The President’s of the Yeshiva University salary has gone up by $153,651 between 2008 and 2009. In 2009 he was making $853,651 instead of $750,000 in 2008 (link). Note that the survey doesn’t include the other benefits like the deferred compensation, the retirement pay, bonus, use of housing, tuition, medical, etc. The benefits often can exceed the salary itself (see examples here and YU is a tiny school by comparison). This underlines the structural problem, there is no consequence for the performance at the top and the entire economic collapse is absorbed by the poor and the middle class. There has to be a connection between a performance and compensation. Specifically Richard Joel should be responsible for the Yeshiva’s massive loss of endowment on his watch, including to Berine Madoff investments. There is a simple Nassim Taleb’s maxim – “Captains go down with ships, all captains & all ships.” Not much will change till this rule becomes a part of the financial culture. Well I am out of the loop on YU, what did Richard Joel do to deserve the raise during the great recession? And this is not just an individual institution, almost all Jewish institutions today, from a small Chabad House in Montana to the mega metropolitan federations, they all lack the essential ingredients – ethics, sense of shame and transparency. Why write about this, the rank and file seems not to care or not to notice? This is why I and many others become disenfranchised from the Jewish people, it’s the culture rotten to the very core.
Why did Richard Joel’s Salary go up?
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I saw Richard Joel at a public function in November and he was complaining about the endowment.
Its seems reasonable to assume that YU did not lose any monies with Madoff just as Hadassah did not. Last weeks Forward reports that all efforts to contact YU’s pr office for comment on this issue failed. So you can deduce the answer yourself. It may not have made enough to require payback. That also may explain Merkin’s role in all of this.
Joel is not responsible for the general economic downturn that has hurt fund raising in general. That being said it was sort of foolish for the President of an institution that was supposedly hurt by the bad economy to accept this sort of salary, while at the same time firing over 60 employees. Taking a 10% paycut could have saved 10 percent of these positions.
But Joel was not hired for his academic background or his rabbinic credentials, he was hired as a cheerleader. He did a good job in “ra ra” at Hillel and I think he is doing a good job at that here at YU with a good PR effort and visibility.The new Gluck building promises to be his legacy even though it was rabbi Lamm who secured the funding. Of course he is being overpaid but thats part of the Jewish “game”.
But overall he has done a decent job here at YU.
The problem is not the salaries per say, the problem is one and the same – glasnost and the collusion with the oligarchy. The institutions are not serving the Jewish people, they are serving the oligarchs. And as Bernie Sanders highlights this is not just a Jewish problem. But as always it morphs into the most grotesque shape with the Jews.
I think that it’s a lot of money for a non profit org
i woud not donate money if one guy gets a miion dollar a year!