Every year, year-after-year, JFNA publishes its Israel Policy Priorities for the coming year. I just compared those for 2017 with those for 2018. They are almost identical. I can only assume that these "Priorities" have become an inside joke among the rest of the staff at 25 Broadway -- "Look at what JFNA-Israel won't be doing this year...again."
On the lay side JFNA-Israel's most recent Chairs -- David Brown and, then, David Butler, must have seen and see what is right in front of them -- an Israel unit that at best ca be described as under-performing, at worst, non-performing, repeatedly accomplishing near-to nothing. In the best tradition of "make no waves," the "Davids" just watched while the Israel Office continued down its path of failure. As I've written, JFNA-israel is JFNA in microcosm.
Here is what JFNA's Israel Policy Priorities were for 2017:
- Strengthening the Relationship between Israel and the North American Jewish Community -- repeated in the Israel Policy Priorities for 2018 almost en haec verba
- Encouraging open, constructive (sic) and respectful dialogue -- again...repeated
- Opposing the Delegitiization of Israel -- incorporates the work of the Israel Action Network as if it were the work of JFNA-Israel
- Providing Transformative Israel Experiences for Young Adults -- in other words, great work by Birthright, MASA and Onward Israel
- There are more but you get the point
The fact that the Priorities for 2018 are almost identical just makes me shake my head in bewilderment as to what this expensive Jerusalem-based Office does. (I won't even get into the mysterious attribution of these Priorities to the JFNA Government Relations Staff other than to ask -- WTF?
You can ask until you are blue in the face -- where is accountability...where is accountability ? -- and the answer is self-evident. THERE IS NONE.
You can ask until you are blue in the face -- where is accountability...where is accountability ? -- and the answer is self-evident. THERE IS NONE.
And, I guess that's my question -- WTF? Is anyone paying attention?
Rwexler
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4 comments:
Richard, it's a broken record that you know the answer to: Nobody is paying attention because nobody cares.
Did one JFNA board member question the $450,000 Bridgespan study that needed to be pushed through right now after 19 years?
You can go down the list, and it's the same issue.
It will be interesting to see how this reality is pitched by the search committee for the new CEO.
The mission of Israel and Overseas should be advocacy for the I&O agenda to federation professionals and lay leaders who are located all over the USA, not in Jerusalem. Instead of I&O being an integral part of the JFNA New York Office and their work opposite federations (as it once was), this function was moved to Israel and has been allowed to inflate itself to absurd proportions, unsupervised and unmanaged, attempting to run its own programs under a JFNA banner and "monitoring" Knesset and government activity on the ground in Jerusalem (both unnecessary functions that compete with others who do a better job), all for the purpose of JFNA public relations and marketing. This misguided and wasteful, if not downright damaging, operation should be closed down immediately and the traditional I&O function should be returned to the New York Office with a small fraction of its current staffing.
Will anyone have the guts to make this happen?
The mission of Israel and Overseas should be advocacy for the I&O agenda to federation professionals and lay leaders who are located all over the USA, not in Jerusalem. Instead of I&O being an integral part of the JFNA New York Office and their work opposite federations (as it once was), this function was moved to Israel and has been allowed to inflate itself to absurd proportions, unsupervised and unmanaged, attempting to run its own programs under a JFNA banner and "monitoring" Knesset and government activity on the ground in Jerusalem (both unnecessary functions that compete with others who do a better job), all for the purpose of JFNA public relations and marketing. This misguided and wasteful operation should be closed down immediately and the traditional I&O function should be returned to the New York Office with a small fraction of its current staffing.
The question is whether we, as JFNA leadership, will have the guts to see to it that this long overdue change is implemented.
There is ample evidence for anyone who wants to look that th ROI on JFNA-Israel is a negative number in the millions of dollars. The continuing lack of accountability at JFNA is nauseating.
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