Gender Equity in Hiring Project

Despite decades of progress to close the wage gap and advance the status of women at work, women continue to be paid less than men in nearly every occupation – including in the Jewish communal sector. The Gender Equity in Hiring Project  (GEiHP) is seeking to change that, and at the heart of its work, is weaving Jewish networks that are rooted in care. Founded in 2018, GEiJP puts the Jewish values of equity and justice into action in order to build Jewish workplaces that tap into the best of our talent and human potential. Through advocacy, trainings, and relationship-driven workshops, GEiHP is removing gender bias from hiring and employment processes in Jewish organizational life to help women and non-binary people rise to positions of leadership.

The global pandemic brought an onslaught of challenges for women at work, and GEiHP was poised to meet many of those challenges head-on. In 2021, GEiHP launched its Salary Range Transparency Working Group — an initiative to empower Jewish professionals across the sector to include salary ranges on every job posting across the Jewish community. GEiHP also launched Ask For It, a Negotiation Workshop and coaching model that supports women and non-binary folks to describe their value, and gather the necessary data to make the claim that they deserve more. Nearly 100 women have already invested in their own success as they are asking for what they deserve, and diffusing the power of their advocacy by modeling their new skills with others.

“I look back at the GEiHP workshop as a turning point in my work as an ally,” one workshops participant shared. “Beyond the focused intent of the seminar — learning to bring equity to the hiring process — GEiHP and its leadership opened my eyes through successive book discussions and allies groups, inspiring me to move beyond ideas to become more of the upstander I hoped to be. My rabbinate, our synagogue, and my work in our larger Jewish world now take on a sharper, more active feminist/ally edge because the GEiHP showed me how to lean into my values.”

At a time when organizations and professionals are reckoning with big questions about equity, sustainability, and justice, GEiHP is leading the way for progress.