Like many of you, I received an evite to a Jewish Council for Public Affairs Webinar that caught my attention (but not my interest) the topic of which surprised and saddened me. It is a Webinar that is part of a series: Jewish Advocacy During the Coronavirus. That would be a good thing, a positive contribution because, after all, we need Jewish Advocacy during these terrible times,. now more than ever. Then consider this Webinar topic: Front End Justice: Exploring Why Pretrial Reform is Needed.
Friends, JCPA has clearly lost its way. Here are a selection of JCPA-sponsored Webinars in this "Series":
- Building Bridges: Israeli and Palestinian Health Care Cooperation
- Over 6 Million Americans are on Community Supervision: Reforming Pre-Trial, Parole and Probation
- Coronavirus in Prisons, Jails: An Emergency We Need to Confront NOW
This commentary isn't to suggest that these topics aren't important, just asking where these "topics" fit within the priorities of the JCPA or the priroties of the communities which support local community relations councils. Just a guess -- nowhere. Maybe, somewhere, there is an important pilpul that would explain the connection; probably not.
The JCPA used to be an organization that focused on matters directly connecting communities to its agenda. And, that was at a time when funding was not under the kind of pressures being faced today and into the future. I sat on the JCPA Board and Executive than and, while I admit to real frustration with some of the Plenary debates back then, the subject matter was directly relevant to the Jewish community's social justice agenda.
Now? I have no more a clue than JCPA's leaders apparently have. And, worse, two factors:
Now? I have no more a clue than JCPA's leaders apparently have. And, worse, two factors:
- As the communities which support JCPA have moved, at the least, to the center if not center-right, JCPA has made some determination that it will find its support further to the left; and
- As the pandemic has rapidly eroded communal resources, JCPA's "message" and its "priorities" appear to have less and less relevance. Thus, on it merry way, JCPA devotes time, effort and resources to, e.g., Palestinian Health Care Cooperation and Reforming Pre-Trial, Parole and Probation...
Most organizations have strived under the horrific conditions of today to focus, to make themselves more relevant -- e.g., JCCA and its JCCs, the federations themselves. To fail to do so is an unconscionable expression of unearned organizational arrogance...
Leading inevitably to irrelevance.
Rwexler
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3 comments:
Mr. Wexler,
This is your blog. But you are totally out of touch.
Everywhere I go in the Jewish world, pre-trial reform is on the agenda. Pre sentencing diversion plans, probation, and parole come up literally everywhere.
In my shul, at the federation, in my Hebrew school class, at the schvitz at the J. Even in my favorite deli. And not to mention at my local Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve, and at the movie theatre on Christmas Day.
Just think, as an example, doesn’t everyone want to know how long Bernie Madoff will actually be in prison....
You need to get your head out of the yoch, the gelatinous glop from the gefilte fish and get with the crowd on this one,
;>)
Even Florida, a state that has veered sharply to the right, had its electorate overwhelmingly allow felons who have served their terms, except in extreme cases, to now vote.
If one examines the series of Webinars being offered by JCPA, it is clear that the the organization has no focus and is looking for purpose and relevance. Why would anyone, any community, continue to financially support this totally unfocused organization at any time let alone this time of extremely diminished communal resources?
Where is the JCPA lay leadership? Is there any any more? The communal system can no longer afford, if it ever could, communal organizations so lacking in relevance to the communal agenda.
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