CHANGE

     "I bark and I bark but I never feel like I effect real change."

The New Yorker captured the story of this Blog in one simple cartoon. (October 15, 2018) It is the cartoon equivalent of that which has been attributed to Albert Einstein:  "the meaning of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result."

Yes, that's been...me. Barking and barking and barking again. Baying at the moon, as it were.

I admit it. As a fund raiser, I am an eternal optimist. I have believed that people, especially those charged with sacred responsibilities will do the right thing....will always do the right thing. Einstein would have admonished me.

Since I first began this Blog, I have made it a practice to go silent on matters related to JFNA upon each passing of the gavel from one Board Chair to the next out of what proved to be the false hope that the incoming Chair, having seen the deconstruction of JFNA under her/his predecessor, would take the bold steps necessary to force the radical surgery that would restart the organization, moving it in important directions, in critical directions...away from the sorry past to a brighter future for JFNA, for its federation members, for the "system," for our donors.

Yet, Kathy Manning was so obsessively focused on what would be the multi-million dollar disaster of her Global Planning Table, that, against the best advice from leaders far more relevant than I, she wasted her leadership years on the Rube Goldbergian-GPT; she neither wanted nor tolerated counsel -- other than her own. Michael Siegal, a spectacular philanthropist, wanted to effect change; he understood that major change was needed; change that he was unable to deliver. I shared Michael's frustration.

In the weeks before Richard Sandler succeeded Michael Siegal, he agreed to meet with me at his office in Santa Monica. He was extremely generous with his time and in sharing with me his vision for his Chairmanship. I felt that his leadership philosophy -- expressed as getting out of the way of the organization's professions and letting them "do their job" -- was inconsistent with the fiduciary, the sacred, responsibilities of lay leadership. Ours was an argument l'shem shamayim. It went nowhere. 

And, so, in each instance, my period of self-imposed silence was abandoned for the balance of each of these wonderful, committed lay leaders' whose only desire was to do good in service to the Jewish People, terms.

Now, Richard Sandler has passed the gavel to Mark Wilf. Mark can be the paradigmatic JFNA transformational change agent. His background inside the system and outside -- from Chair of the Young Leadership Cabinet through National Campaign Chair, his federation leadership roles and as the driving force behind JFNA's successful Holocaust Survivor Initiative. The Wilf Family's generous contributions to Holocaust survivor efforts are part of their and Mark's n'shama. Now, he will face his biggest challenge -- because his success as Chair is entwined with the need for a dynamic professional partner -- how quickly he will have one is wholly within his hands.

My confidence in Mark has been magnified in recent days when I learned that Chicago's David Brown will serve as the 2020 National Campaign Chair. With David's incredibly broad range of leadership roles locally and with JFNA, he and Mark hold out the promise of being the most formidable JFNA leadership team in decades. (To the extent that is damning with faint praise, so be it.)

Based on that promise, I will soon put that portion of this Blog that is commentary on JFNA on hiatus. I, with you, expect serious and transformational change. As i wish Mark only success, I won't wait long.

Rwexler