When Barry Finestone began working in the private sector in early 2005 after years of service in Jewish organizations, he thought that he had left the “old country” for good. “When I went out of Jewish work, I didn’t think I would get back in,” he recalled. “I was enjoying being out. I was very focused on it.”
It was February 2010, and like many jobless Americans, Rabbi Avi Greene found himself in a bind. His digital day school startup venture had only half the funding it needed. He had been laid off from an administrative position at a Los Angeles Jewish day school almost two years earlier. So, with America’s unemployment rate at 9.7%, he set out on a job search.