WASH, RINSE, REPEAT

On these pages I have attempted, among other things, to identify how our communal organizations and JFNA, in particular, meet the challenges of the present and future...or, in too many instances, fail to meet them. Too often -- most recently in the self-immolation in St. Paul, the end of Brian Abrahams time as JFNA's Senior Vice-President FRD, the unnecessary and unreasoned emasculation of the United Isreal Appeal, accusations of multiple instances of sexual harassment at New Jersey Camps or in the continuing precipitous drop in core budget support of JAFI/JDC/WorldORT-- the causes for these failures --each one of which is distinct from each other and, yet, so much the same -- have been readily identifiable. 

And, at the very core of each of them is a very basic truth -- except in the most rare of circumstances we need to have specific term limits for the most senior leadership at both lay and professional levels at JFNA. Over my years in organizational leadership, I was taught and reminded that the professionals in our system represent the continuity in our organizations; we as lay leaders were transitory. No more, if ever.

As Henny Youngman, z'l, might have said: "take JFNA...please." In the instance of St. Paul, while JFNA professional leaders have argued that they never advised the Twin City's CEO to not discuss the write-off of $3,000,000 owed not to JFNA but to the overseas beneficiaries with his lay leaders, that rebuttal has a hollow echo to it, doesn't it? After all, the same CEO engineered the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars...up to $900,000 as I recall...funds owed to and owned by the national agencies from the National Agencies Funding Pool without discussion with the national agencies -- transferring those desperately needed funds from the National Agencies to JFNA itself and calling it JFNA "fund raising." It wasn't; it was outright theft. Just as the CEO transferred funds that belonged to the national agencies, the most senior JFNA professionals authorized a federation to write off a $3,000,000 debt owed JDC/JAFI/WorldORT. 

And, the CEO and COO might have done so because the lay leadership, rather than holding them accountable, had determined their fiduciary course to be "just get out of the professionals' way and let them do their jobs" while expressing no interest in what those "jobs" might be. And, so it came to pass, that the revelation that this actually occurred was met with the same "I don't want to know about this" that has met, e.g., the constant failure of JFNA-Israel enabling that pathetic operation to accrete more power instead of being disbanded, reorganized, euthanized after a decade of this "stuff."

At JFNA, unlike at the predecessor organizations, once talented, pliant lay leaders are uncovered, they appear to go into a "rotation." It's not unusual to observe the same lay leaders shuffle among the now-dead Global Planning Table, to head JFNA-Washington and, then, JFNA-Israel; or another, rising through the same track and up to National Campaign Chair as if the prior experiences were "training" or, another, who demonstrated no particular leadership skill other than acquiescence being promoted to lead two Task Forces simultaneously.  Others, keep their positions seemingly in perpetuity, And, still others, who might have questioned JFNA along the way, are rewarded with seats on the sidelines, better to watch in silence as the entrenched do what the entrenched have done. 

And, when a serious lay Board Chair, for whom my respect has grown exponentially since I learned more of his efforts, expressed his determination to non-renew the CEO's original contract, a cabal of these lay leaders came together to "overrule" him...just because they could*. Or, when last month Brian Abrahams' retirement as SVP-FRD at JFNA, the CEO announced he would "for the interim" be running the organization's FRD , laughter was heard throughout the land and at 25 Broadway.

Yes, it's a dangerous wash, rinse, repeat cycle.

Rwexler

* Among those opposing that Board Chair's determination were federation/JFNA leaders who had demanded that I resign from the JFNA Board when I spoke up.