I hope you read, as did I, the superb piece in ejewishphilanthropy, A Love Letter to the Business I Truly Love, authored by the Executive Director of the Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller Fund, Alicia Oberman.http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/a-love-letter-to-the-business-i-trulylove/utm_source=Oct+18,+2017&utm_campaign=Wed+Oct+18+&utm_medium=email
I hope that all of you have or will read this cri de coeur. It's worthy exactly because it is a statement of commitment to a movement that once was -- not just a paycheck but subscription to a higher cause, a sacred calling. I, like so many of you, have been blessed to work side-by-side with an array of incredible professionals every step along my lay "career." In Chicago -- with the incomparable Joel Shinsky, and Jim Rice, Hal Rosen, Peggy Norton and Michael Kotzin, each of whom passed on too young with so much more to offer, and Joel Carp, Beth Cherner, David Rosen and Peter Friedman. And,the very best of the best, Steven Nasatir, who supported me, and who taught me and so many others so much and continues to (and who, from Day 1 right through this moment, has demanded that I cease and desist from this Blog); and nationally -- where Mark Levin at the NCESJ, David Sarnat, Jeff Kaye and Maxyne Finkelstein at JAFI NA, and Marty Kraar, z'l, Harold Adler and Howard Feinberg at CJF, Danny Allen, z'l, at UIA, and my great professional partners at the United Jewish Appeal, Rabbi Herb Friedman, z'l, Irving Bernstein, z'l, Stanley Horowitz, z'l, Rabbi Brian Lurie, Morris Sherman, Shimon Pepper, Harold Cohen and Lee Twersky and Gail Reiss; and, today, leading the incredible work of the Jewish National Fund-USA: Russell Robinson, Rick Krosnick and Mitch Rosenzweig and great professional teams around the country.
Each, to a person, was a partner, a friend and a teacher. Each helped to build and was committed to the profession and to the institutions they represented with such ferocity and, so very often, genius. I look at that list of men and women and I see embodied the creative survival of the Jewish People and the institutions that they built with their lay partners, and, other than JNF, too often institutions either gone, deteriorating or at risk.
Where are the keepers of that flame of professionalism that once burned so brightly?
Rwexler
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9 comments:
And... Where are the keepers of that flame of lay leadership that once burned so brightly?
Oh, they're still out there, lay and pro alike, and there are more of them than ever before. They're just choosing to shine brightly in their own menorahs, rather than the one that's run by the dim.
Yes, the laity is out there. It's in self-perpetuation mode, circulating and recirculating titles among themselves, accomplishing absolutely nothing to benefit the federations, onluy themselves. They have created a living bar to the entry of new faces, new leaders as they congratiulate themselves on their leadership. All the while the ship is going down.
Today it is indeed just a paycheck, an over-paid paycheck. We are no longer a movement, just an umbrella trade organization with a ridiculously oversized budget and a few so-called top professionals positioning for power and good PR, supervising well-meaning but powerless staff and cultivating dedicated but docile lay leaders to allow them to stay in power while they run things into the ground.
If there is any hint of movement it is regression - actually more like free-fall without a parachute.
Anyone want to guess what the outcome of all this is going to be?
To Anonymous at 9:01 p.m. last evening. Very clever (and funny) Comment -- were this not my Blog I would gladly print it. But, as you might guess, I will not.
So, whom will mentor the next generation of communal professionals? Is anyone even interested? Is anyone even capable of doing so if they had the interest? It's all part of a piece, self-interest has become everything. "Where's mine" is all.
To continue the thread started by Anon 9:38 (5/23/19), and in response to Anon 9:29 (5/25)...
....So, whom will mentor the next generation of communal LEADERS? Is anyone even interested? Is anyone even capable of doing so if they had the interest?....
How can you not look at such dedicated professionals such as Marc Terrill, Jeff Finkelstein, And Jacob Solomon and not call them inspirational leaders and teachers! What about the “next generation” of professionals who have recently assumed the mantels of leadership such as Michael Hoffman in Palm Beach, Adam Minsky in Toronto, or Erika Rudin Luria in Cleveland - all of whom have risen the ranks over the years in the Federation system? I would strongly suppose this is not “just a paycheck” for these committed individuals.
As long as federations keep paying outrageous dues to JFNA, many of them charging those dues to their Israel and Overseas allocations, this downward spiral will continue. Only if this stops and JFNA is allowed to fade away will there be a chance that out of crisis and vacuum will rise the kind of organization that our communities, our federations and our people really need.
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