2. When our sitting JFNA Chair announced his (their?) decision to extend CEO Silverman's contract, he privately explained that he didn't want JFNA "distracted" during the last year of his term by a search for a new CEO. Instead, Michael, for all intents and purposes right now it's as if JFNA has no CEO. Really, how is that decision working out for us (or for Michael Siegal)? Best I can tell, there's just Pat McNamara, Mindy Hepner, Karen Strauss, Mark Gurvis, Renee Rothstein and, lonely in D.C., William Daroff.
3. More GA nonsense. In a September 2 "promotion" of the GA, JFNA prominently promoted a session that will ask the following question:
"What is the role of Federation and other Jewish communal organizations in a time of crisis? Where does community end and leadership begin? Examine these questions and more in this session led by Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute."Yes, just consider the highlighted question. You just shake your head in shock and awe.
4. Follow the bouncing ball at 25 Broadway: The usually invisible JFNA COO, Mark Gurvis, suddenly appeared in an e-mail last month announcing two staff appointments. One, the professional who will "lead" the new Jewish Education and Engagement Unit -- you remember, the Unit created out of whole cloth out of a consultant report allegedly commissioned by the Federation National Agency Alliance, funded with $500,000 per year for at least 4 years (that's $2,000,000 by my count) allocated by most federation Alliance members to enhance the work of National Agencies diverted without challenge to the budget of JFNA and whose work will be devoted to implementing the underfunded now (as always actually) moribund Global Planning Table"voluntary Initiative" of the now defunct Global Planning Table. If you can keep up with this Rube Goldberg path of your federation dollars at work, please know that the remaining senior GPT professional at the end of that dismal day, has been reassigned to the Jewish Education and Engagement Office.
5. The biography of a successful candidate to move up from Federation CEO in Federation B to Federation A included the following in his list of "achievements":
"________ consolidated all Federation staff to underused space in the JCC building, then led many significant upgrade projects including: construction of the lobby lounge and upgrade to the Patio Gallery, the 2011 __ Volunteers project that created the intergenerational garden and gaga (sp) pit and addressed many maintenance needs throughout the building, and replacement of many roofs, HVAC units and other capital repairs made possible through the agency’s improved financial performance."Must have been the creation of that ga-ga pit that sold Community A on this candidate's credentials.*
6. Let's close with this: JTA reported that to cool down visitors this Summer, showers had been installed at Auschwitz.
http://www.jta.org/2015/08/31/news-opinion/the-telegraph/auschwitz-showers-for-tourists-cool-off-some-offend-others
What else is there to say?
Insanity.
Rwexler
* For those of you like me who haven't a clue what a ga-ga pit is:
"ga-ga (literally 'touch-touch' in Hebrew) is a variant of dodgeball that is played with one ball. The game combines dodging, striking, running, and jumping, with the object of being the last person standing. Players hit the ball at each other with their hands, and are eliminated if the ball strikes them below the waist. The game can be played by a group of individual players or with teams, as well as in one-on-one matches. Rules, ball types, pit surfaces, and pit sizes can vary widely at different venues. Other names for this game include Israeli dodgeball, octo-ball and panda ball."The ga-ga pit is the pit in which the ga-ga game game is played.
Richard - your comment on the transitioning Exec was mean and unworthy. He is a fine individual, and his list of achievements is much longer than the small piece that you took out of context. If you go around attacking every new exec and next-generation leader, no one will be left pretty soon to read your blog.
ReplyDeleteRe: the "transitioning Exec" -- I thought Richard's entry was a parody; now I thing that the Comment was just a joke. I don't know who the "transitioning Exec" is; and I don't know which is Community A or Community B. Although I would like to know all of those things.
ReplyDelete"Mean and unworthy," no; if true, "funny and sad," yes.
To the Anonymous Commentator whose Comment, repeating the first Anonymous' but with more anger but no facts -- I would welcome your criticism if you would include with your litany of accusations some specifics. Until then...nope, sorry.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't facts. They were a sorrowful admonition. Too much lashon hara in your piece. If your blog is increasingly focused on attacking professionals, and mocking them, then you've lost me.
ReplyDeleteWait, so the anon needs lists of facts to defend someone, but everyone else can just attack and make fun of the poor guy? That doesn't seem right.
ReplyDeleteI will try to win you back...but can make no promises.
ReplyDeleteKol hakavod to you Richard. It's a sad statement that your blog is perhaps the only place to have these conversations (though a credit to you).
ReplyDeleteplease tell me that joke of department- mandel really made that statement on the exec. please amuse me.
ReplyDeleteNo, this time the CEO wrote this himself.
ReplyDeleteBut JFNA should have flagged it and advised for copy with greater gravitas.
ReplyDeleteBe kind, chevre. Don't take a few sentences out of context and point figures. Everyone needs to move up, and everyone needs to promote themselves at times. Don't shoot down young aspiring communal professionals: it's not like we have enough.
ReplyDelete