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January 03, 2008
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For Yeshiva's president, life can imitate television

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For Yeshiva's president, life can imitate television

RIVERDALE resident Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University, chats with college students on Dec. 18 after a discussion on presidential ethics. Photo courtesy of Yeshiva University
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By Kate McNeil

Riverdale resident Richard Joel compares his job - president of Yeshiva University - to the presidency of the United States. He has a point. The scrutiny, the pressure, the overscheduled days - maybe that's why he loves The West Wing so much.

"There are very few jobs that compare to mine, so I identify with Jed Barlett," he said, speaking of the fictional president. "Only, my office is rectangular."

In the first few years as president of Yeshiva, Mr. Joel would invite about 40 students to his office to munch on popcorn and watch the political drama. But since his favorite show was taken off the air, the Riverdale resident has missed the chance his monthly screenings provided for him to talk one on one with Yeshiva students.

On Dec. 18 Mr. Joel spoke at the college's Center of Ethics on presidential ethics. His talk featured, not surprisingly, a screening of "Take This Sabbath Day," a hot-button episode of The West Wing.

Before the event, he sat down with The Press to discuss his four years in the public eye and why Riverdale brings him solace. Richard Joel has never applied for a job in his life.

"If you're lucky, every step in life prepares you for the next," he said.

Turns out, 15 years as president of the Hillel Foundation coordinating Jewish education on secular campuses across the world was the perfect prerequisite for the presidential post at Yeshiva University. One prerequisite he did not have - rabbinical credentials - stirred the Jewish community.

"I succeed three giants," he said of his predecessors, all rabbis. But, he added, "it was counterintuitive of the university to think of the president merely as not a rabbi. I look at the presidency not as a pulpit but as a place to guide students to success."

After four successful years at the post, all is well on the west wing front.

To say Mr. Joel is busy is an understatement. His interview with The Press at 6:30 p.m. was his 10th, but not last, appointment of the day. In fact, he jokes he was a devout Sabbath observer until he took the job. Still he finds time to work out at the Riverdale YMYWHA twice a week, and, as an orthodox Jew, pray three times a day. Being a president of a university (a $650 million annual business) is a "relentless job," he said. "Who I am and what I do is on everyone's agenda."

His source of tranquility? His Arlington Avenue backyard. And when that doesn't work, he sets sail - once a year, he and his wife take a "no-Jews cruise."

"We need to be able to be non-people," he laughed. "People are wonderful, they are just all around."

Although he grew up in Yonkers, Mr. Joel was born in Riverdale on Huxley Avenue and has fond memories of the northwest Bronx. (He recalls catching The Graduate in 1967 at a Skyview movie theater that has since been supplanted by a Kosher grocery store.)

After earning his bachelor's and law degrees from New York University, he served as assistant district attorney in the Bronx.

"I am a child of the 60s," he said. "I became a lawyer because I thought I was going to fix the world."

"Fix the world," he might not have, but his time in law taught Mr. Joel analytic ability and advocacy, skills he uses every day at his job.

The Joel family - including six kids ages 32 to 17 - moved from Silver Spring, Md., (where Mr. Joel worked for Hillel) to Riverdale four years ago.

Even though he said his post is "kind of like the Vatican" in terms of Jewish leadership ranking, it was only a minute later that he confessed, "I'm just the president."

"You have to keep your perspective," he said. "I am surrounded by wonderful people around to advise me. I'm a conductor of a symphony, but without the musicians I'm nothing."

At times, he admitted, the relentlessness of the public eye can be overbearing. But, he's come to realize that just showing his face at events can make a difference.

He enjoys being a "cheerleader" of sorts, for the men and women who represent the future of Jewish leadership. He said he encourages Yeshiva students to take positions of leadership in the secular world - whether in law, medicine or business, but urges the "best and brightest" to go into education.

At the ethics lecture Dec. 18, Yeshiva rented a popcorn machine to give the meeting room a movie theatre feel. Where advertisements would cue, Mr. Joel paused the DVD to discuss ethics with the crowd of 50.

Among the audience was Marc Fein, a Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy graduate, who serves as one of the president's assistants. He said when he landed the job, his first assignment was to watch the first season of The West Wing.

"President Joel told me I was going to be his Charlie," Mr. Fein said, referring to the fictional presidential assistant.

Later, Mr. Joel said he loves the show because it doesn't answer questions - it raises them. As president, he said, not a day goes by that he isn't confronted with major decisions between right and wrong.

"The world rests on good people caring and acting on their convictions," he continued.

Jews, or any religious group, he said, have a choice of being "a part of" or "apart from" the secular world. Set on a hilltop in Washington Heights, the enclave that is Yeshiva University might seem "apart from" the rest of Manhattan, but Mr. Joel urges his students to be both peculiar and adaptive.

"More than ever Jews have to base lives on the Torah but through the lens of the Torah, embrace the world," he said.

To say Mr. Joel is busy is an understatement. His interview with 'The Press' at 6:30 p.m. was his 10th, but not last, appointment of the day.

This is part of the January 3, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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