When Leadership Steps Back

What It Means to Build a Future Together

There are moments in the life of a community when something shifts in a way that is both tangible and deeply symbolic. Last week in Vancouver, we marked one of those moments.

Ownership of the land at the heart of our community’s future campus was transferred from the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) to a newly formed foundation, JWest. On paper, it was a legal transaction. In reality, it was the transfer of responsibility, vision, and long term stewardship to the next chapter of Jewish life in our city.

What made the moment meaningful was not the documents that were signed, but the relationship that made them possible.

For more than a decade, I have worked closely with Eldad Goldfarb, Executive Director of the JCC, colleagues across Jewish Federation of British Columbia, as well as partners at King David High School. Together, we have been engaged in an ongoing effort to imagine what this campus could become and to help move that vision from early conversations into a structured, shared plan.

My partnership with Eldad did not begin with formal plans. It began with conversations. We live in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver, and over the years have spent countless hours talking, over dinners, coffees, and walks. We imagined what this place could become. What began as an idea grew into a shared commitment, and over time, into trust.

Trust is easy to speak about in communal life, but much harder to practice. In this case, it meant creating space for one another to lead, challenging each other honestly, and believing that together we could aim higher than either of us could alone, and that trust shaped not only the project, but how we led it.

Leading a Federation carries a particular responsibility. We convene, support, and catalyze collective action. But often, our most important role is less visible. It is to walk beside our partners, and at times, deliberately step back so others can step forward.

This project required exactly that. While the JCC is, in many ways, the home of our Federation, this was not a Federation project. It began as a JCC effort, and became a shared vision with King David High School. Federation’s role was as partner, helping to broaden the lens and bring the full community into the conversation.

But it was always essential to remember whose dream this was.

In a role where I am often the most visible voice, that is not always easy. Visibility carries weight, and if unchecked, it can shape direction in ways that are not always appropriate.

It would have been easy for this to become a Federation project in tone and perception. But that path would not have led to this partnership, or to this moment.

Instead, I chose to join Eldad’s dream. Over time, I was fortunate to help shape it together with him, but I tried consistently to ask, sometimes almost to a fault: what does Eldad need here? What does the JCC need here?

We approach leadership differently. I tend to operate at thirty thousand feet, focused on the broader arc of community life, often out selling the dream, while Eldad lives inside the details of the JCC every day. He understands how interconnected it is, how every space matters, how each revenue stream enables the next program, how every member contributes to a living system. He sees how the café connects to the gym, the gym to the gallery, and how each decision creates ripples throughout the whole.

That perspective grounded the work, reinforcing that vision alone is not enough, and that the strength of a place like the JCC lies in the delicate balance of everything happening within it.

That approach requires restraint, patience, and a willingness to measure success not by visibility, but by whether the right people are empowered.

Standing recently in a room filled with leaders and staff, surrounded by signed documents and a table set with champagne, marking this milestone together, I knew it was the right choice.

In a sector that can sometimes feel competitive, this was the opposite; it was partnership.

What happened in Vancouver is a reminder of what is possible when institutions choose collaboration over control. The new campus, including a revitalized JCC, a school, and housing, will take years to complete. It will demand continued alignment, trust, and shared purpose.

That work is now being carried forward through the JWest Foundation, a partnership of the JCC, King David High School, and Federation, stewarding this campus together.

This journey is far from over. There are groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings still to come. And here in Vancouver, where land is precious and rarely relinquished, it should not be lost how remarkable it is that one institution chose to transfer its land in service of something larger than itself.

That is what made this moment distinct.

We were reminded of this during COVID, when the JCC stood empty. Without people, it felt like a space without a soul, because buildings are never just buildings. They are places where life happens, where children learn and play, where families gather, where identity is lived every day.

And that is why how we build matters as much as what we build.

We have not completed the work. We are still at the beginning. But we have taken an important step, together.

In Jewish tradition, we are taught that we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to walk away from it.

Those who came before us built this community with courage and vision. Our responsibility is to build the next chapter with the same spirit.

If we can do that with humility, trust, and clarity about where the light should shine, we will build more than buildings.

We will build the future.

This, at its best, is what Federation can be.