New director leading Jewish group
A new executive director has been selected to lead the Jewish Federation of Arkansas.
Marcy Paul, who began work earlier this month, previously served as director of Partnership 2 Get her Central U.S. Consortium, a joint effort of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Agency for Israel, her biography states.
In that role, she “facilitated the connections between 17 Jewish communities across the U.S. and communities in the Western Galilee and Budapest, Hungary.”
Before that, Paul had served as senior director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Dayton, Ohio.
Today, Congregation Agudath Achim in Little Rock is holding a seder to; celebrate Tu B’Shevat (Israel’s Arbor Day and the Jewish New Year for trees) and to welcome Paul.
Jennifer Ronnel, a Jewish Federation of Arkansas board member who served as executive director of the search committee, looks forward to working with Paul.
“Every organization needs a strong leader and we were blessed to have the opportunity to hire Marcy. Marcy’s experience and compassion are aligned with our focus on repairing the world,” Ronnel said in an email. “We are confident she will be a strong leader who will help us continue our long history of serving the needs of the Arkansas Jewish community.”
“She really is a gift to Arkansas,” Ronnel said.
Paul, who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, is no stranger to the South, having spent more than a quarter century in Texas.
She served, for a time, as an assistant professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. She was also active in the Jewish community in Fort Worth.
When she was invited to interview for her new job, she stayed for a week, traveling around Arkansas and meeting with members of the Jewish community not only in Little Rock but statewide.
It’s an experience she says she enjoyed.
“Everybody I have met thus far has been very, not only kind, but down to earth and [they are] wanting to do more to connect to Jewish peoplehood,” she said.
Paul has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a master’s degree in communications from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a doctorate in multicultural, women’s and gender studies from Texas Woman’s University.