CORPORATE SILLINESS

Immediately after the GA, new Board Members (at least the language suggested it was for the "new," not for those who have served on the Board for, let's say 19 years) received a "welcome" letter -- so did I. The letter kicked off as follows:

"Mazal Tov on your appointment to JFNA’s Board of Trustees. I look forward to working with you and appreciate your acceptance of the role and the commitment it entails. Our Board has an opportunity to make an impact on the challenges faced by our community. Your experience and counsel, as well as that of our Board guests* will help guide The Jewish Federations of North America in providing value to the Federation movement and the Jewish community at large. As a Board member, you will help our organization determine overall corporate policy and strategy, address programmatic issues, elect officers and vote on the budget. We look forward to your active and thoughtful input."

For purposes of this letter, it is important to understand the asterisk, the * above, inasmuch as the reference is to the following:

*Guests of the Board of Trustees include Federation executives, former Board & Executive Committee chairs, and JAFI & JDC leadership.

JFNA's leaders appear to have convinced themselves that they can, at their whim, ignore the By-Law requirements (the current iteration of which were drafted at the direction of JFNA's current Board Chair) and convert Board Members to "guests." 

This inanity is consistent with these same leaders' decision earlier this year to restrict attendance at and participation in a Board Meeting to "voting members only" because of a self-described "matter of extreme confidentiality." The reality, as disclosed in a newspaper story that preceded the meeting, was that there was to be a discussion of "allowing" missions to visit settlements in Judea and Samaria -- visits which were (a) on-going for decades and (b) JFNA merely authorized representatives of the Israel Action Network to do so. 

So, at the end of the day, JFNA wasted the time of its "voting Board Members" for this exercise in stupidity. Imagine: this organization, supported by Federation Dues to the tune of $30 million a year, and among its "accomplishments" is this narishkeit.

And, its Board Members sit by in silent approbation.

RWEXLER