In Jewish Leeds, Finding My Voice Through Yesod

If you want to know about Jewish life in Leeds, Susie Gordon is the right address. As the CEO of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council (LJRC), Susie fosters unity, advocates for this mid-sized British Jewish community’s needs and interests, and helps coordinate various communal activities. 

Susie’s leadership journey didn’t happen overnight. It was through Yesod — a partnership between JDC and Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe that promotes Jewish values, learning, and culture for Jewish communal professionals — that she found her stride as custodian of her community.  

In this reflection, Susie recounts the challenges and opportunities of being Jewish in Leeds and JDC’s central role in boosting the community’s resilience. 

A Critical Moment

It was Simchat Torah, and I hadn’t grasped the enormity of what was unfolding. I hadn’t seen the news — I was at shul. My husband came up to me and said, “It’s massive. What’s happening is massive.” I got that awful, sick feeling — a bit like I’d felt on 9/11. 

This was its own day of infamy — October 7, 2023. 

Soon after, we held our first vigil. More than 1,000 people came out. As any Jewish leader could’ve told you at the time, it was difficult to hold everyone’s trauma. The October 7 Hamas attacks hit every corner of the Jewish world with brutal force. Leeds was no different. 

But though the circumstances were catastrophic, we stood as one — showing our strength and unity in collective grief. That was no small thing. 

It took us years to become a cohesive, integrated community. And as CEO of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council (LJRC), I’ve devoted my entire career to bolstering the resilience of our relatively small corner of Jewish Europe. 

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community, regularly attending shul and participating in youth movements throughout my childhood. A career in the Jewish community had never crossed my mind — my passion was in the arts. I’d completed a degree in business focused on the entertainment industry and worked for a producer and in theatre. 

After travelling the world for a couple of years, I returned to the UK. When I moved from London to Leeds, I realised a career in the arts was no longer a viable option.

I had to explore a different path.

My Road to LJRC

Life had its own plans. I’d had a child and didn’t have a great experience returning to the arts after maternity leave. When my baby was 18 months old, I saw an opportunity at LJRC and thought, “Okay, I’m a new mother. The job is just 10 minutes away. This will work.”

And it did. Along the way, I learned that the job was close to home in other ways, too.  

Managing a performance and managing a Jewish community have their similarities — both have a lot of moving parts and different “roles” and complex choreography. Ideally, the different players, scenes, and acts coalesce into a compelling, beautiful whole. 

It’s an ensemble. You can’t be siloed — everyone must work together. 

Jewish Leeds, at the time of my joining, was a bunch of different actors working separately. My job became my calling when I realized there was an opportunity here — a chance to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders and create something marvelous: vibrant Jewish life. 

Leeds isn’t London. We don’t have the resources of a city that large, so it’s easy to feel forgotten in this corner of the UK. And when you have a million organizations working side-by-side, but not together, it weakens your ability to withstand crises and grow.

Yesod: An Invaluable Jewish Network

That’s why Yesod was a life-saver. 

I cried at my first Yesod seminar in 2016.  It was an emotional experience because I realized the weight of my responsibility in Leeds — but I also felt relief that there were others like me.

Here was a group of passionate Jewish leaders, many from small European communities themselves, who faced similar challenges. This was invaluable. When you know you’re confronting the same obstacles as other communities, you can weather any crisis. 

Many Jewish professionals reach a point of burnout. But at Yesod, I didn’t have to explain any of this to the participants. We spoke different languages, but we were fluent in each other’s work. I’d explain some problem my community was having, and they’d say, “Yeah. It’s hard.” Somehow, those simple words meant everything.

All of us had guidance, too, from the best mentor we could’ve asked for — JDC. 

Building Resilience with JDC

I came away from that first Yesod seminar inspired to bring my community together and fortify Jewish Leeds against future crises. That’s how I connected with David Gidron (z”l), who served as JDC’s director of community resilience and refugee support. 

I partnered with David to lead the Community Resilience Initiative in 2018. Through this project, we approached different stakeholders for a Community Voices survey and a listening tour. David and I gained valuable insights into the community’s values, needs, and priorities.

This led to a £193,000 grant from the National Lottery for new programs and initiatives. 

But some of the greatest benefits were intangible, too. The survey created a sense of community by opening up space for a collective discussion and vision. We were becoming unified. 

This served us well when a real crisis did strike: the COVID-19 pandemic. 

I had everything in place. Even before we were in lockdown, I led meetings and had a daily Zoom call with other leaders in which we asked, “How are we going to respond?  How are we going to keep our events going online? How are we going to look after our vulnerable people?”

Yesod was a life-saver: When you know you’re confronting the same obstacles as other communities, you can weather any crisis.

Before my resilience work with David, this conversation would’ve been unthinkable. I used to think, “Who am I to do this work?” But David, Yesod, and JDC showed me I was capable.

That’s why I was overjoyed to attend their recent Senior Professionals Seminar in Vienna. Over the course of three days, 14 Jewish community CEOs gathered from a diverse range of cities — Malmo, Sofia, Athens, Budapest, and more — to learn, share our difficulties, and gain strength. Among the many issues we discussed were trauma prevention, demographic trends in Jewish Europe, and the opportunities and challenges of being a Jewish leader in these turbulent times. 

This seminar was fuel for the work I do back in Leeds, and I see and feel Yesod’s influence in everything I do at the LJRC. 

The Future of Jewish Leeds & Closing Thoughts

My vision is of a community space where Jews can meet outside of shul. We know that Saturday is important for us Jews, but what about every other day of the week? What do people feel called to do on a Monday or Tuesday? I want this space to be a place where people can participate in exciting programs and get their needs met — a one-stop shop for all things Jewish Leeds. 

It’ll be a place where Jews from all walks of life can find each other and build the community I know we can become — the kind that stood together after October 7.

A month after the attacks, I helped organize another memorial, this time with Israelis. Each person held a photo of a hostage and I stood back and watched it all, watching the crowd, the speakers, and taking in the enormity of what had happened. That’s when it overwhelmed me — and I broke down.

Life is so short, I realized, and the time is always now to stand with your fellow Jews.

All of a sudden, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a BBC reporter asking for an interview. They pointed a camera at me and asked if I could say something.

I quickly composed myself and spoke on camera. It was a time to grieve, yes, but it was also a time to lead. There’s a lot of valuable work ahead. So, let’s roll up our sleeves — what are we waiting for? 

Susie Gordon is the CEO of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council (LJRC) in Leeds, UK.

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