So, in my response to the meeting, I wrote the following to Michael:
"Please respond to the following questions prior to any vote:1. Can you please list what has been accomplished by JFNA for the federations during Jerry's tenure to date so that we may make an intelligent decision
2. What is Jerry Silverman's total compensation, including all benefits, for the current fiscal year."
There were other questions I might have liked to ask but didn't that would have included:
1. Are the four of you truly leading?2. Have you compared the record of CEO You Have Got To Be Kidding with those of Phil Bernstein, Marty Kraar, Stan Horowitz, all deceased, or Steve Hoffman or Brian Lurie?
3. Is JFNA or our system better off today than it was 4+ years ago?
4. Is this the recommendation of serious leaders?
5. Who was called by this "Review Committee" to get the now famous "pulse of the system?"
Then, one of you asked some further substantive and important questions:
Think any of these questions will be answered? One thing is certain, the extension of this contract on the record of the lat 4+ years means that this leadership just doesn't care.
"and another set of bedrock questions:
1. What is Jerry's and JFNA's understanding of the VISION of the federation movement?
2. What is the explicit MISSION of JFNA in fulfilling this mission?
3. What STRATEGIES have they/he conceived of and implemented to this end?
4. When,where and how are these type of questions seriously addressed?"
Rwexler
and another set of bedrock questions:
ReplyDeleteWhat is Jerry's and JFNA's understanding of the VISION of the federation movement?
What is the explicit MISSION of JFNA in fulfilling this mission?
What STRATEGIES have they/he conceived of and implemented to this end?
When,where and how are these type of questions seriously addressed?
Maybe the reason JFNA switched to Greece is a result of the ADL study that found Greece as the most anti-Semetic country in the world. I for one wouldn't spend a nickel in Greece.
ReplyDeleteATHENS, Greece (JTA) — When the Anti-Defamation League published its global anti-Semitism survey last week, Greece, the cradle of democracy, captured the ignominious title of most anti-Semitic country in Europe.
With 69 percent of Greeks espousing anti-Semitic views, according to the survey, Greece was on par with Saudi Arabia, more anti-Semitic than Iran (56 percent) and nearly twice as anti-Semitic as Europe’s second-most anti-Semitic country, France (37 percent).
On its surface, the poll suggests that anti-Semitism is running rampant in Greece. Much of the blame goes to the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which has found fertile ground for its extreme-right ideology in the ruins of Greece’s economic crisis. In elections held Sunday for Athens mayor, for example, 16 percent of the vote went to Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, a man notorious for beating a female political opponent during a television interview and for the large swastika tattooed on his shoulder.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/05/20/news-opinion/world/why-is-greece-the-most-anti-semitic-country-in-europe-2#ixzz32SdTDuYg
Over my professional career, I have seen more than one federation in situational,short term, medium term and long term crisis. In each case, one piece, just one piece, of the solution has been to convene and rely on the wisdom of past and present community stakeholders. In fact in one large and very important Midwest community whose campaign tanked in the early 1950's, every boomer age xxxxxxxer I've met has bragged that that "meeting" was held in their father's rec room. (sort of like the "who paid for the ship Exodus" legend.) Where the intervention did not work it was because the right stakeholders have given up, or were too much the problem to begin with, and that one key intervention was not a viable option. So where are we today? Can the right women and men still be called to service?
ReplyDeleteThank you for a provocative suggestion -- that we may have lost the "right stakeholders" -- and the questions that follow from that grim possibility. Look around the room at the next JFNA Board meeting and at the microphone...wonderful, enthusiastic leaders and, yet...
ReplyDeleteThank you for a provocative suggestion -- that we may have lost the "right stakeholders" -- and the questions that follow from that grim possibility. Look around the room at the next JFNA Board meeting and at the microphone...wonderful, enthusiastic leaders and, yet...
ReplyDeleteAre the "right" stakeholders engaged in JFNA? Simply look at the Board Chair -- a terrific guy, never involved in JFNA until he was plucked from Cleveland to be the Board Chair by, who else but the Puppet Master? That tells you a lot about who is/are really running the show.
ReplyDeleteIf all of the decisions are being made at JFNA by an Advisory Council then JFNA doesn't need an Executive Committee, doesn't even need a Board inasmuch as the Board is told nothing but how to vote. It's long past time for all of them to go -- let's reorganize and start from scratch.
ReplyDeleteTo the person who commented on nobody having the courage to ask the right question regarding Jerry's accomplishments during the JFNA Board Conference call on 6/2; now that I think of it, I cannot recall one JFNA Board meeting during the last 10 years, where someone went to the microphone and asked a challenging question.
ReplyDeleteThe silence is deafening.........
Let's be clear, Jerry Silverman is well beyond his shelf life, his expiration date has long since passed; he understands the federations no better today than he did when he entered this job -- which was NONE. He has learned one thing, as long as you keep three Large City Executives (who have proved they may know their own communities but nothing more), you'll keep your job. Those three are calling the shots and calling them badly -- any way to hasten their retirements?
ReplyDeleteOne is retiring in 6 weeks or so. Will be interesting to see how his successor feels about the significant dues that federation pays to support the work of JFNA - the Jewish FARCE of North America!
ReplyDeleteA Comment from one who must remain Anonymos:
ReplyDeleteSad. So very sad for all who love the Federation system and remember what it could accomplish not so very long ago.
Think about current "leadership" and staff and ponder:
Could these folks design and implement the Loan Guarantee Program and absorption plans for over 1 million refugees?
Could these folks have the wherewithal to get a leader (from Chicago) to basically say "I will guarantee the bribe offered by Uri Librani to keep rebels out of Adis Ababa long enough for 16,000 refugees to be loaded onto flights to Israel?
Could these folks design a Katrina Response the scope of which our system implemented in 2005 which raised over $31 Million total and had responsibility to distribute over $22 Million of those dollars in a planful consultative process with active involvement of the impacted Gulf Coast Jewish and general communities? (Obviously not as seen by its lackluster results in response to Hurricane Sandy and other more recent natural disasters).
So very sad indeed.
Look, hiring Silverman five years ago was an obvious mistake -- he knew nothing about the federations and even less about the meaning of "accountability" which he spouted was what he was all about. Now, to extend his term to lead federations when he still knows almost nothing about them is analogous to hiring Donald Sterling to lead sensitivity training. It's a non-starter.
ReplyDeleteTo the last Anonymous: Right on. Any objective analysis would result in only one conclusion -- Silverman must go before JFNA does. The fact that this "Committee" is recommendiing an extension is but a demonstration that this was not a fair and balanced evaluation -- there is no defense for a further contract for Silverman.
ReplyDeleteIf the leaders who are making this recommendation really believe that Jerry is entitled to stay, they should really consider resigning themselves.