Eric Goldstein spent 31 years as a partner at Paul Weiss before walking away to lead UJA-Federation of New York, the largest local nonprofit in the world, raising $2.8 billion under his leadership.
In this episode, Eric shares why he left elite Big Law, what leadership really looks like in moments of crisis, and the lessons he learned when he realized he wasn’t as indispensable as he once thought.
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Transcript
Victor M. Braca: You lead the largest local nonprofit in the world. You were a big law partner for 30 years before you became the CEO of UJA. You were part of some of the most iconic deals on Wall Street representing JP Morgan Chase after Bear Stearns collapsed.
Eric Goldstein: It was an extraordinary case. We represented Steve Jobs. I met with him the day after the iPhone was introduced to the world. I think there were four prototypes in the world and he said, “You want to see it?” He pulled out of his pocket this early prototype iPhone.
Victor M. Braca: Under your leadership, UJA has raised $2.8 billion.
Eric Goldstein: We’ve given over $300 million in Israel since October 7th.
Victor M. Braca: You presided over UJA for October 7th, for the Russia-Ukraine war, for COVID, the rise in campus anti-Semitism.
Eric Goldstein: It was a horrible, horrible time. And you saw the power of UJA. COVID hit. Not only did you guys mobilize insanely quickly, you gave up your salary for 2020. Look, um, the story behind that is the most painful thing I ever did.
Victor M. Braca: My guest today spent 31 years as a partner at Paul, Weiss, one of the most elite law firms in the world, representing names like Michael Milken, JP Morgan during the Bear Stearns collapse, and even Steve Jobs. And then he walked away from all of it to lead the largest local nonprofit in the world. Eric Goldstein is the CEO of United Jewish Appeal, better known as UJA-Federation of New York. And under his leadership, the organization has raised $2.8 billion, mobilized over $300 million for Israel since October 7th, built a security network protecting 3,400 Jewish institutions, guided the Jewish community through COVID, war, a historic rise in anti-Semitism, and so much more.
We had an amazing conversation and we spoke about why Eric gave up one of the most prestigious careers in big law and how he learned to lead during constant crisis, including the moment he literally gave up his salary during COVID to stand with his team. We also get into his most important leadership lessons, the mentors who shaped him, and why unity across difference is the biggest challenge facing the Jewish community today. I’m Victor Braca. Momentum is where we dive deep into the stories behind business success. And this episode was such an interesting one because it blended the corporate and nonprofit world. I think you’re going to really enjoy it. Let me know what you think and let’s get into it.
Eric Goldstein, welcome to Momentum.
Eric Goldstein: Thanks. Great to be here.
Victor M. Braca: Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me in UJA headquarters. It’s very nice over here. We got a nice setup. I was speaking to some people who are close with you to try and get a full picture of the man that you are. And somebody told me that growing up and even as an adult, you were always the caregiver for your parents, right? For example, you were always the one who would call your mother to just check in every week, every day, whatever it might be. Can you maybe use that to color in a bit of the context for what we need to understand the man that you are?
Eric Goldstein: Sure. So, I’m not sure who you spoke to, but the reality is it’s much more about my appearance than about me. You know, the reality is I was and am blessed to have the parents I do, now 94 and 93. Although my mother is now not in great shape, my mother was actually a legal pioneer. She was one of four women in her law school class. She met my father at Brooklyn Law School. She came from a very orthodox family. Her brothers were Ram at Yeshiva University and she, like her late father who died when she was young, wanted to be a lawyer and was first in her class in 1956.
In that year they actually suspended the practice of having the first in the class give the valedictory address because it was perceived as being too stigmatic to have a woman lead the class and do this. But long story, both lawyers practiced together. My mother went on the bench and they have always been incredibly important in my life, my siblings’ life. So I spoke to my mother every day—again, more for me than for them. And in terms of caregiving, look, I have a brother and a sister. My brother works with my father many, many, many years later. My father’s been practicing law for 70 years. And my brother today is seeing my parents almost every day. So if anyone gets the shout-out, it’s him and not me. But we’re a very close family.
Victor M. Braca: I like the dynamic between you and your brother Mark each giving each other credit. It’s nice, as it should be. That’s a Jewish sibling way, you know.
Eric Goldstein: But I’m really in this instance I’m really telling the truth. My older brother Mark has been an incredible caregiver to my parents and he and my father still practice together with actually my brother’s son. So there, you know, three generations together, and with my brother’s wife, all practicing law. And my father doesn’t have to cross the street to go from his apartment to the office. And so Mark is there and he visits with my parents every day.
Victor M. Braca: Is the firm called Goldstein and Goldstein and Goldstein and Goldstein and Goldstein?
Eric Goldstein: They limited it to Goldstein and Goldstein. Everyone got the idea.
Victor M. Braca: Right. You come from a family of leaders in a sense. Your grandfather was a lawyer and he did a lot of pro-bono work for a lot of the institutions that built Brooklyn in a way. Yeshivat Ateret Torah and so many others. Your father was the president of a synagogue. Take me back to Eric Goldstein in grade school. Were you always a leader?
Eric Goldstein: Not how I thought about it truly. I always had opinions, always engaged in community and, you know, I was involved in my school and did lots of things, but I don’t know about the label or not. But you mentioned my grandfather who I didn’t know—the one you’re referring to died when my mother was 12—he came from Europe when he was two or three and was at NYU law school at 21. He was very involved in community, and clearly that motivated my mother and clearly motivated us. And my father, you know, my parents believe law to be a truly noble profession. Clearly it rubbed off on us to some extent.
Victor M. Braca: Eric, you studied at Columbia and Cornell. Was the original plan to work for your parents’ firm or to go into big law?
Eric Goldstein: No, absolutely. The original plan was to go to my parents’ firm immediately. In fact, my first and second summers of law school, when all my friends were going to these interviews for firms, I didn’t go to any. The notion was I was going to spend those summers with my parents and then go into their firm. And then my mother went on the bench, which ended her legal career as an appellate division judge in Brooklyn.
We all went to law school. My parents encouraged—”encouraged” is too gentle a word—all of their children to go into law in a very professional way. My parents believe law to be truly noble. I mean, to them… and they didn’t know from big law. They were helping people really in need in a community practice in downtown Brooklyn. And so I thought this is what I was going to do. But because my brother graduated law school a year ahead of me and he went into the firm, at the coming back from the second year summer, I was hearing about all these fun experiences at these big firms and I said, “Huh, maybe I’ll go out for a couple of years,” but always expecting to go and join them. And then life happened. I started at Paul, Weiss in 1983 and stayed there for 31 years until I came right here. So this is my second job.
Victor M. Braca: And Paul, Weiss, for anybody in the audience who might not know, is one of the most elite Wall Street law firms. You joined Paul, Weiss, a huge firm, thousand lawyers, 10 offices around the world. How does 24, 25-year-old Eric set himself apart?
Eric Goldstein: Well, first of all, I think I had an advantage truly because all my parents talk about is the law and they were both litigators. And so I walked in feeling very, very comfortable practicing law and being a litigator. But I think also beyond that, you know, you try to not limit yourself to the four corners of your cases. You’re curious about what’s going on around. You seek out mentors—incredibly important—who take an interest in your career. And I got really, really lucky.
I was a junior third-year associate when Michael Milken—a name that some of your audience knows well and some may not know, but was the leading financier of his generation and created the high-yield bond market, the junk bond market—he became the subject of the largest white-collar criminal investigation of the ’80s. I was a third-year associate put on that case and that case ended when I was already a partner. It’s all I did essentially; I became full-time connected with what were literally dozens and dozens of criminal, civil, and congressional investigations. It was an extraordinary case.
Victor M. Braca: That’s a world-renowned case. Representing Michael Milken is nothing to shy away from.
Eric Goldstein: To be clear, he didn’t come because of Eric Goldstein. The leading litigator of his generation, or at least one of the top two or three, was the head of the litigation department of Paul, Weiss, a legendary lawyer named Arthur Lyman. So he came for Arthur Lyman. Eric Goldstein just happened to be the associate.
Victor M. Braca: But you were part of some of the most iconic deals on Wall Street in that time period representing JP Morgan Chase after the Bear Stearns collapse. You mentioned Michael Milken. Unbelievable. Take me into those once-in-a-lifetime deals.
Eric Goldstein: JP Morgan / Bear Stearns was the first of the large investment banks to go under in what became the great financial crisis. Bear was the smallest of the large investment banks. In March 2008, there was one week where they had $18 billion of liquidity and by the end of the week, they were acquired by JP Morgan for what was initially $2 and then added $10 a share. Basically they went under and JP Morgan bailed them out. That was an extraordinary matter.
I went to the Bear Stearns building on Madison Avenue and interviewed everyone. Everyone was leaving, the firm was imploding. Some went on to JP Morgan, many didn’t. And so the SEC started looking at Bear both as a victim taken down by short sellers and also as the perpetrator—maybe they had done things that led to this collapse that were inappropriate. So it was an extraordinary case. I ended up taking the CEOs to Congress and represented them in the congressional hearing about what led Bear Stearns to implode.
Victor M. Braca: I recently read the book Too Big to Fail. You really took us into it. At this point in your career at Paul, Weiss, you were effectively in the top 1% of the top 1%. How did you position yourself to not only make partner, but beyond making partner, represent these billion-dollar institutions?
Eric Goldstein: First of all, Paul, Weiss is a formidable firm that has an incredible bench of lawyers. And so, when you have a “bet-the-company” case, a general counsel wants to be sure to make the right choice, and to pick Paul, Weiss in such a matter is never going to be second-guessed. I had an incredible legal career—the Milken litigation, the Bear Stearns. We represented Steve Jobs.
In fact, I will never forget: I met with him the day after the iPhone was introduced to the world in January, I think, 2008. We had a meeting with him literally the next day in his office. I think there were four prototypes in the world. And he said, “You want to see it?” and he pulled out of his pocket this early prototype iPhone. And I vividly remember they had that scroll function where if you went slow with it, it went slow, and if you went fast, it went fast. Like magic. A lot of incredibly interesting cases and it was a wonderful, wonderful legal practice.
Victor M. Braca: What did you learn from some of your behemoth clients?
Eric Goldstein: These clients are tough in the sense that you’re charging them extraordinary amounts of money on an hourly basis. They’re under intense pressure. These are all sort of “bet-the-company” kinds of matters. So I’ve often said, in the transition, my most difficult donor is easier than my easiest client. And oftentimes they’re the same people! When they present to you as the general counsel or as the principal of a business, it’s a very, very different environment than when they’re seeking to engage philanthropically. So this is hardcore. You have to really do your work. The hours were extraordinarily long. The challenge was great. You know, after a good argument in court, it felt great; after a trial that you won, you were great. But you lose, and you have arguments that don’t go as well, and those are really devastating. But it was a great 31-year legal career. I have enormous hakarat hatov to Paul, Weiss for giving me the opportunity while I was there to still be engaged communally. I don’t think I would have ever come to this seat otherwise.
Victor M. Braca: If I asked you in year 28, 29, “Eric, what’s the vision that you see for yourself for the next 10-20 years of your life?” what would you have told me?
Eric Goldstein: I would have told you that I wanted to remain a litigation partner at Paul, Weiss for my career and that I would have slowly trended down the legal work and increased the communal work. I’d always been involved in yeshiva education and local community things. But I thought I was going to remain a litigation partner at Paul, Weiss until I retired and did other things. This seat was not remotely planned. It shows you never really quite know where the road leads. You have to be open to taking chances. Doing this really felt a little bit like jumping off a cliff—giving up a partnership to become a Jewish communal professional wasn’t an intuitive choice.
Victor M. Braca: Divine providence at its finest. While you were at Paul, Weiss, you were a lay leader in the Jewish community. You served as the president of Manhattan Day School, you were a founding member of the Yeshiva University Israeli graduate school, you were the president of the Beth Din of America, and most importantly, you were on the search committee for a new CEO at UJA.
Eric Goldstein: I was actually more than on the search committee; I was the vice chair of our board. I had been a volunteer in some capacity for UJA for 30 years before I became the CEO. I got involved very, very early in my legal career. I was the chair of our young lawyers division in the ’80s. But I was the vice chair of our board and on the search committee when my predecessor—an extraordinary Jewish communal leader with whom I’m still very close, John Ruskay—announced he was leaving. I had not the slightest inclination of leaving my firm to do it.
The reality is that John, the prior CEO, came to me around two months into the search committee process and he said, “What do you think about getting off the search committee and becoming a candidate?” He floored me. Stunned me. It wasn’t something I thought about, but the more I thought about it… if you like the issues that UJA engages with—and I care about them deeply—it’s hard to figure out a better platform. I agonized. Had I known then what I know now, I would have made the decision with a much easier heart.
Victor M. Braca: It’s unbelievable because other careers would have been easier to leave. You weren’t just getting paid, but you had such a big role in the lives of your clients.
Eric Goldstein: It was also a painful and important lesson. I thought I was a pretty hot-shot lawyer with a pretty devoted client base. I was announced as the incoming CEO of UJA in January of 2014. It’s actually an interesting lesson for all of us about how we’re not indispensable. My clients very quickly recognized that their cases would go on, but I wouldn’t be on them. Pretty quickly my practice disappeared, which at the time, frankly, was painful.
A lesson truly in “no one is indispensable” turned out to have been an enormous blessing in disguise. I ended up shadowing my predecessor John, who very graciously introduced me to everybody. I ended up being able to start this role really with an enormous leg up because I’d spent so much time with John. I assumed the role on July 1st of 2014, which was a crazy time in the Jewish world. Literally the day before I started, we learned that the three yeshiva boys who had been kidnapped by Hamas had been killed. Israel was in Operation Protective Edge, at war with Hamas literally a few days after I started. My first responsibility here was to speak at a memorial for the boys the night that I started. I was in Israel four or five times the next two months in connection with what was going on in the south of Israel.
Victor M. Braca: You probably thought you were busy at Paul, Weiss and then you became the CEO of UJA.
Eric Goldstein: They’re different kinds of time, but this is an intense way to spend a day. We had all these plans for an orderly onboarding process, and then the war starts. Until October 7th, that was far and away the fiercest fighting. Everything was done in a crash course. It also became very much a lesson for the muscles we used when October 7th happened because we have extraordinary grantees and long-term partners across Israel. When a crisis erupts, we know exactly who to go to. We can rush funding. That was the playbook both in Protective Edge and then in a much more dramatic way in the wake of October 7th.
Victor M. Braca: The theme for your entire tenure at UJA seems to be being thrown into the fire. Russia-Ukraine war, COVID, campus anti-Semitism… Under your leadership, UJA has raised $2.8 billion in the past 11 years, making it the largest local nonprofit in the world. You regularly meet with presidents and prime ministers. You’ve established the Yeshiva Tuition Fund and the Community Security Initiative (CSI), which protects 3,400 institutions.
Eric Goldstein: Many schools and shuls have their own, but this is to bring the entire community… it’s a centralized Jewish communal security force that works with 3,400 institutions. That didn’t exist before 2019. The fact that it didn’t need to exist before then is something we’ve lost sight of because anti-Semitism has become so ubiquitous.
When I started in 2014, if you had gone to the New York Jewish community and said, “What are the top five challenges facing the local community?” local anti-Semitism was not in the top five. As recently as 2017, we didn’t have a single dollar in our UJA budget for Jewish communal security. Today we’re spending over $21 million a year for security in New York plus combating anti-Semitism. The world has changed. For a long time, particularly in America, Jews were a little bit of a vacation from Jewish history. Things were incredibly easy relative to prior times and to now. Now it is almost constant crisis.
Victor M. Braca: Guys, there’s a very good chance you found out about Momentum through Kosher Media. These guys are the premier advertisers throughout Jewish communities all over the world. Momentum currently has however many thousands of listeners per episode. David and the Kosher Media team have been helping me expand my reach for over a year now. They have dozens of Instagram accounts, tens of thousands of contacts for email and text blast, WhatsApp chats like there’s no tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re trying to advertise—a product, a service, a podcast—call Kosher Media. It’s an amazing experience working with them and I promise you will not regret it. Guys, koshermedia.com. Tell David I sent you. And let’s get back to the episode.
I want to study your leadership. You went from being a litigator at Paul, Weiss to leading a multi-billion dollar nonprofit. How did you learn to effectively lead people and manage a huge endowment?
Eric Goldstein: Well, first of all, at Paul, Weiss, we had cases that had teams of lawyers and paralegals that could be 30, 40, 50 people. So, you had large teams. Many of the things that I focused on—negotiation, listening, forging consensus—are directly applicable to this kind of role. Particularly an organization like UJA, which exists to serve the entire Jewish community. It requires you to be sort of a genuine centrist who really exists to bring people together across difference.
And you also—this is an incredible organization. It’s not as if the CEO does everything. We have a great professional team. One of the great surprises… the people who come here to work at UJA could have done anything. They’re incredible, and out of a sense of deep mission and purpose they choose to spend their days helping others. And by the way, while they sacrificed in terms of economics, if you did a happiness survey, I hazard a pretty confident guess that the happiness quotient is higher on the UJA side.
Victor M. Braca: To give an example of your leadership—because a lot of people assume the title of a leader without embodying the traits—let’s go into 2020. UJA was one of the first to mobilize funds, $75 million out of your endowment, to help support essential communal organizations that were literally gasping for air. And not only did you mobilize quickly, you gave up your salary for 2020.
Eric Goldstein: Look, the story behind that is the most painful thing I ever did. We ended up laying off around 10% of our workforce in June of 2020. We raise a lot of money each year with over 400 in-person events. The thought was, with everyone going home and being remote, that the wheels would fall off the bus philanthropically. We needed to be prudent in how we operated. So that was a traumatic thing to do and I wanted to show that I felt the pain, too. I was in a position much more fortunate than many that I could take a year’s salary and not take it for the year to show that we were all part of the sacrifice of that moment.
Victor M. Braca: It’s an unbelievable sacrifice.
Eric Goldstein: I wanted to signal that we’re all in this together, even though I had a job at the end of the year and the people we laid off didn’t. It was trying to signal that we all feel this moment.
Victor M. Braca: I was speaking to a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. He told me that UJA saved his life. His family immigrated from Aleppo, Syria earlier than the final wave, and the organization that helped them escape was HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). Then when they came to America, the NYANA, another organization UJA funded, taught them English.
Eric Goldstein: Those were both incredibly significant grantees of UJA-Federation. UJA was created in 1939 to support pre-state Israel and beleaguered Jews in Eastern Europe. UJA was sending funds into the Warsaw Ghetto and trying to get people out. Federation was started in 1917 as World War I was raging and you had all of these Eastern European Jews on our shores with vast poverty. Federation was created to function like a community chest to support a community literally from cradle to grave, including the Hebrew Free Burial Association. This organization’s history and mandate is brought countless Jews to America and resettled them in Israel. Soviet Jews—more than a million came to Israel, hundreds of thousands came here. We were front and center in all of those things.
Victor M. Braca: I come from the Sephardic community of Brooklyn and I recently spoke to fundraise for UJA. I realized firsthand the impact that UJA has on my community—from our schools to our shuls to our community centers.
Eric Goldstein: We’re looking to help support every segment of the Jewish community of New York. I love the Sephardic community of New York. You model so many things beautifully. Maurice Bailey and Stanley Chera were pioneers in tzedakah but also became leaders of our broader community. Over the last five years or so, we’ve sent $22 million of grants into the Syrian community of Brooklyn: yeshivot, the Center, Sephardic Bikur Holim, Propel, SAFE… But it’s not a one-way street. The community has gotten involved in our leadership, and one of the great things is the ability to sit at a table and benefit from sensibilities across the community.
Victor M. Braca: If I had to ask you to point to what you’re proudest of from your time leading UJA, what would you say that is?
Eric Goldstein: It’s truly an impossible question. The dedication of our professional staff during COVID… we were more closely connected as an organization when we were physically apart than before or after. We would get the entire organization on Zoom at least once a week. To see a professional team put aside their own personal challenges to address communal challenges—the devotion of the people who work here was extraordinary.
When anti-Semitism became an enormous challenge… I remember Hanukkah 2019, you had the machete attack in Monsey, the killing at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, daily incidents in Brooklyn. On one week’s notice we did a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in January 2020 and 30,000 people freezing walked across. We put that together in less than a week. I remember feeling good. I took the subway down and my train was so crowded at 8:00 in the morning with people clearly going to this march. You see the power of community to come together.
In the wake of COVID, we created one-stop social service hubs. We’re taking all of our food pantries and turning them into online hubs. It’s extraordinary because you don’t have to wait in line with no dignity; you go online and you choose. A person could get workforce training and go from earning $28,000 to $47,000, which is the difference between crisis and stability. And October 7th—we’ve given over $300 million in Israel in that period. I think we’re the largest philanthropic funder in the north of Israel. You can’t pick one thing.
Victor M. Braca: You were a big law partner for 30 years putting in 14-hour days. How do you balance family, ambition, and rest?
Eric Goldstein: Look, I can’t put myself up as a poster child for work-life balance. My wife is absolutely spectacular. She gave up a career in veterinary medicine to care for our four kids. Two of whom now live in Israel and we have two grandkids there. My wife has been extraordinarily there. My hours at Paul, Weiss were pretty crushing and my hours here are also pretty crushing. But you have to like this. You can’t work like this unless you feel incredibly fulfilled doing it.
Victor M. Braca: I think that’s how you have been able to so effectively lead UJA—splitting your time in a way that sometimes family is 80% whereas work is 20%, and then that shifts.
Eric Goldstein: That’s a very good frame. In this job, so much of it feels like family because it really sort of is extended family. You’re spending your day doing things that you think are incredibly meaningful for your community. Boy, what a great way to spend a day.
Victor M. Braca: Over the past 12 years, what’s been the most difficult period of your life?
Eric Goldstein: Look, we mentioned it—laying off staff during COVID was horrible. Far and away, our community has been rocked by challenges we never thought we’d have to confront. October 7th… there’s always going to be a “before October 7th” and an “after October 7th” for this generation of Jews. Even the reverberations here—to see our colleges and cultural institutions turn on us or be silent in the face of obvious atrocities. We’re now dealing with a new mayor-elect. New York’s never had a mayor who didn’t believe fervently in Israel’s right to exist, let alone who thought that Israel was genocidal. So, we’re in a new chapter here in New York, too. We need to recognize that we control our destiny. It requires us to do things better than we’ve done historically.
Victor M. Braca: I’m going to challenge you to think of a couple of success principles you’ve learned. It can’t be “work hard” or “be determined.” What’s something unconventional that has stuck with you?
Eric Goldstein: First, those three are pretty important! Find mentors. Find people who become invested in your career and in helping you. Listen, listen, listen before you speak. We’re really good at speaking; we’re not often good enough at listening. Understanding the perspective from the other side is incredibly helpful because there shouldn’t be a confrontation. You should try to bring communities together by understanding what’s animating both sides. Surround yourself with great people and recognize that there are limits in what any of us can do. None of us has a monopoly on truth.
Victor M. Braca: You lead UJA alongside lay leaders like Linda Mirels and Marc Rowan. At the UJA Wall Street dinner, Marc was speaking accolades of you—whenever he has an idea, you’ve already had it.
Eric Goldstein: First of all, don’t believe everything that people say. There are many ideas that Marc Rowan has that I haven’t thought of! He and Linda have been incredible leaders. We are blessed to have leaders here who don’t simply write enormous checks, but also roll up their sleeves.
Victor M. Braca: What’s next for Eric Goldstein?
Eric Goldstein: It’s a great question. When I know, I’ll let you know. The truth is, I’m planning to step down on June 30th at the end of our fiscal year. This is a demanding time and I really don’t want to be distracted by the question of “what’s next.” Stay tuned.
Victor M. Braca: What has been your momentum moment?
Eric Goldstein: It would probably be momentum moments. I think it’s more of an up-and-down and then “re-momentum.” But one seminal thing: in 2001-2002 I did the Wexner Heritage Program. It’s a Jewish leadership program for people involved in law and business. It was incredibly eye-opening. All my life I had my Jewish world and my legal career. I grew up modern Orthodox; my kids went to modern Orthodox institutions. My Jewish life was very much in a band of the modern Orthodox world. In Wexner, I was in a room with 20 incredibly impressive leaders from all walks of life. It was the first time I heard Jews speak as Jews beyond the modern Orthodox world. It motivated me to expand my lens of thinking about Jewish community well beyond just the modern Orthodox. I don’t think that I would have ever taken this job without that experience.
If I have any real concern today, our greatest challenge really is an internal one. Five years ago, one of our great challenges was apathy. Apathy, thank God, isn’t our challenge. People are activated, but we are still so disunited. If you’re right of center, you spend time bad-mouthing left-of-center Jews and vice versa. We are not each other’s enemies. We disagree about strategies, but we want the same things. We do really have enemies out there. One of the great goals moving forward is figuring out how to disagree or come together across difference in a much more productive way.
Victor M. Braca: And it seems that moment allowed you to put even more of a focus on uniting Jewish communities when you came into UJA.
Eric Goldstein: I’m not saying we’re going to solve halakhic divides, but let’s understand each other. Let’s understand that we are strengthened by each other, particularly at a moment of greater crisis. It’s a worthy challenge for all of us.
Victor M. Braca: Eric, thank you for taking the time. Incredibly impressive what you do.
Eric Goldstein: Thank you.
Victor M. Braca: That wraps up this episode with Eric Goldstein. Here are three things that I took away from this conversation.
First, you’re not as indispensable as you think, and that’s a good thing. One of the most honest moments was when Eric talked about how after announcing he was leaving Paul, Weiss, his legal practice pretty much disappeared overnight. Don’t tie your identity too tightly to your job. Build skills, character, and relationships that travel with you, not just a title.
Second, build decision-making muscles before you need them. Eric didn’t magically learn how to lead during crises like COVID or October 7th. He built those muscles over decades handling high-pressure cases and making hard calls when there’s no perfect answer. Put yourself in situations now that force you to take responsibility.
And third, optimize for meaning, not just momentum. Eric had already “won” by conventional standards, but he still chose to pivot toward work where the upside wasn’t prestige, but it was impact. Regularly ask yourself: where does my effort actually matter most? Where can I make the most impact?
If you enjoyed this episode, check out our sister podcast, Impact by Momentum, where we sit down with some of the foremost nonprofit leaders. To check that out, click the link in the description. And guys, before we go, I want to thank the entire community involved in UJA for helping set this up. Click the link in the description to get involved. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share with a friend, hit the like button, subscribe, and make sure you tune in for the next episode. We’ll see you there.
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