Donor Spotlight:
Dr. Gil Mayor

reposted from the January 2007 issue of Speak E-Z

For Dr. Gilbert Mayor of Morristown, the heart of involvement in the Jewish community is not just in making donations but in participation, in becoming personally engaged.

“I believe in community,” Mayor explained. “I want to do my part, and giving money is just not enough.”

When asked why he feels that way, he continued, “It’s too easy. It gets you off the hook. You really aren’t being counted. You’re not a soldier. Life is a participation sport. I need to do more than buy myself out by appearing generous to other people. When I get involved personally, my participation becomes an internal thing. No one knows how little or how much I do.

“If I give a generous gift, everyone says that you’re generous, that you’re a participant, and you get the external kudos. But internally, it’s not the same as really doing something, really standing up and being counted – working and giving of yourself.”

Part of the value of personal involvement is the change it brings to the individual, and that it has brought to Mayor.

“Every good thing that you do, every legacy that you create by having a positive influence of any kind, actually changes you for the better.”

Mayor’s personal involvement in federation began early, when he was teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It started when he made a serious effort to offer a donation and he was challenged to “put your money where your mouth is.”

“And I did it,” he recalled. “I was in Ann Arbor, and I contacted the local federation several times so that I could make a donation, and they never got back to me. There was an emergency meeting, and I attended it. I went up to the president of the Ann Arbor federation – Henry Applebaum, a wonderful man and a renowned doctor – and I said, ‘You run a lousy organization. I’ve been trying to be included. I’ve been trying to give money, and you don’t even call me back.’ Henry asked me, ‘What’s your name.’ I told him and he said, ‘You’re on the board.’”

Mayor’s direct involvement since then has been extensive. Not only was he a member of the board of Ann Arbor federation, but he served as president of the federation in Lansing, Mich. In United Jewish Communities (UJC) of MetroWest, he has served on the UJC board, the UJA Campaign Cabinet, the Cherkassy Committee, the UJA Benefit Concert Committee, and contributed his efforts to much more. Mayor is also the current president of the Mount Freedom Jewish Center.

The influence that has moved Mayor to become personally involved and remain so is his family background. It is a tradition he values and intends to continue.

“I came from a family that valued participation in the welfare of the community,” he observed. “The Jewish community is not the only community I’m involved in, but it is the community I identify as of extreme importance to me and my family and my children, especially at this critical moment in the history of the world. I want to set an example for my children.”

Mayor feels that the value of and the need for participation are never ending.

“There is no end to the road for the work we do,” he explained. “I do as much as I can, and as soon as you finish the last task, it is in the nature of this kind of interaction that someone will then have something more that you’re needed to do.”

As much as there is a personal value in direct participation, a way in which it changes you, Mayor also notes that personal commitment creates a force that brings in other people, that acts like a force of gravity to draw in a community.

“The hope and the reasonableness in my telling my story,” he said, “is that it will involve other people, because it’s only by a little bit of involvement by everybody, or by many people, that we will really move forward. A lot of involvement by a few is not the best formula. The power of many is very, very strong. It is huge.”

Even though the focus for Mayor is on involving the community at large, on engaging as many people as possible, the importance of the work we do, he feels, must always remain on the individual.

“The most important work we can accomplish together,” he explained, “relies on not losing sight of individual tragedy, on not neglecting the little problem. You have to think about a hungry child in the Ukraine, for example, or a child in trouble anywhere. As you deal with larger general issues, don’t forget the smaller particular ones.”

For Mayor, it always is a matter of becoming personally involved, of giving of oneself, one person at a time.

“I invite everyone who’s been thinking about being involved to stop thinking and do it. If not now, when?”