QUICK STUDY?

Bougie Herzog was elected Chair of the Jewish Agency Executive in June and, reading a brilliant interview conducted by Haviv Rettig-Gur in The Jerusalem Post, one can only conclude that Herzog has all of JAFI's ills vis-a-vis the Diaspora figured out -- it's JAFI's own fault. Well, that didn't take long, did it?

In the article -- https://www.timesofisrael.com/isaac-herzog-sees-hope-for-the-jewish-agency-and-the-fractured-nation-it-serves/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=b68103a2d8-EMAIL_WEEKEND_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_09_08_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-b68103a2d8-55323437 -- Herzog seems to believe that he has hit on some fundamental problem that has distanced JAFI from its main funding partners (its most main partner, of course, is the Government of Israel): "...However, it’s an organization that really doesn’t know how to tell its story. That’s why people doubt its necessity."

I'm thinking back --where have I heard this "theory" before? Oh, yes -- this was Jerry Silverman's mantra, the one he tried to use, well, every time the JAFI core allocation dropped to a new historic low over each of the years of Jerry's faux leadership. I have absolutely no doubt that while Silverman played tour guide to Herzog on his recent visit to some federations in the eastern U.S. they had more than one conversation that went like this:

Herzog: "Why are the federations' allocations to our budget so horribly low and falling?"

Silverman: "As I've told JAFI, their product is horrible and they can't tell their story at all."

Herzog: "Got it." 

As time passes, certainly Bougie, who is no one's fool, will come to understand that JAFI's messaging is not even a minor factor in the draconian allocations it now receives.

Rettig-Gur offered a simultaneous reading of the Agency's importance coupled with its decline in another Times of Israel article that is must reading for those who love the work of the Jewish Agency:https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-a-new-leader-can-the-storied-jewish-agency-buck-50-years-of-decline/ A must read. 

And, here is the reality: JAFI (and JDC for that matter), while engaging in direct fund-raising in the United States for over a decade through its JAID "subsidiary" with only middling success, certainly less success than one would have expected given its overhead, determined to leave allocations advocacy among the federations to JFNA. Since Detroit's Jane Sherman chaired an organized national advocacy effore on behalf of JAFI and the Joint under Doron Krakow's enthusiastic professional leadership -- a one year effort with no real success -- JFNA has shown no interest in allocations advocacy. The "partners" were an afterthought; they remain exactly that, maybe less.

As I wrote in TIME FOR CHANGE, it is long past time for the partners to "partner up" and assume the responsibility to advocate themselves. I know from my years of advocacy on behalf of JAFI and JDC, no one can tell their stories better than the leaders of JAFI, JAD and WorldORT better, no one else has the passion and no one else, the facts. 

Bougie Herzog will come to understand this quickly -- he is, in fact, a quick study.

Rwexler