Within a few weeks, local Jewish communal leaders accustomed to long trips to the east and west coasts to attend important conferences will suddenly find themselves with a new experience – home field advantage.

Early next month, the national spotlight will shine on St. Louis as it plays host to a major interdisciplinary event for as many as 200 Jewish professionals across the community and around the country.

“This kind of conference is rare,” said Brenda Gevertz, executive director of the New York-based Jewish Communal Service Association of North America (JCSA). “When it comes to these kinds of broad-based programs that bring Jewish communal professionals from all different sectors together, maybe there’s one or two a year at most.”

The upcoming Professional Leadership Conference, set to kick off March 6, is sponsored by JProSTL and JCSA and supported by the Lubin-Green Foundation. The event will be keynoted by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of Clal, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Named as one of the top 50 rabbis in America by Newsweek, Hirschfield is a noted author who has been featured in media appearances on outlets ranging from NPR and PBS to MTV and CNN.

The conference will feature two dozen different sessions in three time slots on various topics including use of social media, strategies for engaging young adults and solutions to financial challenges in the non-profit world. In addition, a selection of facilitated lunch discussions will be grouped by table on issues such as fundraising, volunteerism and branding. Other tables will explore teachings offered by local rabbis on change, happiness, parenting and other subjects of interest.

The theme for the two-day event is “What Unites Us.”

Conference co-chair Lori Goldberg, said that in two decades of working in the Jewish community she’s never seen an event of this type and magnitude held in St. Louis.

“We have an impressive lineup of speakers so we think there’s going to be something for everybody,” said Goldberg, who is coordinator of senior services at Jewish Family & Children’s Service. “It’s really a chance for the professionals who work in the St. Louis Jewish community to be a part of something that we’ve never before had the opportunity to participate in.”

It’s an opportunity made all the more important by tough economic times.

“The reality is that a lot of budgets have been cut and people who haven’t had the chance to attend other national conferences maybe haven’t been able to do something like this in the past few years,” Goldberg said.

Local participants won’t be the only ones on-hand. Gevertz has helped recruit about 20 professionals from as far away as Boston, Florida and Southern California as attendees so far. About 200 conference-goers have signed up overall and Goldberg expects that number could double by the time all is said and done.

Ken Weintraub said proper funding, good people and hard work have coalesced to make the event possible.

“The stars all aligned correctly,” said Weintraub, Goldberg’s co-chair and a senior development officer at the Jewish Federation of St. Louis.

Weintraub said that while conferences often cater to specific areas of Jewish life such as education, family services, or Jewish community center leadership, wider-ranging confabs are increasingly rare.

“Interdisciplinary conventions used to be big when I was breaking in in the 70s,” he recalled. “That was something that if you were an aspiring career pro you hungered to go to because there were role models from every discipline. Those have basically faded away because of costs and budget cuts. This is sort of a revival.”

Weintraub credited federation executive vice-president Barry Rosenberg, who will himself lead a session on demystifying strategic planning; and Marci Mayer Eisen, head of the I.E. Millstone Institute for Jewish Leadership; as well as the generosity of the Lubin-Green Foundation for bringing the event to St. Louis.

“It was the opposite of the perfect storm,” he said. “It was the perfect storm of good that made this happen.”

Local presenters seem equally enthused. Ronit Sherwin, executive director of Nishmah, said that such events help emphasize the importance of communal professionals and the work they do.

“It really is a pretty big coup that we’re getting these speakers and we’ve got people coming from cities all over the country,” said Sherwin, who will facilitate a panel discussion on how professionals of other faiths who work in the Jewish community can support Judaic organizational missions.

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose was looking forward to the event as well. He will lead an afternoon session entitled “Moses & Management” examining the paradigm of leadership created by Jewish sacred texts.

“I think it’s wonderful to see this emphasis and the realization that Jewish professionals are treasures,” he said. “People who are willing to dedicate their lives to the betterment of our community need support and training as well as opportunities for growth and development.”

Eisen, the event’s organizer, said conferences such as this motivate and inspire professionals by helping them to feel connected to individuals in other cities who do what they do.

“I’ve had the opportunity to attend several conferences like this so I feel honored to help bring this type of experience to St. Louis,” she said. “We hope people will walk away with information that will help them feel more prepared to handle their job challenges but also create the sense that they are part of the community.”

Attendance to all events and meals is $75 though admission only to events on Monday, March 7, which will include all the workshops, is $60. A $30 admission allows a participant to attend either Sunday evening, Monday morning or Monday afternoon. Registration deadline is March 1. For more information, call 314-442-3810 or email [email protected]. Visit online at www.jewishinstlouis.org/jpro for details and a full listing of activities.