"WITHOUT FECK"

It is hard to conceive of a greater void than that the federations have created by not demanding of the Jewish Federations of North America that it meet the mandate it was given ten years ago and create some systemic discipline the lack of which is leading the federations into an abyss...perversely, therefore, an abyss of their own making. JFNA has become but a shadow of its predecessor organizations, which themselves were in serious decline at the time of merger over a decade ago. If someone told me in 1999 that they anticipated the sorry state of our system in 2010, I would have viewed them as daft -- but they would have been correct.

Even our leading federations, who rely on strong professional leadership. who need unity in order to empower JFNA and/or come together in collective action to impose discipline, are in disarray to the point that men and women I respect predict that the era of "sacred survival" is at an end. Three Large City federations unilaterally determine to cease allocating to core -- and there is no one in authority locally or nationally to point out how and why this is so wrong, so destructive not alone to the concept of a "system" but to those federations themselves. When a Large City Executive I have always respected shrugs off the destructive JDC threats of the past days as essentially meaningless "because when we stand together yada, yada, yada.." I sense a case of denial in the face of reality. When I hear that "all we need to do is raise more money and everything will work out" or words to that effect, I wonder if there has been any reflection on the reality that while our federations raised an additional $200,000,000 in the aggregate since the formation of JFNA, our national organization just stuck its collective head in the sand (where that head remains) while allocations to JAFI/JDC core reduced by over that amount over the same period. "Not our business; our business is Dues."

I see federations today the leaders of too many of which believe that they can unilaterally determine our overseas priorities because (a) they have a staff professional or amuta in Israel; or (b) they know more than either JDC or JAFI; or (c) because JFNA's message is "you decide, it's really none of our business;" or (d) because we have in our community a leader or leaders who have a "relationship" with the Joint or Agency that overrides rational collective decision-making; or (e) all of the above.

I see a totally inappropriate unilateral attack on the federations and JFNA by the Joint starting with a claim that they have been controlled by a "split" agreed to by contract "dating back to 1952" as if the Joint has been bound by a 58 year old agreement. And, no one at JFNA has enough sense of history (or just plain sense) to be able to respond by pointing out that that 1952 agreement has been renegotiated by JDC and JAFI at least every five and two years since and the Joint agreed (no one forced them into agreement) to the split because its then leadership was both reasonable and responsible. I see the Joint framing the issue as "feeding the hungry vs. Jewish identity" when its leaders know full well that they themselves have framed a budget for this year and next wherein they themselves reduced their funding for the poor and elderly in the FSU. And I read where that agency has dramatically expanded its marketing and FRD professionals (including this week hiring away a Large City Executive) while complaining bitterly about the "unfairness" of federation allocations. And, from JFNA, in response: "we are having productive discussions." Like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

If you have been reading these pages, you probably know my sense that this mess has been wholly predictable. And, it's all so sad.

What we have is a feckless "leadership" of our system. (When I asked my son-in-law for a definition of "feckless," he offered quickly "without feck." Well said.) Afraid to offend, afraid to lead. At a time when leadership is needed, it is nowhere, preferring to look over its shoulder for fear of criticism, lacking any sense of moral obligation or what leadership means. I'll leave it to each of you to come to your own conclusions as to how we got here, but here we are, a continental collective community..."without feck" indeed.

Rwexler



Rwexler