HOW LONG???

How long until federations stop paying/overpaying/egregiously overpaying for ineptitude and failure? That is the question.

Some already have, of course; JFNA has pled with those communities to pay while urging them to keep their non-payment "quiet." Yet, JFNA under this so-called leadership offers a veritable buffet overflowing with failures.

With all of the failures you can add what may be the biggest failure of all — the failure of imagination. These leaders can't imagine, let alone achieve, greatness; these leaders can't imagine, let alone achieve, transformational change. They merely repeat -- over and over and over again -- the programs of the past, some successful, most redundant, while parroting what they may have heard. (Example: Michael Siegal, when Board Chair, without any consultation with the federations, called for a multi-billion dollar effort to provide free Jewish education to all [he had no idea what the real cost might be]. That was six years ago. This past November, Smilin' Jerry S. called for the same thing -- nothing more than a pandering, patronizing applause line -- not a moment spent in planning, in putting meat on the bones of Siegal's idea over the six years between then and now. Truly despicable and so sadly typical.)

JFNA has evolved/devolved into an Idiocracy. I sense that in a number -- small but growing -- of federations there is a growing exasperation (one that should have surfaced years ago) with JFNA and an emergent reevaluation of the federation/JFNA relationship. This is a topic that Federation CEOs discuss in confidence among themselves at Retreats and in on-line chat "rooms" -- JFNA is "fortunate" (in the worst way) that these CEOs are waiting for someone else to take the lead. 

A growing number of these leaders realize that JFNA's ineptitude can actually lead to destabilizing the federations themselves. So here's the point: a weak, ineffective JFNA ultimately weakens the very federations which support it. 

What can one do about an organization designed to reflect strong leadership -- as JFNA was -- that has abandoned fund raising, abandoned the national agencies, abandoned the overseas partners, abandoned purpose, abandoned Mission, abandoned vision? My answer: you either reform it or you abandon it for another, recreate it. You don't just continue to throw $30 million (+) year-in and year-out and expect these same chachams to effect change when they believe that the very payment of those Dues means that they are doing just a fine job.

I despair -- JFNA is comatose, going through the motions; relying upon its member federations and their leaders to ask no questions, make no waves. There is no hope any longer, if there ever was, that the longest-serving Deans of the Large City Executives will invest any energy in effecting change at the top of JFNA (although they could). The only hope is that New York UJA-Federation CEO/President Eric Goldstein and his top lay leadership, will examine how that community's Dues -- millions each and every year -- are "invested" and what kind of return New York receives on that "investment;" and, when they find the answer to be none, they will demand that immediate steps be taken. 

Because...immediate steps need to be taken...

Rwexler