A lifetime of community and public service, including 14 years in the trenches of Parliament, has prepared Marlene Jennings for her new role as executive director of the YM-YWHA/Montreal Jewish Community Centres, she believes.

She also adds longstanding ties with the Jewish community and Israel.

The Y management took many by surprise when it announced March 23 that Jennings had been chosen for the top professional post, which had been vacant for seven months. She is the first non-Jew to be executive director in the association’s 102-year history, and she’s an active member of the city’s black community. Jennings is only the second woman to hold the job.

“The Jewish identity will never and should never be put in jeopardy. The Y is a key component of the Jewish community, and it’s clear that will continue,” Jennings said in an interview on her second day at the Y last week.

Reaching out to the wider public, both to form organizational alliances and to recruit new members, however, is a priority.

Y president Peter Lewis said management hopes Jennings can boost the Y’s profile in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities and find new sources of revenue to maintain a multi-million-dollar budget.

Jennings has familiarized herself with the decision made a couple of years ago by the Y to open the fitness facilities at the main Ben Weider branch on Saturdays. She’s read the minutes of the meetings of the board, the executive and trustees.

“While there was some controversy, I think it was a delicate issue managed well, and mainly things have gone well [since],” she said.

The Y’s Jewish educational role will be in the hands of Sid Milech, who served as a co-interim executive director since the departure of Michael Crelinsten. Milech, a former teacher and principal at Jewish People’s and Peretz Schools-Bialik High School, has been appointed to the new position of senior Jewish educator while continuing to serve as director of the Y Country Camp.

Jennings, 60, was the Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine from 1997 until her defeat by the New Democrat Isabelle Morin last May. Jennings was the Liberal deputy House leader at the time of dissolution.

Jennings had been considering a number of options since then. Had things worked out, she might now be in Haiti serving on a three-year project to promote democracy. But the Washington, D.C.-based National Democratic Institute failed in its bid for funding from the United States’ international development agency.

François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir du Québec, tried to recruit her as a candidate for the new provincial party, an offer she mulled but eventually turned down.

She was headhunted for the Y job, and Jennings said it was the most enticing of the possibilities she had.

Jennings, a lawyer by profession who is fluently bilingual, remembers working closely with representatives of the Y and what is now Federation CJA in the mid-1980s on a task force to revive the Negro Community Centre in Little Burgundy. The group’s recommendations were ultimately shelved and the centre did not reopen, she recalled with regret.

Jennings grew up one of eight children in mainly francophone Longueuil, providing plenty of early experience in how to get along with all kinds of people. Today, she considers that as probably her greatest strength.

“I’m a good mediator,” she said. “You have to be when you’ve been through the divisiveness of Parliament and even in your own party.”

Compared to that, she regards working at the Y as like coming home to family.

Jennings was a founding member of Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel, and chaired the Canada-Israel Parliamentary Association. She has been married for many years to Luciano Del Negro, now Quebec vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. She has visited Israel twice and feels “a real connection” with Israelis.

“People told me that Israelis can be brusque. And, yes, that’s true, but I’m fine with that.”

Her first days at the Y are being spent meeting as many of the 200 staff she oversees at the Ben Weider branch, as well as the West Island branch and the Y Country Camp, to hear what they have to say about the association.

“For over 100 years, the Y has been an integral part of the Jewish community, and we are committed to building on this strong foundation, maintaining our identity and offering our members access to top-notch cultural and athletic programming,” Lewis said.

“We are confident Marlene has the judgment, leadership and management skills and the community understanding to ensure the continued success of our operations.”