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Chronicle of Philanthropy features Jim Joseph and Schusterman

By Jacob Berkman · July 21, 2008

(Sorry, posted these before, but the links required a subscription. The Chronicle has sent us links so you can read the stories for free, so click away...)

The Jewish philanthropic world is well-represented in this week's issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The Chronicle has a fairly lengthy story about the $1 billion Jim Joseph Foundation's efforts to build a better Jewish world. Right now the foundation is granting out about $45 million per year.

And the president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, Sandy Cardin, has an Op-ed about what foundations can do to inspire more volunteerism.

Thanks to the Chronicle for allowing us to give you free links to the stories, which are normally subscriber only.

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CAJE to open its annual conference on Tisha B’Av

By Jacob Berkman · July 21, 2008

The Fundermentalist is going to take the show on the road to Burlington, Vermont, in a few weeks to check out the annual conference of the Coalition for Advancement of Jewish Education, from Aug 10-14.

CAJE is the biggest thing going in terms of professional development conferences for congregational and Hebrew school teachers and should draw about 1,500 people to the University of Vermont. And the conference has an interesting twist this year as it will have a heavy focus on eco-consciousness. (Good, says the fundermentalist. The Jewish world needs more of this.)

But the timing of the conference is a bit odd. The first day, Sunday Aug. 10, lands on Tisha B'Av, the 24-hour fast that marks the saddest day of the Jewish religious calendar, the day on which both temples in Jerusalem were destroyed and a whole litany of karma-cally twisted events occurred.

The opening plenary will take place about 20 hours into the fast for those who are religiously observant, and dinner is scheduled for 5:00, about four hours before the fast is over.

"What gives?" the Fundermentalist asked Jeffrey Lasday, CAJE's executive director.

Lasday said that the conference could have been scheduled for the week before, but that would have been even more difficult. The three weeks preceding Tisha B'Av are also considered days of mourning and for the religiously observant, music and other joyous activities are prohibited. To plan the conference then would have made a number of the activities CAJE has planned impossible, he said.

Instead, CAJE will try to work around Tisha B'Av.

Only about 100 of the 1,500 participants will be fasting, Lasday estimates, and alternative meal arrangements will be made for them. The opening plenary. which normally contains some musical component will be toned down. And CAJE has hired Amichai Lau Lavie of Storahtelling to perform Tisha B'Av appropriate pieces.

And, CAJE has offered a prorated discount off of the $835 early bird price tag for the five-day conference for those who want show up on Monday. About 50 people will do so, he said.

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Olmert responds to UJC’s plea to intervene in conversion crisis

By Jacob Berkman · July 21, 2008

Ehud Olmert has apparently responded to a letter earlier this month from the leaders of the United Jewish Communities in which they asked the prime minister to intervene in the conversion crisis in Israel.

The UJC's chair, Joe Kanfer, and president and CEO, Howard Rieger, had sent the prime minister a letter July 9, imploring him in fairly strong language that they expected him and his government to step in to help the country settle the dispute over what conversions to Judaism are considered legitimate.

It is a longstanding conflict that was reignited earlier this year when Israel's Rabbinical High Court dismissed Rabbi Haim Druckman, the head of the Conversion Committee that was established to facilitate the conversion process. In dismissing Druckman, who was considered relatively lenient on conversion, the court said it would annul thousands of conversions of immigrants from the former Soviet Union that he had approved.

Olmert wrote back to the UJC last week – and one can assume his response was not a form letter – saying that the conversion issue was one of utmost importance to him and that he values the relationship between UJC and Israel. Help is in the works, he added.

The prime minister said that he would discuss the issue further when the UJC holds is annual conference, the General Assembly, in Jerusalem this fall.

"It is my hope that the two strategic decisions made byt my Cabinet in the past six months related to this issue will begin catalyzing the conversion process in Israel," the letter said. "I expect that, in the coming weeks, the new directorship of the Conversion Authority will begin to tackle the complexities of this issue, and that by the time we meet at the General Assembly in November, we will see concrete results."

(We'll say this ... not everyone with Olmert's sagging popularity and mounting legal problems would have the confidence to say he'd still be around in November. Of course, the other possibility is that he's punting because he knows he'll be out by then.)

Read the rest of the olmert letter.

Thanks to Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information center, an Israeli based organization dedicated to making Jewish life accessible, for alerting the Fundermentalist to Olmert's letter.

Because he saw it first, I'll give Farber first crack at responding. (For the annotated version – he isn't satisfied):

"ITIM has received hundreds of phone calls in the past two months from converts concerned about their status and individuals who were hesitant to convert. The PM's comments are an important first step in restoring confidence in the conversion authority. but words are not sufficient. There must be actions as well. IN the past few weeks, very little has moved forward with little direction from the Prime Minister's office. The search committee to appoint a new director of the conversion authority has not met, and the tender for the assistant to the director went unfilled.

It is my hope that this letter will be followed by concrete steps to rebuild the conversion authority and give it the power to move this issue forward in Israel."

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