perhaps leaving early for Shabbos will not make you Employee of the Month, and bringing a kosher doggie bag to a fancy non kosher business lunch may make you squirm a bit but here is a chance to heed Halacha and make good business sense at the same time: Hold Your Tongue. (not literally though, that would look silly).

Women have always done it all for her family. Today’s world throws new challenges to an Eishet Chayil, fortunately there are remedies.
The Roots of the Song
“Who can find a wife of excellence? Her value far exceeds that of gems.” Written in acrostic format, the song Eishet Chayil (Woman of Valor), glorifies a woman who does it all for her family. Many Jewish husbands and husbands-to-be get a romantic gleam in their eyes as they sing this song to their wives at their weddings or Friday nights. Today’s world throws new challenges to an Eishet Chayil, fortunately there are remedies.

The Reality Women Face
Nowadays in addition to all her other responsibilities, this woman would also have to climb the corporate ladder. When electronics shaved the time off of household tasks and the Pill allowed women more control over their compliance with “Be fruitful and multiply”, expectations of women rose exponentially. The result: it’s is getting even harder to have it all by doing it all. The problem has become so widespread that the Ms. Foundation, a decades-old bastion of feminism, now addresses it in their newly reformed, “Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day”. Now half of the day, originally intended to introduce girls to the wonderful world of work asks children to ponder such realities as,” Your 6-year-old child just started a new school and it turns out the school bus doesn’t come until 8:00 in the morning. You need to leave for work at 7:30 in order to get to work on time. Your boss is very strict about people being on time. You don’t want to leave your child alone for 30 minutes. What would you do?” In “The Second Shift”, sociologist Arlie Hochschild explores the lives of working mothers in dual career homes. These women take it all on and suffer from chronic exhaustion, low sex drive and frequent illness as a result. Is this our Eishet Chayil?

How Does Judaism Factor In? The Jewish community places particular strains and praises on our women. The Torah goes into great depth about the matriarchs, prophetesses and great women. We remember how the women aided in the redemption from Egypt, tried to prevent the golden calf and received the Torah. No man-written books of previous centuries record the songs, battles and victories of women to the extent the Torah does. We’ve come a long way since Eve. While this may flatter and possibly overwhelm many women, modern realities of job instability and high cost of living sometimes demand a dual income home. Lighting candles may help bring light into the world but it does not bring money to the bank. So, many Jewish women face the responsibilities of not only working at home and in the office, as non-Jewish women do, but also creating a spiritual home through freshly cooked Shabbos meals, teaching children some songs and lessons of Torah etc.

Raising the Valor
Despite overwhelming obstacles throughout history women have overcome them. These modern challenges can similarly be captured with strategy and team work. Here are some ideas to help you cope. Make yourself a priority: it may seem counterintuitive that to be a better mother, you need to unapologetically make time for yourself each day. Yoga is a good way to exercise and restore balance.

Make time for yourself as part of a couple too: it may seem like the ultimate motherly act to put the children first but children really like seeing their parents happy, especially together. Set a date night and stick to it.

Remember that Martha Stewart has assistants: before you knock yourself for not baking cookies and air drying your laundry, give yourself credit for all the things you do and do not feel guilty for taking shortcuts on the other things.

Enjoy being a family: try to find something everyone in your family has in common and enjoys doing and do it together. This is easier than constantly trying to squeeze in time for everyone’s interests. You can have your cake and eat it too buy taking long walks with the family: quality time and exercise time are one and the same. Another example would be involving the children in safe, crafty, home improvement projects which allows you to accomplish something and spend time with the children.

Partnerships
At this point, you would think the Eishet Chayil would prefer a nap to listening to a song each week. Yet, somehow, appreciation and support from husbands, family and community goes a long way. Husbands also must balance long hours at work and trying to help out at home. Thankfully, the deeply ingrained Jewish praise of women has influenced some understanding husbands to help out more. It is not uncommon to see husbands coming home late at night to not only take out the garbage but also give the baby a bath and possibly even throw in a load of laundry. No longer can we claim housework is women’s work. Women are too busy going to work and creating spiritual homes to always concern themselves with grocery shopping and vacuuming. Couples must work out an equitable balance that suits their particular needs. The good news, to remember as you go to bed at midnight to wake up at 5am the next day, is that companies are also finally stepping up to the challenge. Flextime and Family Leave make life for women at many companies much easier. More than ever, companies are realizing that even that is not enough. Children do not raise themselves (at least not to positive results) and as a society, we have come to the realization that, as Hillary Clinton wrote, “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child”. Mothers calling in absent to take their children to the doctor or leaving early to attend PTA is being looked upon by companies less as a job interfering nuisance and more as an honorable recognition of priorities. Have patience. Successful revolutions do not happen overnight but just remember that we are all in the same boat, headed towards progress. It takes a lot of work to raise a family and you don’t truly see results for decades. It takes a lot of work to have a career but there the results are more immediate and less lasting. Balancing the two is a true challenge for today’s Eishet Chayil.

Take all the rules you knew about work and throw them out. Here’s the five biggest changes in the workplace in the 21st century.
Company Loyalty- Remember the days when you worked for a company for life? If you don’t remember those days, watch Nick at Nite for a little bit and you’ll see examples of this primitive social behavior. Jobs used to mean clocking in at 9 and out at 5, getting a watch for your retirement and having the boss over for some of the wife’s homemade dinner. I cannot pinpoint exactly when things changed but I attribute much of it to the recession in the 90s. Companies downsized their loyal employees in favor of cheaper younger employees or foreign workers. Nowadays, the same boss who you had drinks with the other night at the same company that just gave you an exemplary performance evaluation and raise last month could very well drop the ax when you least expect it.
My advice: if salesmen’s ABC’s are “Always be Closing” the average worker should “Always be Checking”- help wanteds, leads from friends, etc. Beginning a job search from scratch takes much time and effort and after being let go, you may not have the spirit for it. Start now and you will find it easier to maintain that flow if needed.

Part time is for students, full time is for adults- Full time employment has many advantages: stability, benefits, career progression etc. However, in these times, part time is better than no time. Forget your misconceptions of part time not having value and being a broken rung on your career ladder.
My advice: Part time employment provides you with an excellent way to make money without making a commitment. If you maintain your dedication, you can still search for jobs just as well while working part-time. Also, another lesson from salesmen: get your foot in the door. The “Help wanted->resume->interview->hire” process is not set in stone and companies often use alternative means of selecting employees. Some deliberately use “temp to perm” situations. Sometimes, starting out temporarily allows you an eagle’s eye of current openings at this employer.

Moonlighting on your spouse or your job is immoral- Moonlighting, or working after work is exhausting and may violate certain company’s employee handbooks. However, if not prohibited by your company and if done at your convenience, it can provide an extra income and can serve as a “back-up” just in case. This doesn’t necessarily mean computer programming day in and day out or even computer programming by day and waitressing by night. It means looking into the possibility of making money off of your hobbies and other interests. Never found your Hebrew education very useful? Tutor. Want to add some creativity to your day? Design gift baskets or greeting cards. Writing, music. Remember back in school when your days were well rounded with fun stuff and serious stuff? Remember having a favorite subject? Figure out what works for you time wise, talent wise and money wise and do it. As for moonlighting on your spouse…ask Dr. Phil.
My advice: tricycles are more stable than bicycles. Find a secondary career that you like and can make money off of. It won’t necessarily support you financially but at best, it could mean the difference between a vacation in Miami and one in Hawaii or at worst between unemployment and partial employment.

Dream Jobs- Does anyone love their job anymore? What happened to the promises of high school and college guidance counselors that if you work hard, you will succeed at whatever you choose-especially if it happens to involve computers? A dream job is something Barbie drives to in her pink Jaguar from her pink Townhouse to her pink medical complex where she successfully practices medicine after 0 years of education (while Ken waits at home and cleans).
My advice: Look at job openings with more of an open mind. Perhaps the title does not sound great, the location could be better and one of the responsibilities does not appeal to you. Give it a chance anyway. Jobs often change along with the employee. Sometimes, a job only exists in its current state (for example involving budgeting) due to your predecessor’s skills and abilities (for example, she had a bookkeeper’s background). However, when you take the reins and demonstrate your excellent communication skills, you can take on more responsibilities you like and delegate the others to coworkers.

Working 9-5- It made for a great Dolly Parton song but does anyone do it anymore? Unfortunately, with the exception of a few government bureaucrats, no. The tech boom permanently changed the job market by raising the bar on the number of hours a human can possibly work. Though the money made the time worth it, other companies learned to demand more from this even as they compensated less. Working from 8-6 or 7 nowadays is not even considered overtime. It’s normal. Many jobs ask for flexibility for working weekends too (particularly hard for shomer shabbos employees to work around)
My advice: Excellent time management is an essential skill for leading a happy life. As jobs drain more and more time, you need to spend less and less on chores if you want any for friends and family. Use the internet for shopping and research, electronic appliances wherever possible and calculate how much your time is really worth versus paying someone else to handle your services. An example of a surprisingly cheap timesavers is dropping off laundry rather than doing it yourself.

Looking for a job? The internet is only one way to search, and not the best one. Read about the most affective job search strategy- networking- and how to do it.
Wait a minute, you’re thinking… Everyone knows we live in the internet age and job hunting has become synonymous with hotjobs.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, isn’t that THE way to find a job?!? Well, contrary to the high tech advertisements, the internet has merely taken ye olde New York Times classifieds and coded them into HTML (computer format). Anyone could have done it (in fact, the New York Times did it themselves too). While millions of recruiters do make use of these sites to add postings, let me let you in on a not-so-little secret. The vast majority of human resources professionals prefer referrals. In fact, most companies offer incentives to encourage their employees to refer new recruits, so the referees like it too. This isn’t just conjecture; According to “The Harvard Business School Guide to Finding Your Next Job” an estimated 65 to 70 percent of jobs are found through networking. The percentage is even greater for higher-level positions.

If this conjures up bad images of cigar filled all-boys clubs, unfortunately, you are partially correct. One of the downsides of this form of recruiting is that it replicates the current workforce and generally, does not allow for new, diverse employees. Still, if you seek a job, and not a mini-socio-economic revolution, keep reading. If you do seek a mini-socio-economic revolution, perhaps you may seek employment at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (www.eeoc.gov).

What is Networking?
So, when can you finally remove those job search sites from your “Favorites”? Not yet. Networking should supplement your current job search repertoire, not replace it. If my sudden switch to the more official word scares you, don’t worry. If you are reading this, you’re probably Jewish and if you’re Jewish, you’ve probably heard of “schmoozing” and already know of hundreds of places to do it. You never thought Aunt Faigy’s accountant’s wife’s job suggestion had potential? Think again. You don’t know ’till you try it. The key words: try it, try it again and try it some more. This means expanding your current socializing schedule. Now that sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Where to Shmooze
Currently, you probably consider shul and simchas your main schmoozing spots. Proper social etiquette states that you should not conduct full scale networking sessions in these situations. However, do make it known you are looking and let any suggestions come to you.

Better settings include professional organizations and volunteering opportunities. If you do not have much experience in your current profession and therefore do not know which organizations to join, find a mentor (in itself, an act of networking), and/or do some internet and library research. Most of these organizations do charge a fee nominal to working folk, enormous in the eyes of the unemployed. If you can find a way, pay the annual fee. Even if you do not find your job directly through this source, it will enhance your resume and interviews. As far as volunteering opportunities, here you are in luck. Jewish Organizations dominate the Non-for-Profit world. Especially considering our minority status, Jews have always made it a priority to found and continue foundations and organizations to help others in zillions of ways. Jewish philanthropists have made inroads in many arenas. Pay attention to that bulletin board in your shul lobby. Some of the largest organizations include UJA and Hadassah but you can find organizations on regional and national levels, in all fields from healthcare to the arts, technological to religious. Here again, the library and internet, as well as friends’ and family’s suggestions can lead you in the right direction.

How to Network
Once you finally know where and when, now, you need to know how. Most people find it intimidating to walk into a room full of strangers. Fortunately, these arenas provide more conversation topics than singles’ parties (and you don’t have to worry about spiked drinks). Walk up to someone getting a drink at the same time and introduce yourself. You may think you look awkward and foolish- but in reality you look professional and confident. Ask about the event and the organization. As the newbie,you have the advantage of not knowing a thing. Most people are all too happy to have their knowledge called into play and play the part of a mentor, if only for a little while. Have a copy of your resume with you. Warning, you do not want it to look obvious that this was your sole purpose in attending and talking to someone, yet, you want it to be easy and quick so that the person does not have to beg you for it (which, chances are, he or she would not do).

Now, you’re thinking, “I’m set!” Time to buy new suits. Well, put the Barney’s ad away just a tad bit longer. You have more work to do. Firstly, you need to repeat this process again, the more people with your resume the better the odds of landing that dream job. Try to meet at least 5 people at each event. Try to go to at least one event a month. Secondly, follow up. You may think you made a fabulous impression but your contact may not remember you. It happens. Ask for your contacts’ business cards and send off a quick e-mail stating how it was nice to meet this person and you look forward to meeting at future events. If you feel really bold, attach your resume again, just in case. Set reasonable expectations. This probably will not be your new best friend or your new boss. Still, this person may refer you to your new boss and/or may have valuable advice for your search and further down the line regarding your industry. The more contacts you make, the higher your chances get.

Another advantage to this kind of job hunt: No happily ever after syndrome. Did you really love your last job? What are the chances you would absolutely love your new job in the way portrayed in job search web site ads? As just another Joe-Schmoe-off-the-street, you begin at the bottom. However, as someone who came highly recommended from within the firm or a friend of the firm, your advantages follow you in. Your friend will provide a more realistic view of this firm and how to succeed within. This social advantage is invaluable to success at a new firm.

Basically, if you want to find a job, use your mouth more than your monitor. While not as easy as taking naps on the couch, networking beats classified search in both short and long term results.