THINGS.....

Things are happening:

• An interesting article by Haaretz' Judy Maltz -- After Major Falling-out Jewish Agency to Resume Partnership with Evangelical-funded Charity -- revealed that JAFI's Chair of the Executive and Yael Eckstein, who succeeded her father upon his untimely demise as the leader of the organization Yechiel Eckstein, z'l, founded, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, had begun the "healing process." I not only served on the Jewish Agency Executive during the ugly and personal fall-out of the IFCJ withdrawal of its significant general financial support of the Agency but also served under Rabbi Eckstein's Chairmanship of the JAFI Aliya Committee. While it appears that no financial support will be forthcoming, as the saying goes: at least the parties are talking. This to the credit of both Bougie Herzog and Yael Eckstein. Where this goes from here, nobody knows...as usual.

• The recent JCPA CEO's Webinar with Jerry Silverman demonstrated that JFNA is still in Global Planning Table mode (and you readers all know the waste in treasure and human resources of that fiasco) in this case, that all of JFNA will pursue -- three vague things (I don't know what else to call them): 
• A Marquee Collective Impact Initiative without substance. As in the GPT there will be "coalitions of the willing" (of which during the GPT, there were none) -- the concept of collective responsibility...further reduced if it even exists any longer at 25 Broadway.  After all, who among us will ever forget the GPT Select Core Priorities which morphed into a set of Strategic Initiatives  -- actually who remembers them -- unfunded, unstructured failures. For the same organization to now call for Marquee Collective Impact Initiatives means that the organization that has worked for a decade at least to wipe out institutional memory has no memory of its own last decade;
• Committing federations to "collect and share their benchmarking data" and Federation performance data -- I guess as they did in the days of UJA and CJF when the communities trusted their national organizations; and
• Reinvesting in talent -- without a single program to do so.   
• Israel? Fugggedaboutit -- nowhere to be found.                                       

       At the time of the first CEO "transition," incoming President Steve Hoffman was confronted with a planning document drafted. by the Lay Chairs of JFNA's (then UJC's) lay chairs. Without any announcement, Steve merely indicated he would move the organization forward without reference to that "plan." He did. Perhaps, this would be an excellent path for JFNA's new CEO to relect upon. 

And that's it for today from Lake Woebegone.

Rwexler