THE DISAPPEARING/DISAPPEARED COLLECTIVE

I have been watching in great pain, and commenting upon the collapse of collective action by the federations. It is the power of the collective that has historically been the distinguishing and ennobling departure point between the federation system qua system and "just another charity." I have despaired as: (1) the systemic discipline that enabled collective action has broken down; (2) and the one organization literally created to be the framing entity for collective action not only doesn't understand it but, lacking that understanding, has been the major force in its deconstruction.

We have always known, and acted upon, the premise that the Jewish People are at our strongest when we gather our multiple fingers into a fist. Our work collectively to partner in the building of the State of Israel, in funding aliyah from the "Magic Carpet" from Arab countries to the massive financial support for the incredible Operation Exodus following hard upon an unprecedented advocacy effort for freedom for Soviet Jewry, to constant support for Israel in every crisis -- right up to the last decade when a failure of leadership coupled with a failure of will has seen our continental organization standing mute and even encouraging our collective efforts to dissipate and fracture. This is what happens when and where there are those in leadership who fail to understand Jewish communal history...or reject it.

What began as a trickle of individual decisions has exploded into a torrent. Decades ago, pre-merger, in the mid-90s, one Large City Federation, whose CEO, then as now, had worked himself into a frothing hatred for the Jewish Agency, who, along with some of his lay leaders, directed that community's allocation to the Joint Distribution Committee directly to that organization, bypassing the Council of Jewish Federations' collective allocations process. I pleaded with the community to "cancel the check;" I pleaded with JDC's leaders to "return the check" -- to both I expressed UJA's concern that this violation of the sacred collective threatened our system. My pleas and those of UJA were ignored. Little did I know how right I would be proved to have been.

But, even back then, communal discipline held...for a while. Sure, there were other instances that indicated the collective fabric was fraying -- federations which withheld the transmission of Special Campaign funds from the emerging United Jewish Communities to spray small amounts of money among favored organizations to gain some short-term kavod but without the impact...any impact...that a major collective effort would have had on the same beneficiaries. At no time, however, did the national/continental organization of and for the federations (and, as the organization's leaders knew, of and for the system's historic partners as well) acquiesce in or condone the then outliers, few as they are at the time.

And then came the JFNA regimes that brought together a veritable "perfect storm" of non-leadership, lay and professional, over the past 5+ years. You may have read about the episodes on the pages of this Blog. Combining a lay Chair who made a conscious decision to ignore, confuse or misrepresent the principles of collective responsibility and collective response with a CEO who couldn't comprehend the place of the collective as a bedrock principle of a federation system which he did not relate to (and still doesn't), had a wholly predictable result. When federations were called upon for a collective response for, e.g., "Completing the Journey" -- meeting the aliya/klita needs of Ethiopian Jewry --or providing vital assistance to Ukrainian Jewry or anything else, the response was a "collective" yawn. 

Meanwhile JFNA itself was stabbing the concept of the collective in the heart. 

• First, with but a whine from the Federation CEOs and none from federation lay leadership, JFNA adopted a so-called Second Membership Criterion that was originally conceived to set a minimum threshold of overseas allocations to the core budgets of JAFI/JDC to qualify for or maintain federation membership in JFNA. Instead, what was adopted, with the active connivance of the destructive duo, was totally meaningless, referencing the historic partners not at all and creating a totally illusory "criterion." 
• Then came the now failed Global Planning Table. The so-called Plan for this mess would have included the so-called three Signature Initiatives the participants in which would have been a limited number of funding federations -- a "coalition of the willing" as they called it. In other words, JFNA itself, created to preserve, protect and enhance the federation system, was busily at work deconstructing the collective that is at the heart of that very system.  

As the brilliant analyst, Bret Stephens, wrote in his weekly column in the Wall Street Journal, in another context but so relevant to JFNA's systemic destruction: "Having ignored and undermined their own foundation, they wonder why their house is coming down."

And here we are today. At a point in time where federations themselves are creating small safety nets, forming and funding coalitions of those with similar concerns and focus...and doing so with no...zero...initiative or initiative-building by the organization that lacks all credibility for building a true collective response. Another Terrorists' War has been declared upon Israel -- the Victims of Terror grow day-by-day, and all that JFNA can muster is a woeful statement condemning the terror-inspired violence, calling it "The Situation." 

Meanwhile the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles reached out and acted: it allocated $1.2 million in partnership with the Israel Trauma Coalition and dozens of Israeli municipalities in the South, in the North and in Jerusalem. To the JFGLA kal ha'kavod. LA began this effort after Summer 2014 while JFNA, which knew of the effort did nothing. Waiting for Chicago, Cleveland and New York to do something, or to give Jerry the thumbs-up? Or is this the latest example of "Jerry being Jerry?" The nothing man for the nothing organization.
And, when JFNA had the opportunity it had been seeking to lead the federation system in Birthright follow-up, the Jim Joseph Foundation chose to work with the wonderful Israel-based Livnot U'Lehibanot to undertake this critical task. Where was JFNA? Probably still kvetching about not having access to Birthright's participant lists -- to which, as it turned out...they had...all along. A chance to act for the collective...missed...again.

Friends, JFNA need not be put out of business -- it is putting itself out of every business it must be in to be relevant as anything more than a minor trade organization. We need a strong Continental organization -- if the current management continues in place, we will never have one. 

JFNA leaders should be looking at themselves in the mirror. They won't like what they see.

Rwexler