 | "For the safety of our customers and flight attendants, we're temporarily suspending food and beverage service on flights under 2,200 miles (typically less than 4½ hours). Limited beverages will be available upon request. On flights over 2,200 miles (typically longer than 4½ hours), we will continue to offer a streamlined food and beverage service." If I read this correctly, no domestic flights from O'Hare will offer any meal or beverage service -- and, presently, there are no international flights -- as no domestic flight from Chicago exceeds 2,200 miles (OK, maybe there is a flight to Hawaii that would get you "streamlined food and. beverage service.") Apparently, it is safe to provide "food and beverage service" on flights over 2,200 miles but it is unsafe on any flights of fewer miles. More germs on shorter flights? And, what are "limited beverages?" And, inasmuch as "airline food" is often referenced as an oxymoron, should I really care? Who writes this stuff? (Strong suspicion that the policy was developed in concert with Stephen Miller.) Who runs AA? Rwexler |
Friday, March 27, 2020
COMEDY IN A TRAGEDY
American Airlines sent its fliers an alert during this time of pandemic and quarantine. We needed a good laugh.
Monday, March 16, 2020
PRAYERS
Friends, many of you have asked me off-line why the recent silence on these pages.
I want to ask you for your prayers for our son, Josh.
Josh is a 53 year-old father of three, an entrepreneur in New York City -- healthy and fit. An athlete -- a 4-year starter as Cornell's point guard and a starter on three United States Maccabiah Games basketball team. He continued to play actively until last week...and last week now seems so long, long ago.
Two weeks ago, Josh tripped over a computer cord in hius office, fell and hit his head on the concrete floor. Josh began to experience some vision and memory issues to the point that on Monday of last week he was rushed to NYU-Langone where the doctors discovered some "minor blood leakage" on the brain.
The next day, Josh reached me while I was traveling for JNF-USA and delivered the most devastating news possible: an MRI and further tests had disclosed that he has Glioblastoma -- the cancer that has taken the lives of among others, Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain. This horrific brain cancer was totally unrelated to that fall the week earlier.
As I write this, our son is being prepped for brain surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. He could not be in better hands but the present and the future are beyond daunting.
Our son has an incredible support system -- his siblings and their spouses, his children, ex-wife and his significant other, our extended family and Josh's great, life-long friends and, of course, his parents.
Please include Josh in your prayers.
With great appreciation,
Richard
I want to ask you for your prayers for our son, Josh.
Josh is a 53 year-old father of three, an entrepreneur in New York City -- healthy and fit. An athlete -- a 4-year starter as Cornell's point guard and a starter on three United States Maccabiah Games basketball team. He continued to play actively until last week...and last week now seems so long, long ago.
Two weeks ago, Josh tripped over a computer cord in hius office, fell and hit his head on the concrete floor. Josh began to experience some vision and memory issues to the point that on Monday of last week he was rushed to NYU-Langone where the doctors discovered some "minor blood leakage" on the brain.
The next day, Josh reached me while I was traveling for JNF-USA and delivered the most devastating news possible: an MRI and further tests had disclosed that he has Glioblastoma -- the cancer that has taken the lives of among others, Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain. This horrific brain cancer was totally unrelated to that fall the week earlier.
As I write this, our son is being prepped for brain surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. He could not be in better hands but the present and the future are beyond daunting.
Our son has an incredible support system -- his siblings and their spouses, his children, ex-wife and his significant other, our extended family and Josh's great, life-long friends and, of course, his parents.
Please include Josh in your prayers.
With great appreciation,
Richard
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
CAVEATS AND CONFLICTING PREDICTIONS
The inestimable Chronicle of Philanthropy has recently offered some conflicting messages: (1) that non-profit fund-raising will increase this year by close to 5%; and (2) the real subject of today's Post -- that non-profits in the main fail to prepare for recession.
With the stock markets at best exhibiting schizophrenia -- huge losses followed by gains day-after-day -- and with the coronavirus, at this moment, metastasizing in America's cities one-by-one, it certainly appears as if the Chronicle prediction of an annualized 5% increase was, at best, premature. (The underlying study was clearly completed at a time †hat no one was predicting a global pandemic.)
On the darker horizon, the possibility of recession has reared its ugly head. Recession has always been the dreaded, not to be mentioned "R" word in †he non-profit communities wi†hin which I have worked. Many leaders over the decades have either warned me or chastised me for any, what they described as "negative talk," somehoe thinking that by ignoring even the possibility of an economic downturn, one would be forestalled.
Thus, I was surprised that the Chronicle study found that even 33% of non-profits were engaged in "recession planning." And, when one couples the possibility of a recession with the reality that the 2019 Tax "Reform" limited the charitable deduction, one can see the possibility of a perfect albeit terrible storm.
Maybe those who were "old school" who most believed in denial of the realities of the potential impacts on annual campaigns of a negative economy -- so not even a mention of the possibility was to be permitted and, certainly, no planning for it. There was the apparent belief that using the word itself could exacerbate what might (and did and will) come. And, maybe, our leaders believed that using our political clout to oppose the limitation on the charitable deduction would be used against the Jewish community in some way (or that the forces demanding the significant reduction of the deduction were somehow irresistible).
So, once again we find ourselves citing Santayana's maxim and worrying that history will again repeat itself.
Don't let it happen.
Rwexler4
With the stock markets at best exhibiting schizophrenia -- huge losses followed by gains day-after-day -- and with the coronavirus, at this moment, metastasizing in America's cities one-by-one, it certainly appears as if the Chronicle prediction of an annualized 5% increase was, at best, premature. (The underlying study was clearly completed at a time †hat no one was predicting a global pandemic.)
On the darker horizon, the possibility of recession has reared its ugly head. Recession has always been the dreaded, not to be mentioned "R" word in †he non-profit communities wi†hin which I have worked. Many leaders over the decades have either warned me or chastised me for any, what they described as "negative talk," somehoe thinking that by ignoring even the possibility of an economic downturn, one would be forestalled.
Thus, I was surprised that the Chronicle study found that even 33% of non-profits were engaged in "recession planning." And, when one couples the possibility of a recession with the reality that the 2019 Tax "Reform" limited the charitable deduction, one can see the possibility of a perfect albeit terrible storm.
Maybe those who were "old school" who most believed in denial of the realities of the potential impacts on annual campaigns of a negative economy -- so not even a mention of the possibility was to be permitted and, certainly, no planning for it. There was the apparent belief that using the word itself could exacerbate what might (and did and will) come. And, maybe, our leaders believed that using our political clout to oppose the limitation on the charitable deduction would be used against the Jewish community in some way (or that the forces demanding the significant reduction of the deduction were somehow irresistible).
So, once again we find ourselves citing Santayana's maxim and worrying that history will again repeat itself.
Don't let it happen.
Rwexler4
Friday, March 6, 2020
HOW, EXACTLY?
Friends, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported a few weeksd ago the results of a study by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy that chariable giving in 2020 is projected to incrase by 4.8%. So I ask for our communal system: How, Exactly might that come to pass?
And, the reason I ask is that for most of our communities, our agencies, local and national, and our historic overseas beneficiaries, the Jewish Agency and the Joint, annual campaigns have been in serious stasis, if not worse than that. There are, of course, exceptions -- the Jewish National Fund - U.S.A., the Chicago Jewish United Fund, Baltimore and a few others come to mind -- but the rule has been...stasis if not worse.
And, where are we?
And, the reason I ask is that for most of our communities, our agencies, local and national, and our historic overseas beneficiaries, the Jewish Agency and the Joint, annual campaigns have been in serious stasis, if not worse than that. There are, of course, exceptions -- the Jewish National Fund - U.S.A., the Chicago Jewish United Fund, Baltimore and a few others come to mind -- but the rule has been...stasis if not worse.
And, where are we?
- At the Jewish Agency, as I've written ad nauseam, a great professional fund raiser has left, her staff remains but financial resource development leadership is now in the hands of the JAFI CEO, not a fund raiser (not that she couldn't be), the head of campus shlichim, not a fund raiser, a. former American federation professional, not a fund raiser, etc. JAFI is receiving less core budget support from the federation system than at any time in its 90 year history. Hire a fund raising professional, one who will demand that the lay leadership -- from North America and, yes, from Keren Ha'Yesod and the WZO (!) -- step up and make financial commitments to the organization reflecting their financial capacity.
- At the JDC, with a number of superb professionals, proven successful fund raisers on its Israel staff, FRD suffered a major blow when its last CEO (who has now returned to academia), proved to be a major fund raising disappointment. Like JAFI, JDC is receiving less core budget support from the federations than at any time in its history; unlike JAFI, JDC has a strong lay leadership cadre of philanthropists willing to advocate for the organization within their federations, but are they "able?"
- FRD at JFNA confuses me. CEO Eric Fingerhut, so bright and inspirational, determined shortly after he was hired that, with no federation fund raising experience, he would take on the vacant senior FRD leadership position at the organization. As someone once said: "mistake, big, big mistake." The JFNA CEO should engage in financial resource development, certainly; he shouldn't lead that effort. Hire a senior campaigner -- BTW, Gail Reiss appears to be available and knows our system as well as any campaigner. The JFNA Campaign Consulting Team has experienced a great deal of turnover -- turnover it can hardly afford -- at the top, losing two of its best (one from Chicago, another from New Jersey). Financial Resource Development at JFNA had already collapsed. Eric and Chair Mark Wilf need to totally reorganize this effort -- bring your best and brightest professionals from the communities, forget about the usual cookie-cutter consultants and get it done.
The line between real success and continuing failure is incredibly thin.
Rwexler
Sunday, March 1, 2020
MYTH-MAKING
Natan Sharansky has been our hero since we first heard his name -- Refusenik, Prisoner of Zion, oleh, political leader, Chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency, author, freedom advocate, and more. He has been the friend of Presidents and a living bridge between Israeli political leadership. Israeli religious leadership and Diaspora Jewry. And I am not even doing him justice with this litany of his incredible life and leadership.
One thing is absolutely certain: Natan's history needs no embellishment.
So I was really surprised to hear the JAFI Board Chair, who presented the Agency's Telling Our Story and included this:
Sharansky's efforts to create that "egalitarian prayer space," appointed to do so by Prime Minister Netanyahu were heroic. All of us, especially those in Jewish Agency leadership, know that an historic agreement was reached among all of the parties -- religious leadership, Women of the Wall, and the PM -- only to see the Prime Minister renege, the agreement collapse and "the solution" disappear out of the fog of Israeli politics.
Are there those in JAFI leadership wo believe that the matter of egalitarian prayer space was somehow resolved? Was Michael Siegel's conclusion as expressed above based on some empirical evidence that I somehow missed? Or was this some form of wishful thinking? Yet, later in his presentation the Board Chair observed:
No, Natan Sharansky's life needs no embellishment -- he will always be a light to the nations and a Hero of the Jewish People. Aren't those enough?
Rwexler
One thing is absolutely certain: Natan's history needs no embellishment.
So I was really surprised to hear the JAFI Board Chair, who presented the Agency's Telling Our Story and included this:
"Sharansky: no greater fighter for justice and freedom, standing up to the Soviet Union, and as the head of The Jewish Agency creating the solution for egalitarian prayer for Jews at the Western Wall." (emphasis added)Oh, were it only so.
Sharansky's efforts to create that "egalitarian prayer space," appointed to do so by Prime Minister Netanyahu were heroic. All of us, especially those in Jewish Agency leadership, know that an historic agreement was reached among all of the parties -- religious leadership, Women of the Wall, and the PM -- only to see the Prime Minister renege, the agreement collapse and "the solution" disappear out of the fog of Israeli politics.
Are there those in JAFI leadership wo believe that the matter of egalitarian prayer space was somehow resolved? Was Michael Siegel's conclusion as expressed above based on some empirical evidence that I somehow missed? Or was this some form of wishful thinking? Yet, later in his presentation the Board Chair observed:
"Western Wall policies are (sic) an example of world Jewry needing a voice in Israel. While the Western Wall agreement wasn't a perfect solution, we're continuing to fight for better outcomes."Huh? As noted above there is no Western Wall agreement!! The Prime Minister of Israel, fighting for his Coalition, walked away from it as if it never existed at all. And our silence in response was deafening. (In fact, you will recall, when the "agreement" was reached JFNA and JAFI leaders were guilty of premature celebration and, thereafter, not just quiet condemnation but a public embrace of Mr. Netanyahu's lame excuses delivered to a GA that should haveexpressed active disbelief.)
No, Natan Sharansky's life needs no embellishment -- he will always be a light to the nations and a Hero of the Jewish People. Aren't those enough?
Rwexler