THE HOUSTON FLOODS -- JFNA FUTILITY IN MICROCOSM

You belong to a federated community that has paid millions in Dues to JFNA since the merger that created it. You confront a disaster -- heretofore unheard of communal flooding that has impacted the Jewish community, its neighborhoods, synagogues and institutions in unheard of ways. You see that JFNA has opened a Mailbox only weeks before for relief after the tragic overwhelming earthquake(s) in Nepal and had once offered professional leadership after the Katrina disaster struck New Orleans in 2005.

So what did Houston and JFNA do after the floods? Some history is in order:

1. Hurricane Katrina brought out some of the best in JFNA (and some of the worst -- even though JFNA senior professionals on the scene received  Rabbinic clearance to deliver a Torah to the community on Shabbat the then JFNA CEO threatened the firing of any JFNA professional who did so based upon what he claimed was the advice from his personal Rabbi) -- senior professional leaders on the ground like Gail Hyman and Howard Feinberg worked in partnership with a local community under siege. By 2008, both Hyman and Feinberg had left JFNA.
2. Working with her lay leadership, Board Chair Kathy Manning, but without the requisite staff, pushed her Executive Committee to a significant emergency grant in response to the 2008 Hurricane Ike which struck Houston and other Texas communities full force.
3. Fast forward to May 2015. The torrential rains produced epic flooding in Houston (and Dallas and elsewhere in Texas). JFNA responded, to its credit, immediately, with a $25,000 allocation advocated not by the Chair of the Executive as in 2008 but by CEO Jerry "How-Did-I-Come-Up-With-This-Number?" who may or may not have advised the Executive Committee after the fact. $25,000 represented a fraction of the need in Houston.
4. There are no longer senior JFNA professionals competent to partner with a federation in the midst of a disaster unlike the case in 2005. They can collect the facts and express concern but JFNA no longer has the capacity to even pretend to act as the epicenter of overall Jewish community emergency response as might have once been the goal. But, then again, the JFNA of 2015 is no longer anything more than a trade association masquerading as the central address of Continental Jewish communal life (gets you an invite to the White House though).
5. And, so...

              ~ Houston opened its own Emergency Fund "publicized" as it were 

                 in FedWorld by JFNA; and

              ~ The Houston Federation reached out and brought Howard Feinberg

                 in to work with its local leadership in meeting the needs created by

                 this crisis -- yes, the senior professional that JFNA no longer "needs"      

              ~ Howard took a brief leave from his important work for WorldORT to 
                 assist Houston.

Best I can tell, JFNA -- an organization that fails us at every turn -- did so again. At its Board meeting, JFNA heard an excellent report about what the Houston Federation did and is doing -- JFNA did send that $25,000 (that's your money) and was thanked profusely by Houston's Board Chair -- the federation "system" had "raised" $75,000 as at June 1 as individual federations committed dollars directly to the Houston Federation Fund.

Please contribute to assist the Houston Federation at www.houstonjewish.org/houstonflood

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