A GROWING PESTILENCE

In the Mid-Term elections one race didn't reeive much notice. After all, on the surface, a race in an obscure House District on Chicago's Southwest Side, heavily and historically Democratic, where the Democraic incumbent, the soporific Dan Lipinski, easily defeated the Republican -- 73% to 27%. 

Yet, in this race the Republican candidate, Art Jones, was an avowed neo-Nazi, Holocaust denier and anti-Semite. Jones was so bad that the Republican Party tried to remove him from the ballot after it was too late to do so. (Combine Illinois' archaic voting laws with GOP negligence for his nomination and ballot retention.)

In the immediate aftermath of the Pittsburgh terrorist attack killing 11 Jewish Americans who were in prayer in the worst anti-Semitic crime in American history, this anti-Semite candidate received 27% of the vote...27%. Jones was clear in stating that he was "gratified" for the support:

"They can't say they didn't know who they were voting for."

Then, the conclusion:

"I think I probably would've done a lot better had it not been for this disaster in Pittsburgh with the murder of 11 Jews."

There you have it, this cretin received 27% of the vote in his House District race and believed his vote total would have been higher if Jews hadn't been murdered. 

As we all know, the ADL has reported that there was an explosion of anti-Semitic attacks and incidents in America in 2017 continuing into this year. The vote that Art Jones garnered on Chicago's Southwest Side -- 27% -- was, in this writer's view, another anti-Semitic event. When, in his press conference on November 7, the President of the UNited States was asked directly what he might be doing to stem the anti-semitic assaults, his response was: "Prime Minister Netanyahu said that I am the best friend Israel has ever had." 

All of us must stand tall for our children and our grandchildren and for our values. No one else will.

Rwexler

THE JUGGERNAUT

Traveling through Ben Gurion International into or out of Israel one is greeted with a series of slick ads -- I'm not talking about the ones for chocolates, or Duty-Free. I'm speaking of the ones bearing tag lines like:

"Bringing the Jewish People Home"

"Supporting our Soldiers" 

"Bringing Hope to the Next Generations of Jews Around the World" 

And, then, you realize that the focal point of each of these advertisements is singular -- there, in the center of each, is the visage of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the Chairman for Life (apparently) of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And you realize that these messages were not at all about the IFCJ (or, maybe, a little), but were all about HIM. Yes, Yechiel truly believes that, like a faux Moshiach, He is bringing the Jewish People home, and more. It's him, him, him. Of course it is.

Up to a certain point in time, Eckstein appeared to be satisfied with the kinds of kavod some donors demand (and all are entitled to) -- a photo of Yechiel and a federation leader with an oversized check against the background of a bedraggled Jewish community in, e.g., Kazakhstan, or a speaking engagement at a national meeting of the United Jewish Appeal, or a seat on the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency or newspaper ads promoting him from the JDC. Are those days gone forever with the new promotions in jetways and on the walls of Ben Gurion? 

Today, Eckstein, who, to his credit, made aliya several years ago, promotes himself (actually has others do the promoting) as a potential candidate for Israel's presidency. After all look at all he has accomplished. One of the FOB, when I asked "what's next for this guy?" responded: "I hear he want to build a few pyramids."

There is no denying the prodigious FRD in which Rabbi Eckstein has been engaged for more than three decades now, Nor should anyone deny him credit for driving those 100's of millions to good charitable works in Eastern Europe, Russia and Israel in the name of Christians who have sent their checks in small amounts to the Fellowship. The funds raised have also rewarded Yechiel with a huge salary and provided a major executive position to his daughter, Yael. The IFCJ and its affiliates today represent a mammoth charitable venture operated like a Mom and Pop store; there is a Board...of sorts...that must operate as does President Trump's Cabinet.

Then, a few years ago, Eckstein, at no small expense to the Fellowship, decided to professionalize the operation. He hired at least two outstanding fundraisers -- Jeff Kaye as Executive Vice-President and Seth Moscowitiz as Major Gifts Director -- as he staffed up. Earlier this fall, Kaye and two others left the IFCJ employ abruptly and Eckstein announced to the press that none of the three needed to be replaced. I guess things just didn't work out -- or, perhaps, Yechiel concluded that given that the 2017 IRS 990 disclosed that his compensation from all sources approached $900,000, he could do even more himself. (And that does not even approach the close to $20,000,000 spent ["invested?] a direct mail, direct response consultants.)

Now, there is this huge investment in glossy promos on the walls of Ben Gurion International. I'll leave it to Eckstein's Board to determine if this was an appropriate investment of charitable dollars. In the meantime these ads must make Yechiel Eckstein feel so good each time he walks by and sees himself.

So good.

Rwexler

THERE SHOULD BE MANDATORY READING, SHOULDN'T THERE?

JFNA should be in the middle -- not the beginning and, maybe, even near the end -- of its search for a new CEO. Richard Sandler appointed himself Chair of this Search, a choice that might be debated if debate were permitted, and we should presume if not insist upon a serious Search for a talented, knowledgeable and creative CEO.

I have a suggestion. Each candidate (and, the Search Committee members themselves -- why not) should be required to have read the following:

~ The Roots of the Future -- Rabbi Herb Friedman, UJA's first CEO and my personal hero, who inspired generations of American Jews, the visionary who created the Young Leadership Cabinet and, decades later, the Wexner Program, and so much more.  

~ Sacred Survival -- The Civil Religion of American Jews -- Jonathan Woocher's, z'l, incredible work on the greatness of the Jewish communal system and those dedicated to it

~ To Dwell in Unity --The Jewish Federation Movement in America since 1960 -- Philip Bernstein, z'l, one of the greatest professional leaders in American communal history wrote this incredible history in 1983

~ Living UJA History -- The visionary UJA CEO, Irving Bernstein's, z'l, autobiographical appraisal of his years at the United Jewish Appeal

~ Operation Exodus -- Our friend Gerry Nagel's, z'l, first hand history of one of American Jewry's greatest chapters in philanthropy

~  From Predictability to Chaos-- How Jewish Leaders Reinvented Their National Communal System -- An after the fact analysis of the merger that created JFNA from the great scholars, Gerald Bubis, z'l, and Dr. Steven Windmueller, whose conclusions proved prescient.

And, add to the reading requirements the daily insights found in ejewishphilanthropy,  The New York Jewish Week and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal as well as the excellent reporting in The Forward and on the pages of JTA.

I wish you good reading and to Sandler and the Search Committee, good judgment.

Rwexler

FED-CENTRAL AND THE COLLAPSE OF JFNA

The Jewish Federations of North America were to be a central address not just for the federations but for the professional cadre who lead and support federations' work. Under the leadership of a succession of former Large City CEO's JFNA either remained as a continuing resource for the federation professional or retained the potential to be just that. Not any more. No more.

At one point in time, during the few years of Howard Rieger's professional leadership, the support for communal professional leadership was elevated to the extent that almost the totality of JFNA's (then "UJC's") domestic functions were subsumed within the silo of "Consulting Services." At that time in the now distant past, the professional leader of the continental financial resource development effort, to preserve her job (if only for a moment), acquiesced in the diminution of her own role and that of FRD itself.

And, that moment in time occurred in te aftermath of the resignation of a superb National Campaign Chair, ultimately replaced by a succession of lay leaders willing to be part of (or ignorant of) the assisted suicide of JFNA Financial Resource Development. 

And, then, the continental consultancy withered and died as well. In any other organization the disappearance of its two critical functions -- FRD and community services -- might have raised the fundamental question: "What the hell is the organization doing for the communities?" Not at JFNA, of course; never at JFNA.

JFNA as the continental organization decided (where and by whom?) that the entire continental cadre would be left to their own devices. FedCentral emerged as a sorry "answer" to questions serious and not so much -- JFNA professionals either had no answers or had no interest in finding them.  The leadership of JFNA Community Consulting met the same fate as that of FRD only a few years earlier. Excellent professional leaders left JFNA; there was nothing to offer.

And, after years of neglect, two and one-half years ago JFNA FRD, now being led by a "senior consultant" began an embryonic community consulting effort, implemented by a four-person team of part-time consultants, each assigned 20+ communities to which they were assigned. 

Then, in a sudden quest for the relevance with the federations from which it had walked away, JFNA professional leadership determined to "expand" the consultancies beyond the four part-time consultants to an expanded cadre of part-timers teamed with some JFNA professionals with an expanded role beyond FRD. Somebody...somebodies...had this brilliant idea that FRD expertise would automatically extent to community service expertise and all would be happy...somehow...just like a decade ago. But then, Community Consulting was led by respected professionals dedicated to the task; today...not so much.

FedCentral was not the disease, it was a symptom of the metastacized cancer that had eaten away at the body of JFNA'swork and purpose. FedCentral was and is window dressing -- an attempt to paint over JFNA's abysmal failure.

It didn't work.

Rwexler

WHEN NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION

The following is almost impossible to believe.

As reported in multiple media in the Dallas and Fort Worth communities, "nearly $1 million dollars was stolen from the Fort Worth-Tarrant County Jewish Federation" by its Controller. 
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/feds-nearly-1-million-stolen-from-jewish-charity-in-fort-worth/287-609743953

That's $1 million dollars, my friends...$1 million. And, this was no sophisticated fraud. It is alleged that the Controller merely wrote 300 (+/-) checks to herself over a five year period totalling $1,000,000 and was never caught. This small federation was victimized to the tune of approximately $200,000 per year and no one noticed...no one. 

Are the organization's books audited? Is there an Audit Committee? Where was the Controller's supervisor(s)? Where was the Federation Board? So, the Controller just continued to write the checks to herself...for five years!! 

That's $200,000 a year stolen from a community whose annual campaign has remained at a little less than $1 million a year. You'd think someone would have noticed that $200,000 or so was being stolen. And, a quoted Board member said the total stolen was actually more than $1 million, the overage dating back to 2011 -- beyond the statute of limitations!! 7 years of this. The theft, according to the media reports, was discovered in a recent audit -- was this the first audit? I'm having a tough time getting my arms around this -- in particular because it appears that this Federation has not filed its mandatory IRS Form 990. (Guidestar does not cross-reference any filing; the Federation's website does not link to one.)

I visited the Fort Worth and Tarrant County website -- it disclosed a community engaged in joy-filled activities, supporting local needs in meaningful ways. I'm certain that the communal lay leadership are as committed as any in most communities. I've known a number of past leaders -- they were terrific. And, now? If you look at the photos, you would see leaders that mirror those in Los Angeles or Palm Beach or Dallas. The website includes the agenda of the recent Federation Annual Meetings which included not only the Federation's most senior lay leader reporting on the "State of the Federation" and a presentation from JFNA's Richard Sandler -- all the while the Controller was stealing 20% of the community's annual campaign resources.

The trust that is so absolutely vital to community building and to sustaining the community, now must be rebuilt in Fort Worth-Tarrant County. Anyone who has been a regular reader of this Blog knows of my fear that that trust, once destroyed, can almost never be rebuilt...almost never.

Our Boards are the stewards of our donors' resources; for the donors have entrusted their dollars to our Boards. When that stewardship fails, communities die.

Rwexler

CHANGE

     "I bark and I bark but I never feel like I effect real change."

The New Yorker captured the story of this Blog in one simple cartoon. (October 15, 2018) It is the cartoon equivalent of that which has been attributed to Albert Einstein:  "the meaning of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result."

Yes, that's been...me. Barking and barking and barking again. Baying at the moon, as it were.

I admit it. As a fund raiser, I am an eternal optimist. I have believed that people, especially those charged with sacred responsibilities will do the right thing....will always do the right thing. Einstein would have admonished me.

Since I first began this Blog, I have made it a practice to go silent on matters related to JFNA upon each passing of the gavel from one Board Chair to the next out of what proved to be the false hope that the incoming Chair, having seen the deconstruction of JFNA under her/his predecessor, would take the bold steps necessary to force the radical surgery that would restart the organization, moving it in important directions, in critical directions...away from the sorry past to a brighter future for JFNA, for its federation members, for the "system," for our donors.

Yet, Kathy Manning was so obsessively focused on what would be the multi-million dollar disaster of her Global Planning Table, that, against the best advice from leaders far more relevant than I, she wasted her leadership years on the Rube Goldbergian-GPT; she neither wanted nor tolerated counsel -- other than her own. Michael Siegal, a spectacular philanthropist, wanted to effect change; he understood that major change was needed; change that he was unable to deliver. I shared Michael's frustration.

In the weeks before Richard Sandler succeeded Michael Siegal, he agreed to meet with me at his office in Santa Monica. He was extremely generous with his time and in sharing with me his vision for his Chairmanship. I felt that his leadership philosophy -- expressed as getting out of the way of the organization's professions and letting them "do their job" -- was inconsistent with the fiduciary, the sacred, responsibilities of lay leadership. Ours was an argument l'shem shamayim. It went nowhere. 

And, so, in each instance, my period of self-imposed silence was abandoned for the balance of each of these wonderful, committed lay leaders' whose only desire was to do good in service to the Jewish People, terms.

Now, Richard Sandler has passed the gavel to Mark Wilf. Mark can be the paradigmatic JFNA transformational change agent. His background inside the system and outside -- from Chair of the Young Leadership Cabinet through National Campaign Chair, his federation leadership roles and as the driving force behind JFNA's successful Holocaust Survivor Initiative. The Wilf Family's generous contributions to Holocaust survivor efforts are part of their and Mark's n'shama. Now, he will face his biggest challenge -- because his success as Chair is entwined with the need for a dynamic professional partner -- how quickly he will have one is wholly within his hands.

My confidence in Mark has been magnified in recent days when I learned that Chicago's David Brown will serve as the 2020 National Campaign Chair. With David's incredibly broad range of leadership roles locally and with JFNA, he and Mark hold out the promise of being the most formidable JFNA leadership team in decades. (To the extent that is damning with faint praise, so be it.)

Based on that promise, I will soon put that portion of this Blog that is commentary on JFNA on hiatus. I, with you, expect serious and transformational change. As i wish Mark only success, I won't wait long.

Rwexler

THE MESSAGE

Memorial services across America continue to mourn for the victims of the anti-semitic terrorist in Squirrel Hill. Each has great meaningto those present. I could cite any number of these, but this one, in Napa, California, with its small Jewish community struck me as particularly moving. That memorial service was captured in the Napa Register: Napans speak out at vigil honoring memory of 11 who died in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting:

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"Napa has been home to Steve Rozensky for a decade. But before that, home had been the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, a longtime Jewish enclave he never imagined would be rocked by hate-fueled mass violence – until Saturday morning.

“I turned on the TV and it hit me like a ton of bricks that my old neighborhood had been hit like that,” Rozensky said Monday night at Napa’s Congregation Beth Shalom, before a vigil for the 11 people shot and killed while worshiping at Tree of Life Congregation in his old neighborhood.

“You’re from there, you grow up there, and you think it’s the safest place on earth,” Rozensky said. “If you gave me a list of 100 places in the country where this could happen, I would’ve put Pittsburgh last – such an accepting place, I couldn’t see that happening. If someone wanted to know a place where they could walk day and night, I would say Squirrel Hill.”

The vigil, taking place two days after the Pittsburgh shootings, drew more than 240 people to mourn the men and women, ages 54 to 97, who died. The attack is believed to be the deadliest ever against Jews on U.S. soil.

“These innocent victims were doing nothing but worshiping with one another, celebrating the God they believed in,” Rabbi Niles Goldstein told the capacity audience at Congregation Beth Shalom. “These are dark days for our country with so much hatred and fear that it’s pervasive around us.”

In an apparent admonishment of President Trump, Goldstein, who became the rabbi of the Napa synagogue last year, urged a forceful rebuke of anti-Semitic sentiment that has emboldened people like Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh shooting suspect who reportedly left a long trail of anti-Jewish screeds and other conspiracy theories on social media before the attack.

“What we need is leadership starting from the very top, leadership to navigate this crisis we are going through — not the kind of leadership that leads to the hate that fuels acts like what we saw on Saturday,” Goldstein told the audience.

Speakers including Mayor Jill Techel and Police Chief Robert Plummer and local religious leaders decried the attack not only as an act of hate against Jews but an assault on the rights of all Americans.

“I know we cannot feel this loss and injustice in the same way you will, but any harm to you affects us all,” said Pastor Julie Webb of Napa Valley Lutheran Church.

When vigil leaders passed the microphone to audience members, anguish and fear and indignation poured out from various mourners – as well as a feeling that a sense of security had been ripped away.

A young Pittsburgher studying at the Oxbow School described his shock “that this could happen in 2018 in my city.” An older man, the son of German Holocaust survivors, spoke of renewed fear among his Jewish friends, hoping “that we never have to go to that deep dark place that existed 85 years ago.” Still another speaker called on the audience to turn words of tolerance into action by voting Nov. 6 and urging friends and family to do the same.

Plummer, who took the helm of Napa Police in July, pledged local law enforcement’s readiness to investigate threats to residents of all faiths, and said he would take seriously not only direct attacks but also online threats of the kind that preceded the Pittsburgh shooting and the attempted mailing of bombs to former President Obama and Democratic leaders.

“If you see something or hear something, you’ve got to say something,” he said. “Because you can never know what bit of information may be the key.”

Bowers, who faces capital murder and federal hate-crime allegations in the synagogue shooting, had no known criminal record but had made frequent anti-Semitic postings to the right-wing social media site Gab since January. A Gab posting in his name just before the attack raged against HIAS, a Jewish organization that resettles refugees under U.S. government contract, and ended: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Toward the end of the Napa vigil, Rabbi Goldstein led the audience in reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, calling their attention to 11 white glass candles – one for each of the dead in Pittsburgh – and reciting each man and woman’s name before the prayer.

“I don’t want them to be a statistic,” he said. “These were fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, daughters, sons, children – the list goes on.”"

https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napans-speak-out-at-vigil-honoring-memory-of-who-died/article_de58eee6-0cf3-54e7-89ff-f74833b113ef.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

Amen.

Rwexler