“We grew together, my waist size and the number of Jews,” said Steven H. Morrison, executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Madison, with characteristic humor.
Behind the joking, however, are serious and substantial achievements. A native of Elgin, Ill., Morrison left his position at B’nai B’rith International in Washington, D.C., to become executive director of the then-Madison Jewish Community Council in 1984.
He expected to be at the post for only a few years. At the end of 2010, he will be retiring after nearly 27 years in his position. During that time, the Jewish community of Madison has grown and transformed.
As he described in a telephone interview on Aug. 11, until his arrival, the MJCC had had local campaigns and contributed to the then-United Jewish Appeal, but had tended to sit out of special campaigns for national or international efforts.
But in 1985, national Jewish groups called for assistance to rescue Jews of Ethiopia and resettle them in Israel. And this time, the MJCC joined the national special campaign.
“It was clear everybody saw what needed to be done and we shared the same passion,” said Morrison. Madison Jews joined special efforts and campaigns ever since, “always going beyond our fair share.”
Madison Jews also had been reluctant to mount capital campaigns for new buildings. “There was fear that if we did a capital campaign, people would not pay their synagogue dues or contribute to the annual campaign,” said Morrison.
But during Morrison’s tenure, the MJCCR raised funds to build a new building, to acquire and build on the Goodman Jewish Campus in Verona, and “our annual campaigns were up every year we did a capital campaign,” Morrison said.
And the new infrastructure is about “more than bricks and mortar; it allows programs to grow,” said Morrison.
The Camp Shalom day camp, for example, went from serving about 200 children a summer to about 1,000. The Jewish Social Services program went from serving 180 clients in 1983 to more than 1,000 last year, Morrison said.
The extent these changes resulted from real growth in the Madison Jewish community is uncertain. Morrison said that the Madison federation’s mailing list grew from 1,300 households to twice that, but he is not sure whether that comes from real growth or a better job of identifying local Jews.
Madison Jewry has never had the resources to fund a population study, he said. He believes the Madison area is home to between 5,000 and 6,000 Jews, but he knows of area Jews who are not on the federation’s mailing list.
But apart from the numbers, Morrison credits the success he has had largely to the values he and community members have shared. “Most relationships emerge from shared values,” he said. “It’s a matter of relationships that developed between me and some key leadership in town… We got along.”
So “Maybe it was the times, a little of me, and a little of them. Or a lot. Whatever it was, it worked. It’s been great.”
Lester Pines, a Madison attorney and current president of the federation, has no doubt that much of it has in fact been Morrison. Pines has been active in the Madison community “for the better part of 30 years,” and was on the MJCC board when Morrison was hired.
Morrison “really helped the Madison Jewish community take the step to the next level,” said Pines in a telephone interview.
“In addition, Steve was the face of the Madison Jewish community, the spokesperson for the community. That was a role he handled admirably” – particularly during the unsuccessful 2004 attempt to make Madison a “sister city” with the Palestinian Arab city Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Pines said.
Moreover, Morrison “is a very personable guy and a well-read, smart and articulate person,” said Pines. “He is a gem. The person hired to replace him” — Jill Hagler (see accompanying story) — “has got big shoes to fill.”
Farewell events have already taken place. On Aug. 4, Gov. Jim Doyle and his wife, Jessica, hosted a party for him at the governor’s residence. Morrison has been active in the general Madison community — among other things, he served on the Human Relations Committee of the Madison Public Schools for more than 20 years — and had worked with Jessica, a teacher and education activist, since he arrived in Madison.
The last one is scheduled for the Madison federation’s annual meeting on Nov. 14, but plans for that are not yet set, Morrison said.
Morrison said he plans on staying in Madison and taking advantage of his free time. He will become a “hands on” volunteer, cook, take some university classes, and indulge his love of reading “heavy stuff, especially history and biography.”
And as he said he told his wife, Goldie Kadushin (herself a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), “one of my goals as a kid was to be able to take a nap every single day. Come Jan. 2, I’m taking a nap.”
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