If anyone thought that with Jerry Silverman's announced "retirement," we would somehow see real change at JFNA, we were kidding ourselves. No, it's business...bad business...at 25 Broadway with now the reality that the inmates are running the institution...running it further into the ground.
There are many examples; allow me to focus on just a few as they tie together failures across the board -- Missions, the Tel Aviv GA, and JFNA FRD -- and present these failures in their stark realities. The saddest failure is like an alcoholic who refuses AA, JFNA leadership cannot come to understand its own self-created defenestration.
There has been no acknowledgement that somethings tectonic has occurred: the decay, the rot that appear inexorable at 25 Broadway. At JFNA, fiduciary duty is ignored on every possible occasion -- ignored by the most senior lay and professional leaders, by the JFNA Executive Committee and by the JFNA Board. In fact, based upon all of the evidence, there is a lack of any understanding of what fiduciary means, what it is and what it is supposed to be.
As we have been aware, JFNA leaders engaged a Consultant. with no evident experience in FederationLand to conduct an outrageously expensive study of JFNA. (we speculated on these pages that what was really needed was to engage a Management Consultant to examine JFNA's mismanagement and make recommendations, not some predictably open-ended consultancy...but never mind).
I have been, as disclosed on these pages, appropriately admonished for revealing some of the Consultant's findings that reflected especially badly on the JFNA of today and of the past decade, at least. No doubt The Bridgespan Group has been retained for further study. At this point, my friends, the real question must be, as it has been: does JFNA's leadership have the will, the interest, the real courage to face the realities disclosed by its own consultants and the will, the interest and the courage to do something about it.
These questions must be answered by Mark Wilf -- who came to his Board Chair position unencumbered with the burden of JFNA's failures that weigh down all of the other lay leaders who have been "promoted" from position to position without regard for the disasters that they wilfully ignored as they worked their way up the JFNA leadership ladder.
Meanwhile, Silverman sits, the lamest of lame ducks, drawing his egregious salary; now including JFNA FRD under his broken wing -- since Brian Abrahams left, what has anyone seen of JFNA FRD? You know, that on which JFNA allegedly expends 1/2 of its Budget? FRD, like JFNA-Global Operations, like JFNA itself, rendered irrelevant.
If Mark Wilf, now into the six month of his first term, doesn't step up and step forward now, his time in leadership will echo that of his predecessor's three years. What a terrible waste that would be.
Rwexler
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I would guess that most of your readers do not know the meaning of “defenestration”.
Which means to throw out the window.
“De” new Latin for out of or away from and “fenestra” a window or opening.
While the act of defenestration connotes the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary, and the term is sometimes used in just that sense, it also suggests breaking the windows in the process (“de” also means removal). As in throwing the person through the window while the glass is still there.
I would suggest that as appropriate for some at the end of Broadway.
Your defense of Mark Wilf displays the prejudice of your fondness and friendship with him.
Mark is a wonderful Jewish leader, with a Jewish Education and real Jewish values in his pocket. Far more than one could say about several past leaders of JFNA.
But, Mark already displayed his failure in the “defenestration” of UIA.
Abject and total failure. He knew better. He had trusted friends warn him in advance that he was being played like a fool.
The con man in chief told him, it was crucial and critical for JFNAs very survival. The same idiotic line that was used to justify the global planning fiasco. That they would save money. The Nullify of Broadway. No money saved. Just past presidents of Federations disengaged from the activity that kept them engaged with over 95% participation in meetings and three trips to Israel at their own expense.
I dare anyone to show me another group of lay people so engaged anywhere else in the Federation system.
Mark was embarrassed when he realized that this would just reduce participation with no gain to JFNA. But by then the deed was done. He certainly could not be expected to have the courage to walk back the decision.
Mark is a great leader with an otherwise busy life. He will not carry JFNA in his arms. He won’t take responsibility. That affliction seems to affect every leader who walks into this job.
So, Jerry remains and the organization rots.
All that's left at 25 Broadway are the "inmates" -- the good ones have either left or been forced out. Why does Daroff stay -- is it the freedom he has to run his silo so long as he made sure thast Jerry got his White House (and other) photo op? And how has Caspi kept her job?
Is it even fair to ask?
It is a complete wonder - and embarasment - that the JFNA Chair is allowing all of this to happen. Jerry and his puppet managers continue to manipulate lay committees and the Board itself into killing what is left of our positive and efficient UIA lay and professional operations while allowing the waste and damage of the inflated and more or less worthless Israel Global Operations Office to continue untouched, unmanaged and unsupervised. Any serious professional evaluation would certainly lead to recommendations to move in exactly in the opposite direction. Why is it that our new Chair appears to be so blind or so naive as to believe the crap that they are feeding him and to allow this to continue?
It should be no surprise to any of us when this whole fiasco of an organization simply disintegrates a bit down the road. The organization as it is today will not be missed but what it could have and should have been will be missed by us all.
It's clear that the only way to force the hand of the JFNA board and chair is for federations to just stop paying dues. They need a Howard Beale moment and follow through with it.
In this vein, what ever happened to the reports of New York federation significantly reducing their dues? Did it happen? And if so, what were the consequences?
Nothing is going to change at 25 Broadway until the federations say that they've had enough and they can't take it anymore.
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