THE GPT -- THE SHELL GAME CONTINUES

In further pursuit of the Global Planning Table, JFNA just can't seem to stop itself as it hurtles down a path of chaos and self-destruction. Hence, under the rubric "The Power of Giving," JFNA published the following:

"A PLATFORM FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION

A new and innovative initiative established by the Jewish Federations of North America will provide information, insights and understanding regarding global Jewish priorities. This initiative – the Global Planning Table – will give Federation leaders and donors an entry point into a wider, more diverse and vibrant Jewish world / Darryl Egnal

The Jewish Federations of North America ‏(JFNA‏) represents 155 Jewish Federations and more than 300 independent Jewish communities, protecting and enhancing the well-being of Jews and Jewish communities in North America, Israel and around the world.

“As Jews, we have always cared about our entire community and, since the early days, the North American community has supported the needs of the Jewish people locally in the U.S. and internationally,” says Rebecca Caspi, Senior Vice President, Global Operations. “The Jewish Federations are defined by their ability to take collective action to address Jewish priorities. Working together, we have had a profound impact on world Jewry, having played a major role in building and strengthening the Jewish State in its early years, helping European Jewry recover after the war, rescuing Jews from around the world, building Jewish communities and more. If you fast-forward to current times, you get to a place where defining top-level priorities is more complex, but there remain many important and significant challenges that our people around the world are facing. How to prioritize them and how to have the biggest influence on those needs is less clear than it was only a few decades ago,” says Caspi.

Enter the Global Planning Table

The Global Planning Table ‏(GPT‏) came into being to provide the North American Jewish community with a place to come together, identify and wrestle with those challenges and the opportunities that need to be targeted − and together to think how to have the greatest impact. It is a venue for communal leaders to grapple with the challenges and opportunities facing the Jewish world and to establish priorities. The main aim of the forum is to determine how the Federations can have the greatest impact where it is needed the most."

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This drivel appeared in a Haaretz Advertising Supplement hand-out at the GA. Its content, speculation presented as fact, bears the mark of Rebecca Caspi, who has taken on the GPT after the resignation of Joanne Moore this past Summer. Ms. Caspi, who must have seen the Global Planning Table professional leadership as a threat to her role in "Global Operations" (define, please?), just plows forward without regard for the damage that will be done to the very federations JFNA claims to represent, the federations which own JFNA.

Will the new JFNA lay leaders step up? Stay tuned.

Rwexler