WHEN THEY JUST MAKE IT UP

What would you suggest be done?

1. Shortly after Silverman was anointed as CEO, he began a trek from federation to federation, something I thought welcome and long overdue. Then I learned that in a meeting with lay leadership in a Large Intermediate Federation in the Southwest, he was asked point blank by a lay leader whether JFNA would lead an effort to build the core allocations. His answer: "JFNA will never ask a federation to increase those allocations." I checked with two other communal leaders who were present; they confirmed that Jerry said exactly that or words to that effect. I called Silverman and asked him point blank; he not only denied saying it; he said he would never say such a thing.

I know pandering when I hear it; I also know that the communal lay leaders heard exactly what Jerry said. And this was when I stopped giving Mr. Silverman the benefit of the doubt.

2. Some two years ago Chair Manning demanded that a GPT group delete references to support of Zionism as "too controversial." When I printed that fact, Jerry denied it, certain LCE denied it, Manning denied it. Yet, even though it was true, no one cared about the facts. Falsehoods all around. Ultimately Manning apologized to those federation leaders she had accused of spreading this fact, effectively acknowledging that she said it. (She hasn't apologized to me.) Jerry, who led the assault, hasn't to my knowledge, apologized to anyone.

3. In February 2013, a few of us spent time with the incoming Chair of the Executive. She wanted to know our concerns and we spelled them out to her. Later that same day, she came up to me and told me that our list was filled with misinformation and that Jerry had given her the true facts. He just patronized her with stuff he made up on the spot, I think she knows that all those things that we had listed for her were, in fact, true.

4. And, most recently, in the face of LCE "strong reservations" about TribeFest, CEO Jerry claimed to them, outrageously, that TribeFest, from the beginning was demanded by the Young Leadership Cabinets. Patently false.

There's more...much, much more. Can you imagine what would happen were your CEO to just misrepresent the facts to your lay leadership? But, at JFNA it's part of the DNA. The apparent JFNA formula for success: have no qualifying credentials, if you don't know the answer to a question, make one up. Not only are you hired, we'll pay you $700,000 to keep doing whatever it is you're doing.


Rwexler