WHY NOW?

Yes, the Blog has been down for four months. Life has been peaceful (for some). So, the logical question, one I have asked myself quite often, is why bring it back? There are multiple answers, all of which flow from my June 30 Post, the one in which I declared "-30-" Therein I indicated that if our federations failed to take ownership of JFNA and if JFNA continued down the path it was clearly and aimlessly heading and if in personam attacks on your Blogger continued, I reserved the right to return. And, because bad times have never seemed so bad, I am back.

I am committed to making the Blog a kinder and gentler place, accused as I have been in the past as engaging in the kind of personal attacks that those I have been writing about do toward me...and they have continued. I have explained that when leaders -- lay and pro -- confuse the organization's purposes with their own, as they continue to, their conclusions will continue to be that any criticism of organizational policies or programs or lack of direction or wrong direction are personal attacks. There are those who believe that the Blog was nothing more than a series of personal attacks on JFNA's leaders. I would ask them, knowing that they won't, to reread the 660 Posts that preceded this one. Just know that I have too much respect for those who assume leadership roles in our communities to do so. At Kathy Manning's specific request (even as she assured me that she never reads the them unless they are sent to her), I have reread those Posts and admit that I have too often failed my own standard. I will try not to do so in the future -- but (and it's a very big BUT) when leaders confuse criticism of programs and lack of a concept of institutional purpose with personal criticism, the problem isn't mine.  I'll just have to live with that reality.

As so many of you have noted, I have been gone from these pages for four months...four months during which, unfortunately, JFNA has continued to engage in the humorous and the destructive while, all around it, federations are in retreat from the values and principles that once bound them together, with JFNA ...oblivious. The silence from the federation owners has been, is and, apparently, will remain...deafening. In the Posts ahead I will be looking back...and peeking into the future with you as what was such a beautiful system continues down the path of self-destruction.

Sure, I continue to be baffled by JFNA's lack of purpose, the annual on-going waste of a large percentage of $30.3 million of our precious resources, but, all the more, I am brought back to this Blog by the federations themselves apparent lack of will and growing lack of purpose. I return after these four months of silence as confused and frustrated as never before.

In the coming days and weeks I will be writing about the folly of the JFNA Global Planning Table -- which is nothing if not a written expression of the Orwellian fantasy world in which JFNA operates -- you know, black is white, dark is light; a meaningless and worse Second Membership Criterion; "deals" on Dues; the manner in which JFNA operates what has become the annual Community Heroes thing; and, of course, Tribefest 2. I will be looking at what some of our federations around the country have been doing, promoting or not doing. And I will be musing about the constant self-promotion, the self-congratulations that JFNA offers itself in such a variety of ways and about all manner of things -- its "brand," its missions but not its Mission, its lay and professional leaders and on and on.

Observing the lack of institutional purpose after 11 years just so saddens me. (You think that anyone at JFNA can articulate its purpose in a single sentence in plain English?) But, worse, over the last four months of my silence, I have watched as even those federations whose leaders truly care about our system, have handed JFNA's leaders a whole bunch of matches and a huge can of lighter fluid. And more and more, they are willing to just stand back and just admire the fire.

Then, last week came what has become and remains the kind of pettiness I had come to experience first-hand but which I had hoped was past. I had been asked to serve on a Search Committee for a successor to Yitzchak Shavit, z'l.  I don't know who picked me but there was some rationale for it -- I had worked with Itzik in his roles for UIA, IEF, UJA and JFNA for over 25 years. When I inquired last week about when the Committee would be meeting, I was told that I had been summarily deleted from the Committee by "someone," unnamed, at JFNA. They know who they are...and so do I. And, so it goes.

Yes, I know. I am engaged in an act of both principle and futility.

So be it.

Rwexler

WATCH THIS SPACE...

Yes, the Blog returns. I'm back and ready. Four months is a long time in the life of an organization, in the life cycle of the federations. Four months filled with more of the same.

We will Post on November 1. See you then.

-30-

One of my great friends, a professional leader in so many areas of Jewish communal life offered me consolation with the following memory. One of his favorite Broadway musicals was 1776. In that smash hit, John Adams sings a melancholy ballad that concludes: Is anyone there? Does anyone care? Great, great questions.

Today, with this final Post, I place UJThee and me... on hiatus. Hopefully, forever. Those in our system who have been my mentors and partners have convinced me that which I should have realized long ago -- they can effect change but I can't; this Blog can shine a light on the need for change but can't cause change to occur. I am clearly a slow learner.

When I was so privileged to receive the JDC Ma'Asim Tovim Award in December 1998, the base of the beautiful Shofar bore this message: For Leading Our National System Into a New Era. This Blog has been a personal expression of pain as to where the "new era" we had dreamed of and worked so hard to create and implement has taken us.... literally nowhere. This Post places this Blog on hiatus with the hope that federation leaders, JFNA's owners, will begin to take their responsibilities of ownership seriously. And if the past is prologue as it always has been, as any reader of this Blog knows, this leadership will face which path to choose and will once again choose the wrong one.

On two previous occasions -- in February 2008 and in September 2010 -- I placed the Blog on hiatus; in 2008 in response to an initiative from leaders of my federation which would have put a stop to both the Blog and to the personal fatwa the JFNA leaders had declared on me based upon their own constant misrepresentations of fact (the fatwa continues -- see below); and last year in the hopes that a new lay and professional leadership team at JFNA would bring a new focus on matters relevant to the federation agenda, rather than on the personal agendas of leadership.

Sadly, in 2008 JFNA's leaders could not restrain themselves, they continued in personal, petty attacks in darkened hallways and e-mails; they even threatened the very existence of organizations I had led. And, throughout, they pursued their personal agendas as if they were the organizations, and in fact, with federations' abject silence, they became convinced that they were right -- after all, to use their phrase: "We are JFNA."

Then, while claiming that they never read the Blog, the vendettas and vitriolic attacks continued since 2010 and the "new" leadership could not find its way...it still cannot and, apparently, won't. The allegations by the Board Chair that this writer has "no integrity" and is "a liar," lacking any basis in fact are even more scurrilous given that Manning knows there is no basis in fact -- to acknowledge even the possibilty that may be wrong would destroy their narrative. Each allegation has been directly rebutted without response from JFNA's leaders. The suggestion that one who has chaired his federation, our CRC, the NCSJ, Operation Exodus, served as UJA National Campaign Chair in the days of a national campaign, led our system into the merger that created JFNA, and chaired UIA has "no integrity" evidences the lengths this leadership goes, unfettered in its attempts to discredit. They have sent a clear message: "Don't ever criticize us or this will happen to you." One can only be saddened for them.

The pettiness, vendettas and JFNA's slanders aside, from the beginning this Blog, at its heart, has been about integrity, truth-telling and transparency. It has also been about the failure of JFNA leaders to demonstrate any real commitments to true transparency (characterized time and again, by Minutes of meetings bearing no relationship to what actually took place), to the federations' core values and timeless principles or to the necessity of engagement through real and meaningful process, and it has been about trust. (For an incisive examination of our institutions' need to develop and build trust, see Dan Brown's Times Have Changed; the Value of Trust in ejewish philanthropy, June 16, 2011.)

As well, mine has been a very personal attempt to urge the federations and you, their leaders, to assert, to demand, as the owners of JFNA, just such commitments. There has been almost unanimity among the federation leaders with whom I have met or from whom I have heard, whether they supported this Blog or hated it, directly and unequivocally that JFNA is in disarray and out of touch in meaningful ways. And, yet, JFNA's leaders apparently hear only that all is well.

It has saddened me that, for years before this Blog, my private correspondence to JFNA's leaders were either ignored or treated as "destructive criticism" or, perhaps, "lies." And while, in meetings and phone calls, Jerry Silverman has encouraged me to offer, privately, what he termed "constructive criticism," I quickly learned (as I probably already knew) that "constructive criticism" was such a subjective term that any suggestions I made were viewed with a jaundiced eye as "not constructive." When I would end a letter by stating "[L]et me know how I may help," I was accused of disingenuity. (I already knew that these "leaders" had determined that I was "not JFNA" even if everyone who knows me well, knows full well that "I am very JFNA.") To the Board Chair, there could be no criticism at all that would ever be considered "constructive." And, so, the Blog continued.

To some, the 660 Posts I have written have been but examples of witless bloviation, a three times per week exercise in narcissism and la-shon ha'ra. Certainly there is some substance to those opinions, even though of 660 Posts, the veracity of only one has ever been questioned -- and then the question was raised by one who "...never ever reads the thing."

Many have argued, not with the substance of this Blog but, instead, with the fact that the Blog exists at all -- hanging our system's dirty laundry outside where everyone can see it and offering to pull back the ever-closed curtain are considered by some an act of betrayal of the system that they know that I love. And there are those, as well, who believe that our when our system elects leaders, their every action by that very election becomes cloaked in an absolute immunity to criticism -- public or private. (Something that certainly these JFNA leaders believe absolutely.) Yet, over my history of communal involvement I know of no leader other than these who has not heard criticism, absorbed it and learned from it.

But the real focus and frustration of the Blog has been with those in Federation leadership who have allowed JFNA to wander aimlessly while wasting so much of the $600,000,000 (+/-) in Dues paid. For the lay and professional leaders of JFNA didn't create this environment of federation passivity, they have merely exploited it. That has to stop!!

And,as but one example of so many, can anyone explain this? After a $185,000,000 reduction in core allocations to the Jewish Agency and the Joint -- while JFNA leaders watched it happen in almost total silence -- how can this group of "leaders" possibly believe that they (and this is about them) should control the application of our federations' and donors' core allocations? When they learned that the Agency and Joint have had to reduce their allocations to a favored program (solely because of these core allocation reductions), how can they rationally suggest that "...this will stop when we control the Global Planning Table?" But, this is exactly how they think, how they behave and what they say. They engage in denial that they have any responsibility whatsoever for the outcomes forced upon JDC and the Jewish Agency.

Now, not for the first time but hopefully the last, I place the responsibility for assuring that JFNA becomes the leader of our national system for the federations and not for itself in your hands, in the hands of you, the leaders, lay and professional, of the federations. It is no longer enough to tell me in private meetings (where I have listened to you in confidence) how terribly dysfunctional our national system is, decrying the waste and disarray that are on-going but doing nothing about it. Chevre, it's time for you to grab the wheel and turn this ship around.

We will see how it goes. My hope and expectation are that this space will be devoted in the months ahead to other matters of concern to all of us in Jewish life rather than JFNA. But if the leaders of JFNA continue to pursue the irrelevant and insubstantial and pursue their personal vendettas without any evident understanding of the core values and timeless principles that were and are at the heart of our communal hopes and dreams, then...!!?? Let's together aspire to the most that we can be; we have seen the waste of aspiring to the least.

To the 800 and more of you who have read these Posts three times a week for three and one-half years and who have understood my motivation and my inspiration, in the words of one of my favorite films: "I love you guys!!" Let's close this chapter with those words of inspiration: Eem ain ani li, mi li? V'im lo achshav aymotei?

-30-

Rwexler

SPECIAL PLEADERS

JFNA has many wonderful professionals on its staff. I know that were they allowed to focus on new and big ideas, JFNA would not be where it is today. But, here is what they have been ordered to do over the past months:



~ Beg federation staffers to provide subsidies to and recruit for TribeFest;

~ Plead with federation Endowment pros to attend the "second North American Jewish Legacy Forum" in Kansas City -- thirty-three communities did so. The agenda included "...future events and communications around 'Create A Jewish Legacy,' such as a third Legacy Forum...";

~ Call federation leaders in communities with Dues issues to: (1) excoriate them; (2) plead for full payment; or (3) deny that the federations have "hardships;"

~ Call CEOs to demand that they call a mega-donor in their community to get them to attend the first meeting of the new albeit the same Mega-Donor Group;

~ Call whoever they know in federations to plead that the federation participate in the ill-conceived "Select Core Priorities" program -- calls generally falling on the deafest of ears. No reference in those calls to holding the core allocation to the Jewish Agency and Joint -- just forgot, I guess.

This is but a partial list, of course. Soon, very soon, our federation pros and lay people will be getting urgent JFNA calls to, among other things: (1) support the Global Planning Table...please; (2) get people to attend (and provide even greater subsides) Festivus II; (3) attend the Denver GA; and (4) and always, pay your Dues.

These are JFNA professionals with the potential to do great things, doing as they are directed. If there is a professional malaise at 25 Broadway, guess why.

Rwexler

EVEN FROM 7,000 MILES AWAY...

Dan Brown, the founder and editor of ejewishphilanthropy, never ceases to amaze me with his insights into our system. On the eve of the Jewish Agency meetings, Dan published several observations, one of which dealt with the sense from 7,000 miles away from my home, the disaster that JFNA's leaders seek to impose on our system, locally, nationally and globally through the Global Planning Table. Here is what Dan wrote last Friday:

"Indirectly related to the tensions surrounding the (Jewish Agency) board meeting, in the Jewish Federations "handling" of their desired Global Planning Table (GPT) and how money is allocated for overseas needs. This is another place where it is difficult to tell where it will eventually play out, but despite being in self-denial, JFNA's lay and professional leadership needs to not only understand but accept, that this continuing fiasco has caused them significant damage across not only the federation system but across all meaningful global giving discussions." (emphasis added)

But, at 25 Broadway and Greensboro, N.C., they push forward without regard to the consequences. More's the pity.

Rwexler

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

As an outgrowth of a JFNA (f/k/a UJC) FRD Study, among the Co-Chairs of which was Michael Lebovitz, the immediate past Philanthropic Resources Chair, JFNA engaged in a partnership with two "emerging communities" -- Las Vegas and Phoenix -- communities of high potential as yet unrealized. The abandonment of these partnerships dictated unilaterally by JFNA leadership while they pursued their own agendas is but one example of an organization gone wrong.

Las Vegas. At the onset of the JFNA-Las Vegas partnership, Las Vegas was the fastest growing Jewish community in the United States. Over the few years of the partnership, thanks to great local lay and professional leadership, the community campaign, if I recall correctly, jumped/sky-rocketed from under $1 million to over $4 million. JFNA's role in this partnership was supportive and as a national "cheerleader," called upon, among other things, to assist the community in its direction and in the creation of both a new culture and in alternative means of developing critically needed infrastructure.

The national/local partnership was unilaterally terminated by JFNA at the most critical of moments: the recession hit Las Vegas especially hard (and continues to); and an entire new group of professional leaders were coming aboard. JFNA didn't merely terminate the partnership, it abandoned Las Vegas at its moment of greatest needs. The annual campaign has dropped to a little over $1 million. Most of its largest contributors no longer are. And where is JFNA at this moment? It drops in for "events" like TribeFest and TribeFest II and then disappears until the next event.

Phoenix. An equally sad story. The Phoenix Jewish community was growing by leaps and bounds. Geographically spread out with very low affiliation rates, with an annual campaign in stasis and a separately incorporated Foundation seemingly competing with Federation, the Phoenix community was a perfect paradigm for the "emerging community." JFNA's leaders determined that it was necessary to have a written "contract" with Phoenix "spelling out" the responsibilities of the "partners" and, seemingly no sooner than the ink was dry, without notice or discussion, JFNA walked away.

And, since, the Federation has literally collapsed. Its CEO has left, its lay leadership has stepped in...and last month that leadership voted to put an end to the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix with the formation of something called the Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix -- a "federation" no longer. It appears that the main focus of the new Association is to operate and manage the beautiful Campus of the Valley of the Sun JCC...and, then,"we'll see."

****

Could a JFNA that understood that among its critical purposes is assisting the Las Vegases and Phoenixes of the federation world have made a difference in either instance? While we will never know, it is clear that JFNA's "walk away" at critical moments didn't help, that's for certain. What is also clear is that these partnerships were hard work...and holy work...and for those of us involved, the reward of working with federation lay and professional leaders who cared so much. But, this JFNA, our JFNA had more important things on its plate -- based on history, I just can't for the life of me figure out what.

Rwexler

CATCHING UP...ONCE MORE

As we wind the Blog down toward June 30, it's hard to avoid some of the "stuff' that JFNA provides on a more or less daily basis. Some of it good, some of it bad and some of it...strange. For example:

~ The strange. On June 20 the JFNA Briefing: JFNA Participates In Israeli Emergency Simulation Drill. I think the purpose was to tell us how important JFNA-Israel is but to me it just suggested the following:

LEADERSHIP BRIEFING: JFNA PARTICIPATES IN FIRE DRILL AT 25 BROADWAY.

JFNA staff participated today in a fire drill exercise at its New York Headquarters. Alerted by the New York City Fire Department that the drill would take place today, JFNA mobilized its floor captains and hall monitors to assure that....

Worthy of a Briefing? Only at JFNA...

~ The good. After fifteen years the Jewish Leadership Forum will convene with minimum gift requirement from the high potential leaders who will attend. That's great and a major step forward, coupled with the progress made in last year's event, toward making the JLF federation-centric. Congratulations to the JLF lay and professional leadership.

Rwexler

FACT OF THE MONTH

FACT
OF THE
DAY/MONTH

I received an e-mail from Dr. Conrad Giles and Rabbi Steve Gutow; you probably received the same one. It was a mass mailed solicitation letter on JCPA's behalf following up on one sent pre-Pesach -- "last chance" to contribute $250 or more to JCPA (and ridiculous out of the Holiday context). It was serendipitous that it arrived shortly after I learned that the notorious JFNA Alliance had determined that to maintain the allocation to JTA at its current funding level, it would reduce funding to...the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the NCSJ rather than spreading that reduction equally among all of the funded national agencies.

Thus, in addition to JTA being supported at its current levels, so were the other largest funded national agencies -- the JCCA, Hillel, JESNA, the AFJCA and...JCPA. Many, if not all, of the national agencies which suffered no reduction in allocation through the Alliance's secret "process" have development staffs or consultants; hence the JCPA mail solicitation.

Does JFNA concern itself with this rogue fund raising by organizations that are the beneficiaries of our federation campaigns through the Alliance? Does it even know it's going on? (I do recall that about three years ago after one of CEO Rieger's failed fund raising attempts -- this one for the JFNA/JCPA partnership in the IAI -- he merely told JCPA to go out and raise the money itself.) Does it even care that (1) this is taking place and (2) if it knew or didn't, should JFNA's "leaders" not be concerned that JCPA is raising money during the critical time in almost all federation annual campaigns?

The Fact is "guess not."

On another note the JFNA Daily Media Guide now links to articles about George Soros!! WHY would that be? And does this Daily exercise really provide value?

Rwexler

"RETIREMENT"

At calendar year-end, I retired from the practice of law after 45 years. This is something I had planned for the last two years and I and my Firm worked out a transition over the past years. Over the last six months, I have received many messages and questions (as has my wife) from friends and family -- here are a few with some answers:

~ "Is everything OK?" -- from those who fear that I was pushed into retirement for spending too much time blogging. So far, so great.

~ "You're too young" -- from my grandchildren -- G-d bless 'em -- and a few others (some of whom fear that if I am home I will drive my wife nuts). I wish it were true.

~ "What are you going to do with your time? I am almost afraid to ask" -- from a wonderful professional partner who has admonished me from the beginning about this Blog. See below.

~ "You might want to take up wood-turning" -- from a long-time professional partner at JFNA (who I suggested might have wanted me to chop off both my hands in the process). No, I do not know what "wood-turning" is except that it involves, inter alia, lathes, scrapers and "chucks."

So, here are some of my plans: I am officing 5 minutes from my home, with my uncle and cousin. I have a chance to breakfast and lunch with many friends in the 'burbs similarly situated where we engage in, as Woody Allen described it so perfectly, "...the customary exchange of insincere remarks about how neither of us had aged." I am working with an editor on a book that I hope to get published that consists of anecdotes and stories and is tentatively titled: "Dumb Jews...and Other Stories" or "'Who Told You About That...and other Questions." More likely -- Judgment Fled...The Musings of a Wandering Jew.(Or I may convert the Blog to book form.) We are going to visit our children and grandchildren far more often. And I have a few plans for Jewish service. In addition, I have been very gratified by the outreach from two national publications which have inquired over the past two months in whether I would bring the Blog to their publications.

And, the Blog. It's time (or long past time in the opinion of many) to put a -30- to this saga. While I despair that JFNA is unable, actually refuses, to effect changes to reflect the goals that all of us had and have for it, on June 30, after over 650 Posts, I will place the Blog on the shelf and observe whether the federation owners -- that's you -- will take responsibility for the Dues we pay. Clearly the very idea of this Blog, let alone its execution, has been accompanied by charges that I am guilty of nothing less than heresy. The so-called "leaders" of JFNA continue to attack me -- always, of course, in the shadows. Now, they can, if they are able, focus on more critical things. And, if they don't, if they can't, and if you, the owners don't stand up, this Blog will return.

To those of you who have asked "how are you doing?" Just fine, thanks. (Ask me again in 6 months. Or ask Roberta for the honest answer.) As James Taylor wrote: "the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."

And to those who may choose to continue to attack me: Enjoy. But remember Life isn't about how you survive the storm, but how you dance in the rain.

Tomorrow is my 70th Birthday. Can't wait. See ya'.

Rwexler

CATCHING UP...ONCE AGAIN

~ It's nice and appropriate that JFNA remembers those great philanthropists and communal leaders upon their deaths. But, how does one explain the eulogy appearing on June 13 for one of our People's best ever, one who died on April 2? Did they forget? Were they asleep at the switch? Whatever? All of the above?

~ Whenever I am at breakfast reading the International Herald Tribune, I know that I am in a place I love and/or with people I love and admire. The latter us certainly true as I write this from Moscow. In today's Trib appeared three headlines that caused me to ponder: (1) "Walesa is ill with pneumonia, but his health is called good;" and (2) "Blogger known as 'Gay Girl' is American man;" and, to make Mel Brooks proud, (3) "A 21-volume dictionary for a language not spoken for 2,000 years." Then, I went back to my breakfast.

~ A brilliant Comment to my Post on "Arrogance Unbound" questioned why any federation or donor would "trust" JFNA to substitute its determination of the application of overseas allocations. "JFNA is a mess" the Comment went on. That is, of course, a seminal question. JFNA has been charged with certain basic responsibilities, none of which...that's "none" as in zero...other than JFNA-Washington and disaster relief are being performed adequately if at all...yet, it believes its judgment is better than that of the federations themselves, our donors and JDC and the Jewish Agency. Why? Just because "we are JFNA" apparently.

~ Rebranding, again? One of the FOB caught this one: on June 16, we received the JDNA Daily Media Guide -- that's right, "JDNA." The reader asked: "huh?" So, I Googled "JDNA." Here's the answer: "JDNA is ... currently the sole distributor for Gogo's Crazy Bones in Noth America." Sounds about right to me.

Rwexler





Rwexler