A WELCOME DEPARTURE FROM FANTASYLAND

I congratulate our friends at the wonderful ejewishphilanthropy for another prodigious achievement -- this time publishing a series of interviews by the brilliant professional leader, Misha Galperin, who posed a series of questions  to federation/system leaders. And, it is to Misha's credit that, like any good reporter, he just let these leaders speak in their own words without the necessity of commentary or observation. But...I will offer some...

• The current JFNA Board Chair, Michael Siegal, is a mensch. And I know that it was not long after he assumed the Board Chair position (yes, my choice of wording here is poor) that he realized that if there were to be any chance of moving JFNA forward during his three year Terms that two actions at a minimum would have to occur: (1) there would have to be a change in the CEO/President position; and (2) the waste that was the Global Planning Table would have to be ended. He began these two processes with all good intentions by first creating professional "bench strength" under Silverman in the persons of Mark Gurvis and Renee Rothstein whom Silverman was told to hire and, then...well, stuff happened. There was organized pushback from Kathy Manning and her claque (after all this hire was all she "accomplished" over her three years; and there were no experienced candidates who would agree to succeed Silverman (and there were those who were asked). As to the GPT: it self-destructed as any top-down dictated mess would have been -- but, on Michael's watch (again over the objections of Manning), it's over. It took too long and wasted millions...but, it's over.
• But, now, as the end of Siegal's terms are upon us, he appears to be living in some virtual  Alice in Wonderland world -- a place of tiny bubbles and unicorns, the only place where JFNA is successfully leading a whole bunch of successful federations, where all federations are willingly paying their Dues, a place where Jerry Silverman is a successful CEO. In other words....no place on this earth. I mean, Michael, really? When Michael cites that "[L]eadership requires decisions and accountability for those decisions," was he speaking to his own "accountability" for the decision to extend the JFNA CEO's contract? If so, "accountability" would have required Michael to resign, wouldn't it? Then, Siegal writes about that which JFNA and the federations should be without for a second reflecting on the reality that they aren't...and that a major part of the reason they "aren't" is the organization he was elected to lead.
• Then there is the incoming Board Chair. I have heard so many terrific things about Richard Sandler; I am eagerly awaiting his installation in November. While I have read his narrative, his vision, of a lay leader's and a Federation's responsibilities in ejp, I choose to believe in the Richard Sandler as I and others have come to know him -- as a decisive leader who doesn't suffer fools. To Richard Sandler Federation should be a kinder/gentler place (never a bad idea) that he apparently believes they are not now -- a "partner/convener...touching and working with all other organizations" and,  thereby "...strengthen(ing) the Jewish community based upon Jewish values." He sees federations as "think tanks" identifying the organizations that are best meeting communal needs and funding those. (In my community and yours, isn't that what federation allocations have always done?) While Richard rejects the premise that federations are general "fundraising organizations," he went on to state in response to Misha Galperin that "Federations raise funds for a purpose and that purpose needs to be clearly defined." As the Board Chair of our second largest community, he has demonstrated in deed -- not in word clearly, but in deed -- that he understands and appreciates the strength and value of the lay-professional partnership; he values a strong and thoughtful and creative professional leader. Further, unlike his predecessors as Board Chair, he will not sit idly by and merely pretend that all is well when it isn't.

Holy shit!! Up to the moment of Richard Sandler's election, for the previous three times. the selection of the JFNA Board Chair appeared to have had to be, as The Wall Street Journal's Jason Guy described the selection of the new quarterback(s) of the once woebegone New York Jets football team: "...like pulling a ticket at the deli counter of failure." No, it doesn't have to be that way, of course. It just was; I believe that with Richard Sandler's election, it is no longer.

To this point in time our ultimate leaders have too often been either those parachuted into continental leadership who remain bewildered for the three years of service or they come in like a Manning, with a personal agenda that ends up trumping their responsibilities to the federations -- they exemplify just why our continental organization has sunk like the Titanic. Richard Sandler can be the leader we have been waiting for for so long.

He had better be.

Rwexler