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Marion and Norman Tanzman's dream to train lay leaders in Middlesex County turned into a model program for leadership training at Jewish federations across North America.

The Marion and Norman Tanzman Leadership Development Program, run by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, runs monthly workshops and a nine-day trip to Israel, all expenses paid, for 17 lay leaders identified by rabbis and presidents of synagogues and organizations throughout the county.

"Looking at the big picture, oftentimes, when you have an idea for a program, you can sometimes get tunnel vision, where you think you need to achieve a given objective," Jared Kelner of the East Brunswick Jewish Center told The Jewish State at the Tanzman fellowship meeting May 12 at the East Brunswick home of Iva Dyckman, a lay leader chosen by the federation to participate in the program. "You have the ability to really step back and look at the bigger picture and look at how the impact of getting more people involved in the local Jewish community can have an impact globally, and that is something I definitely wasn't aware of or attuned to, and it opened my eyes. I'm definitely looking forward to contributing more at my own organization and the federation."

Gerrie Bamira, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, explained to The Jewish State that candidates for the program must be 40 to 55 years old, would have to attend all of the monthly sessions throughout the six-month duration of the program, and upon graduation, the Tanzman fellow would need to give one year of service to the organization that nominated them for the program. The main point of the trip to Israel, Bamira said, was to expose the fellows to different leadership models and see them in action at agencies that benefit from the federation.

"In Israel, we experienced leadership training and were exposed to different leadership models in Israel throughout its past into its current history," Bamira told The Jewish State. "We did a great deal of touring and met with leaders from the Ethiopian community, with new immigrants, up-and-coming entrepreneurs, and with experts in the field of social services."

Bamira explained that each session focused on another aspect of leadership, including running a board meeting and conflict resolution. At the May 12 meeting, Tanzman fellows learned about communication skills. They crafted an "elevator-speech" length presentation on the groups' trip to Israel and its importance, around two minutes in length, to be presented at their graduation, taking place at the federation's annual meeting at B'nai Tikvah, North Brunswick, on June 14. Members broke off into groups of three under the direction of Debbie Stein, director of learning and development of the Mandel Center of the Jewish Federations of North America. Each group was instructed to have a "teacher," a "discussion leader," and a "note-taker" to craft their presentations.

"The Mandel Center does leadership development throughout North America," Stein explained to The Jewish State. "We're going to do some evaluation [on the Tanzman Fellowship] and then roll it out for the use of federations in all of North America. We're going to set out the basics, and then people can customize it as they see fit, because we know that each federation has its own unique culture, but the different programs that we did, we picked so that they could be replicable."

Dyckman was one of three women nominated by the federation to take part in the Tanzman Fellowship.

"One of the things that I learned the most was that I have been involved in federation before, but I was unaware of all that they do there and where the dollars go and how many different groups they help," Dyckman said. "It was mind-blowing when you see where the money is going and it means so much more when you see it first-hand. I hope within the community that we can help convey that to people so that they understand that this is where the money is going and this is what it's doing."

"I hope that everybody can start building programs to really inject a lot of life and spirituality and Zionist beliefs into their program that would attract people that don't normally come out of the woodwork," Kelner added. "During this program, we could tap into everybody's skill sets -- you have people here from really diverse backgrounds -- from finance, and marketing, and sales, and engineering; we can be tapping into some talented people. I think that when you open up the door to a diverse group of people, new ideas come, and it's all through this program that they start coming out."