- Denial that JFNA has absented itself from the need to build federation annual campaigns, offering nothing more than lip service and an occasional consultants' visit to federations;
- Denial that other than its LBTQ mIssion JFNA has led its constituencies away from Israel, choosing to send its own national missions to India, Argentina and Uruguay, Tbilisi and St. Petersburg and the International Leadership Reunion to Moscow. Why? If the argument is that "we just held the GA in Tel Aviv" or "we go to Israel on Missions so often, it's played out:" the response should be: "We have a moral obligation to take our constituencies to Israel." Period. Full stop. The answer we learned at UJA and continued into 2007 at JFNA is the hard work of recruitment -- fact: it still works (for other organizations).
- Denial that JFNA is on the cusp of defenestrating UIA, one of its only functioning parts, solely because: (a) it can; and (b) to vest greater control in JFNA-Israel, one of JFNA's most dysfunctional silos. If this happens -- and it can only happen if JFNA's Board and leadership allow it to -- that would confirm that JFNA is only concerned with concentrating power in itself...and nothing more....nothing.
- Denial that the incredibly successful Lion of Judah Conference (a holdover constituency of United Jewish Appeal BTW) is but an aberration, like an oasis in a fund raising desert.
- Denial that the organization has no plan...none...to enhance the sorry state of Diaspora/American Jewry's relationship with Israel. We have seen nothing, other than quotes in the media decrying the sorry state that suggests that JFNA has a clue of what steps...even baby steps...might be taken to restore what was once the beauty and power of this relationship.
There is, sadly, so much more; the list is never-ending.
As one of your wrote in response to our Post "Collapse:"
As one of your wrote in response to our Post "Collapse:"
"Lets hope that the Jewish People will never need us again because without UJA (already "merged to death") and UIA (the next target), there is no chance that any true collective response will be possible beyond maybe another pathetic "mailbox" opportunity.
- "Once UIA is "retired" after more than 90 years of service there will indeed be nothing left but a bloated trade organization for federation professionals - no collective response capability, no advocacy or real support for our overseas partners, no lay leadership, no activism, no passion - nothing to stand in the way of the bureaucrats hiring lots of outside consultants, setting up task forces, establishing review committees and studying ourselves to death instead of supporting what needs to be done."When will we wake up and put a stop to this fiasco?!"
So what is on the agenda for the JFNA Board meeting that might suggest that Mark Wilf and the Board he Chairs will lead JFNA out of the brier patch into which it has been driven?
We'll soon know if sight has been restored.
Rwexler
We'll soon know if sight has been restored.
Rwexler
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5 comments:
In b) of your 3rd bullet I don't think you meant to say that UIA-Israel is a dysfunctional silo - that would be JFNA's Israel Office.
Thank you. That's a terrible error on my part.
So I guess we will see in the coming days whether we have a real Board of Trustees and Board Chair or we we will witness just another puppet show where there are no questions, no objections and total abdication of responsibility once again.
Unfortunately, I think the odds are with the puppeteers but maybe we will all be pleasantly surprised this time and see the beginning of the revolution and radical change of direction that are really needed to save our ailing organization and put what should be our lay-led communal movement back on course.
I am guessing that the Bridgespan report is going to be discussed out in the open at the board meeting, so we'll have to wait and see what the conclusions were and what, if any, course of action is going to be taken.
It would be interesting if the evaluation and conclusions point to a dereliction of duties on Silverman's part, and whether or not someone points that out.
OK, so I can dream, can't I?
They will probably suggest a "compromise" to get rid of only 20 UIA board members instead of 25 (leaving 12 instead of 7). Hopefully folks will be smart enough to realize that this would make no difference at all because the real isssue is that they want to make the UIA Board a total "puppet" board of the JFNA Board, which is itself, at least up until now, a "puppet" of the bureaucrats that run the organization.
The true ideological basis of the proposed changes in the Global Operations recommendations is CONTROL: to get active lay leadership out of the way, to gain complete bureaucratic control of UIA's functions (free of UIA lay interference), to get the Jewish Agency and advocacy for it off the JFNA agenda and to let the I&O Israel Office continue unsupervised to do whatever it pleases (no need for control there evidently).
If Board members are going to go along with this, they should at least uderstand that this is what is really on the table. If they do understand, they shouldn't be looking to compromise, just to say NO!
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