H eadlines
Jewish Federation Welcomes New Senior Executive
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
WHEN JEFFREY LASDAY
entered the world of Jewish
professionalism in the 10th
grade, leading a club of
10-year-olds in the Pittsburgh
Young Judaea, his reasoning
was simple: “I became a Jewish
professional for the money.”
The position paid $5 per
hour, but it opened Lasday up to
the world of possibilities being a
leader in the Jewish community
had to offer.

Now Lasday is taking his 40
years of experience as a Jewish
educator and professional and
applying it to his role as the
senior chief, external affairs at
the Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia, which he took on
Dec. 20.

“I navigate towards people
who don’t just look at this as a
job, but really embody the whole
Jewish community in their lives.

So they personally participate;
they personally engage. They’re
members of Jewish organi-
zations and not just someone
who clocks in at a job,” Jewish
Federation President and CEO
Michael Balaban said. “Jeff and
his family have always been
deeply steeped in the Jewish
community.” As senior chief, external
affairs, Lasday will work to build
relationships within the Jewish
Federation, as well as work with
congregations, organizations
and constituent agencies in the
Greater Philadelphia area to
build more synergistic bonds.

“It’s working with the larger
Jewish community and thinking
about, ‘What would an ideal
21st-century Jewish Philadelphia
look like?’” Lasday said.

Having served various leader-
ship roles in Jewish educational
institutions in St. Louis and New
York, Lasday made the bulk of
his impact thus far in Detroit,
where he was the director of the
Alliance for Jewish Education
and senior director of commu-
nity development at the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit before becoming the
chief operating officer of the
Jewish Community Center there
in 2017.

At the time, the JCC of
Metropolitan Detroit was losing
more than $1 million a year. It
was forced to close down one
of its two buildings and reduce
the staff and budget. In partner-
ship with JCC CEO Brian Siegel,
Lasday created a seven-point
strategic plan to rescue the JCC.

“We integrated
our Jeffrey Lasday assumed the role of senior chief, external affairs at the Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia on Dec. 20.
Courtesy of Jeffrey Lasday
departments in the [Jewish]
Federation with the depart-
ments that were existing at the
JCC and created a new vision for
what a 21st-century JCC should
look like,” Lasday said.

With a $2.5 million budget, 15
full-time professionals and more
than 100 consultants, Lasday’s
department was transferred
from the Jewish Federation to
the JCC to smooth out opera-
tions there.

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“In Hebrew, there’s a term,
tzimtzum, which
means contract,” Lasday said. “[Jewish]
Federation was willing to
contract some of its program-
ming for the better good of the
Jewish community.”
2017 was not Lasday’s last
encounter with tzimtzum. As
COVID hit in early 2020, the
JCC was forced to furlough 90%
of its staff — 230 employees —
as well as shut down its fitness
center, day care and day camp,
the lifeblood of most JCCs.

“At the JCC, for us, it became
a matter of just being able to
survive,” Lasday said.

Navigating decision-making
weekly, the JCC, under the
guidance of Lasday, was able to
successfully open their outdoor
pool and later other facilities
with COVID-protocols that
aligned with the information
available to them at the time.

“It was really a matter of
holding our breaths and getting
through and making decisions
— like everybody at that time
was — with not enough infor-
mation,” Lasday said.

After the birth of a grand-
daughter last year, Lasday
wanted to move back to the
East Coast to be closer to his
and his wife’s family. A friend
of Balaban’s for more than 27
years, the two connected to
discuss a position for Lasday in
Philadelphia. Lasday’s hiring is part of
a larger reorganization effort
within the Jewish Federation
that included the transition of
Nikki DeCaro to the position
of senior chief, finance and
operations. “This is a team sport,” Balaban
said. “We’ve reorganized three
key areas of the organization.

Nikki plays a central piece, I play
a central piece and Jeff plays a
central piece in helping to refor-
mulate those corridors of the
organization, those pillars.”
With Lasday on board,
Balaban is confident the
reorganization will progress
smoothly. “He really has an incredible
way of maximizing people’s
potential and will be a great
asset to me as we work to tackle
some of the larger issues and
opportunities that we face as a
community,” Balaban said. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Perelman Hires New Head of School
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
DURING HER EIGHT-year
tenure leading the Perelman
Jewish Day School, Judy Groner
presided over a generational
change in the teaching ranks.

Now, the retiring Groner is
handing over school leadership
to the younger generation, too.

When the head of school
retires this summer, Mitchell
Daar, 36, will replace her.

The board of directors
for the pre-K-5 Montgomery
County institution announced
the hiring with a letter to their
community on Jan. 10.

“We are delighted to
announce that we have secured
our first choice for this essen-
tial role,” wrote Nancy Black,
the board president.

Black’s kids, a son and a
daughter, graduated from
Perelman in 2008 and 2013,
respectively. But Black, a Bryn
Mawr resident, remains a
donor to the institution and an
active participant in its affairs.

She stayed involved because
she loved what Perelman did
for her children “during their
formative years,” she said. It
gave them a strong foundation
of Jewish identity and values.

“That school has a warmth
that really shapes who they
are,” Black added.

During the search process,
Black felt that same warmth
and openness from Daar. The
president called the new head
of school dynamic, engaging,
thoughtful and analytical.

“You need someone who
can bring people together,”
Black said.

Daar may seem capable of
bringing people together, but
he has not yet done it as a head
of school. When he starts his
new role on July 1, he will take
over as a building leader for
the first time in his career as a
Jewish educator.

But Daar feels ready for it,
he said.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Mitchell Daar 
He’s the director of employ-
ment and strategy for the
Rodeph Sholom School, a
nursery-eighth grade institu-
tion on New York City’s Upper
West Side. Daar has held that
role for three years, serving
more than 400 students.

Before that, he was the
associate head of the middle
school at the Abraham Joshua
Heschel School, also on the
Upper West Side.

Before relocating to New
York, Daar spent more than
10 years at his alma mater
in Chicago: the Bernard Zell
Anshe Emet Day School. He
was a math teacher before
moving to a variety of adminis-
trative roles, including director
of educational operations and
high school counseling.

Daar also earned an MBA
to supplement his educational
experience with business
acumen. Both experiences
molded him into an educator
who could run an institution,
he said.

“At my core, I’m an educator,”
Daar continued. “But I have the
understanding of how systems
work; how to create change in
an organization.”
Daar grew to believe he
was ready to run a school
during his current role at
its new head.

“Everyone that’s a part of
Perelman praises it, and it’s
near and dear to their heart,”
Daar said.

After he
announced his decision to his Rodeph
community, he had multiple
parents reach out to him about
his new school.

“To say they went to
Perelman, and it’s such an
amazing school,” Daar recalled.

In the summer, Daar is
marrying his fiancee, Gillian
Miller-Lewis, and moving to
the Philadelphia area. Then he’s
going to start figuring out how
to build on Groner’s progress.

“I’m most excited to just
Courtesy of Mitchell Daar play a strong part in such a
strong community,” he said.

Rodeph Sholom.

But perhaps
more “I’m so humbled by this role.” l
Part of his job is making than anything, like Black
sure enrollment is healthy, and described, it was the school’s jsaffren@jewishexponent.com;
he has launched rebranding sense of community that sold 215-832-0740
and marketing efforts to make
the school more “accessible to
families that are a fit for our
community,” he said. One such
group is families who have been
in public school education.

“We need to remove the idea
that Jewish education is only
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for incredibly affluent Jewish
families,” Daar said. “We need
to make it for anyone who
wants to be a part of it.”
Custom designs, color options and
Daar was ready to imple-
free alterations available
ment that approach as a head
of school even before he got
Evening Gowns
the Perelman job. Through a
Suits/Separates recruiting firm, DRG Search,
he interviewed for a different
Cocktail Dresses
principal job but didn’t get it.

That same firm, though, led
Perelman’s search and reached
out to Daar last summer. As
61 Buck Road
Daar started researching the
Philadelphia-area school and
Huntingdon Valley,
interviewing for the role, he
PA 19006
began to get excited.

With its use of technology
www.elanaboutique.com and experimental classrooms,
(215)953-8820 Perelman had “a culture of
innovation,” as Daar described
it. He also liked how Perelman
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melded Jewish identity and the
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subjects like math.

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JEWISH EXPONENT
JANUARY 20, 2022
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