JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Lasday: For right now, CAJE will not close its doors

By Jacob Berkman · December 10, 2008

Over the past several weeks, rumors have been swirling that CAJE, the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, could possibly close its doors.

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Bad financial times could lead to charitable consolidation

By Grant Slater · November 3, 2008

JTA correspondent Grant Slater has been reporting from the Limmud conference in Ukraine. He has come back with this:

0 Comments | Share This | fundraising, Fundraising, organizations, overseas

In making peace with Nefesh B’Nefesh, the Jewish Agency may have ticked off its own board

By Jacob Berkman · September 4, 2008

In striking a deal last week with Nefesh B’Nefesh and agreeing to partner on promoting aliyah in North America instead of continuing an often nasty custody battle over would-be immigrants, the Jewish Agency for Israel might have put out one fire with a rival only to start another in-house with its own board.

The agency had been the sole proprietor on entry to Israel since the Jewish state’s inception, but its marketing had fallen limp, and in recent years the group had lost significant ground to Nefesh. Nefesh, an American 501c3 founded in 2002, brought with it onto the aliyah scene a slick publicity plan and offered potential immigrants significant cash incentives to move to Israel – and stay there, which resulted in a 98 percent retention rate once new immigrants arrived.

As the agency scrambled to maintain its role as only aliyah child as Nefesh fought hard for legitimacy in the eyes of the motherland, the two often fought viciously –- especially over the last year. Much of that came through in the press as lay leaders from each organization levied potentially libelous claims against the other (at one point even dragging JTA into a potential lawsuit for printing them).

The environment was so poisoned that, to settle the claim, the two sides brought in serious third-party mediation.

John Ruskay, the executive VP and CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, and Stephen Hoffman, the president of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, sat in as representatives of the federation system that funds the agency.

The parties also brought in a heavy hitter, Kenneth Feinberg, to oversee the talks. Feinberg, a Washington lawyer who specializes in mediation, was appointed by John Ashcroft as the Special Master of the U.S. Government’s September 11th Victim Compensation Fund – and negotiated the settlements that 9/11 victims received.

Feinberg, working pro-bono in the Nefesh-JAFI peace talks, oversaw two days of negotiating sessions that ended last week with an agreement. Under the deal, the Nefesh will now take the lead in marketing aliyah to North America and the agency would provide support staff, some money, and would continue to be the organization that worked with the Israeli government to process new immigrants.

The agency took an unusual step in striking the deal.

Before negotiations started, Feinstein and the other mediators insisted that the parties had to agree that those at the table would be allowed to make a deal and stick by it, which meant that they needed full autonomy to act and would not have to get the deal ratified by their boards.

This was not an issue for Nefesh, whose representative was also its co-founder and largest donor, Tony Gelbart. But for the agency, which has a huge lay board and answers also to the federation system, doing so was more complicated.

The chairman of the agency’s executive board, Richie Pearlstone, and its top executive, Ze’ev Bielski, appointed three people to negotiate on behalf of the organization: the chairman of the budget and finance committee, Shoel Silver; the co-chair of the agency’s aliyah and klitah budget subcommittee, Michael Gelman, and the director general of the agency, Moshe Vigdor to negotiate. Neither Pearlstone nor Bielski were involved in the talks.

“One thing they insisted on was that there would be confidentiality, and those given mandate to negotiate had to be able to say, ‘This is an agreement,’ and not go back to their board and say we have an agreement, but it does not we have an agreement in principle, but it needs to be ratified,” Silver said. “People can have the concern. And if that is an issue, they can take it up with the executive. Or, they may be comfortable with the agreement once they hear what it is.”

Giving them the autonomy to work on their own might have been a necessary and even progressive step, but the agency apparently flubbed by not first getting approval from its lay leadership for the arrangement.

The agency was set to inform its executive committee of the details of the Nefesh deal in a meeting and conference call on Wednesday, but they will likely have some healing to do within its own walls.

“I think there are a lot of lay leaders who are upset about it only from the point of view that they don’t know what it is about,” said one high-up agency lay leader. “I think the process sucked.”

“Whenever lay leaders would ask about the negotiations, I was told I was not privy to that information,” said another top agency lay leader. “I am secretly hoping that I never find out what is and is not in the agreement because then I don’t have to worry about whether I agree.”

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Where’s the celeb love for Jewish charities?

By Jacob Berkman · August 27, 2008

Since the New York Times Magazine ran Natalie Portman’s mug on the cover of its money issue in March, which featured a story about celebrity influence on giving, it seems that the charitable world has gone a bit TMZ.

The phenomenon is legit enough that the Chronicle of Philanthropy held an interesting online panel discussion this week about celebrity involvement in charity.

That discussion turned me onto Looktothestars.com, a comprehensive Web site that provides daily updates about celebrities and their giving.

For the Jewish philanthropy-phile, it’s definitely worth a perusing.

The site has two pieces about Natalie Portman’s involvement with the micro-loan group FINCA, including a Q&A.

Did you know:

• Adam Sandler donated 400 Playstations to Israeli families that were victims of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
• Goldie Hawn, Michael Douglas and Bill Clinton support the Jewish National Fund.
• And Don Cheadle, who is not Jewish, is a supporter of Jewish World Watch, an organization that “works to mobilize synagogues, their schools, their members and the community to combat genocide and other egregious violations of human rights around the world through education, advocacy, and refugee relief,” according to its Web site.

Jewish celebrities have historically been involved in high-profile philanthropy, from the Jew who runs the world’s most famous telethon, Jerry Lewis, to Paul Newman, who is now giving away to charity all of the assets from his Newman’s Own line of food products.

A bevy of Jewish celebs show up on the site’s database of stars who notably give to charity. The database includes a listing of each of their causes.

But are Jewish charities missing the star-studded cruise?

Looktothestars also has a searchable database of charities that have been able to sign on celebrity sponsors, and aside from the JNF, Jewish World Watch and several foundations started by Jewish celebrities, few overtly Jewish causes show up on the list.

I know that there are some Jewish charities that have been able to enlist Jewish b-list celebs, older celebs and entertainment industry execs, but there seems to be a specific dearth of young Jewish gliterati involved in the old-school Jewish charity world.

There have been attempts to court them.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Gen-D, a young leadership program, drew several celebs to a fund raiser in L.A. to help Cuban Jewry earlier this month. That event attracted Mischa Barton and Nikky Hilton (pictured above at the event).

And there have been strong whispers that the Joint and the UJA-Federation of New York have been courting Portman to help them with their non-sectarian causes in Africa.

For a society that is voraciously interested in the Hollywood elite, and that is trending towards emulating their behavioral patterns – good and bad – it is safe to say that celebrity involvement in a charity can help its fund-raising effort.

Maybe it’s not shocking that old-time organizations, like the Jewish federations, the Joint, the Jewish Agency and the ADL, are absent from Looktothestars. But not even the trendier stars of the J-philanthropy scene, such as Hazon and the American Jewish World Service, show up.

What gives? Or, more appropriately, who gives?

3 Comments | Share This | AJWS, federations, fundraising, Hazon, JDC, jewish agency, JNF, organizations, UJA New York, UJC

No Ross, but parables aplenty at CAJE’s opening plenary

By Jacob Berkman · August 11, 2008

Joel Hoffman filled in for Dennis Ross as the CAJE conference’s keynote speaker.

Dennis Ross was supposed to be the keynote speaker for CAJE’s opening plenary Sunday night. But he called in sick at the last minute, informing conference organizers Saturday night that he would not attend.

Nevertheless, CAJE-ians made out pretty well with Ross’ stand-in, Joel Hoffman.

Hoffman, an expert Hebrew translator and a professor in New York at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, was probably the more appropriate choice anyway. Ross essentially was going to give a sales pitch for his new book and to talk about his recent trip to Israel. Nice, but I don’t really think that jibes with a conference on how to teach Jewish kids.

Hoffman framed his talk – which he gave as a violent thunderstorm ripped through Burlington – with a parable.

Two people fell asleep while on a journey and both had the same dream. God came to them and told them to gather up as much sand as they could and carry it back to their town. They would be home in three days. When they got home, God told them, they would be both happy and sad.

Hoffman then condensed all of Jewish history into a half-hour snapshot and talked about how that history has been defined throughout the ages by debate between the Diaspora and Jews living in Israel. That debate almost always has been won by the Diaspora, he said.

For instance, Hoffman pointed out, there are two Talmuds – one written in Jerusalem and one written in exile in Babylonia. The one written in Babylonia is the one universally accepted and studied as the definitive Talmud.

It is important, he said, that the Jewish educators at CAJE view themselves as people who truly can and need to pass on Judaism to the next generation.

Hoffman ended his history of the Jews with the second half of his parable:

The two travelers gathered up as much sand as they could carry and continued on their journey home. When they arrived three days later, the found that the sand had turned to gold, which made them happy. But they were both saddened because they wished they had carried more.

Hoffman suggested that the CAJE-ians take home as much gold as they can.

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Help a mentalist out: Are Jewish organizations breaking Shabbos again?

By Jacob Berkman · August 7, 2008

I’m looking into a story about Jewish organizations veering away from accommodating traditional religious observance.

For several years it appeared that Jewish organizations – even those that were not religiously observant – were becoming more sensitive to religious observance – i.e. not holding certain types of events on Saturdays, providing kosher food. But JTA staff members have heard several reports recently of major Jewish organizations holding events on Shabbat and veering away from using kosher food.

Among them, the American Jewish Committee held its annual international leadership convention over a Shabbat this summer.

This is not out of the ordinary for the AJC, the organization’s national director of Jewish communal affairs told the Fundermentalist. The convention immediately follows the AJC’s annual meetings, which end on a Friday afternoon, and it continues through Shabbat, said Steven Bayme.

In recent years, the AJC has tried to include more Jewish content in the convention. It starts with Shabbat dinner and continues Saturday morning with Shabbat services – both Orthodox and egalitarian – and then the meetings continue Saturday afternoon.

Bayme, who is Orthodox, has worked for the AJC for 26 years, and he does not see a problem with the practice.

“Over a period of years, we have tried to increase or enhance the Judaic temperature of the room,” he said. “We have tried to increase Jewish content to where there is kiddush, services and more Jewish leaning. I would make no pretense that everything done at the AJC is meant to conform with religious practice, but the Orthodox Jews who attend would feel comfortable in terms of the AJC table. This is not to say anything about content, but in terms of the practice of AJC, we have gone out of our way to make sure that all Jews feel comfortable around the table… If you had gone to the same meeting 20 years ago, you would not have known it was Shabbat.”

About 30 to 40 percent of the AJC’s senior staff is Orthodox, Bayme said.

The Fundermentalist is now coming to you, top hat in hand, to ask for your help.

Have you heard of any Jewish organizations that have held events on Shabbat recently? Or any organizations that have served non-kosher food at their events? Big Brother wants to know. Or maybe it’s the Shabbos Police.

Even in the early reporting, I have found some who say the Jewish organizational community still is trending toward the traditional.

“I will not go to a Jewish organizational event that serves me a meal out of a box,” said Rabbi David Eliezrie, the head of the North County Chabad Center in Orange County, Calif. But Eliezrie said that he has not had to sit out an event in a while.

“The standards of kashrut are rising rapidly,” said Eliezrie, who is also a member of the board of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. “And I think the organizations are keeping more and more kosher.”

Eliezrie said that over the last decade he has seen his federation become much more attentive to the needs of the Orthodox. Ten years ago, the federation was contemplating building a nursing home and was not planning on making the facilities kosher, he said. After six months of internal haggling over the issue, a major donor finally said that he would pull out his money if the home was not kosher, forcing the federation to make the home kosher.

Five years ago, the federation received government funding to start an assisted living facility for the developmentally disabled. The original plan did not include making the facility kosher. Eliezrie said that he raised his hand at a board meeting and brought up the issue. After a brief discussion at the table, the board decided to make sure that all events for the facility were kosher and that residents were encouraged to follow the laws of kashrut.

“Instead of a multi-million dollar philanthropist, it took me raising my hand and five minutes of discussion,” he said, pointing to the example as a sign of progress.

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Sources: UJC’s Rieger to step down

By Jacob Berkman · July 23, 2008

The president and CEO of the United Jewish Communities will not seek another term in office after his current term is up in August 2009, the Fundermentalist has learned.

Howard Rieger took over the top professional position at the umbrella organization for the North American Jewish federation system in 2004, after spending more than two decades as the president of the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. His his contract with UJC ends in August of 2009, and he has decided that he will not seek renewal of the contract, according to sources close to the situation.

Rieger, 65, was informing the UJC’s worldwide professional staff in a meeting and conference call this morning.

His term at UJC has been one of tumult and tough decisions as the organization has been under intense pressure from the federations it serves to reduce the dues that they pay. This has led to several rounds of budget cuts and layoffs.

He has also overseen an overhaul of the organization’s structure and strategic direction – as well as several highly successful emergency campaigns for Israel and natural disasters that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

Though he has his detractors within the federation system, Rieger is not being forced out, according to our source. Otherwise, he would not be given another year in office.

“Rieger feels he has made significant changes over a tough time and he wants to leave the organization in good shape for his successor, and wants to spend the next year doing even more – and possibly being even tougher,” said the source.

A search for a replacement will begin immediately.

Story developing…

Updated:

The UJC just posted the Reiger news on its website.

UJC’s President and CEO Howard Rieger said today that he will depart the organization when his five-year contract ends on August 31, 2009, and also announced the launch of a succession plan.

UJC Board of Trustees Chair Joe Kanfer has asked UJC Executive Committee Chair Kathy Manning to lead a search committee to select a successor to Rieger. The search committee will be formed in the near future.

“When I made the same announcement in Pittsburgh during the summer of 2003, I knew that we were positioned for someone to succeed me and bring the United Jewish Federation to the next level of accomplishment,” Rieger told a UJC staff meeting.

For the rest of the announcement, click here:

“Little did I know then that, during the fall of 2004, I would assume the top professional position at UJC. Once again, I think that the organization that I am charged with directing is ready to build on our accomplishments to date.”

During his tenure, Rieger oversaw an organizational restructuring of UJC along with the development of a strategy for the UJC/Federation system. “The fact that a strategic planning process is being launched this same week for UJC and the continental federation system will position UJC to bring on a new CEO with an agreed-upon approach to help UJC and federations meet the challenges of the 21st century,” he said.

UJC under Rieger also spearheaded the $360 million Israel Emergency Campaign in response to the Second Lebanon War, the nearly $30 million Hurricane Katrina disaster relief effort, and Operation Promise, which raised more than $70 million for poor elderly and young Jews in the former Soviet Union and to resettle Ethiopian Jews in Israel.

The IEC also initiated a new collaborative process with UJC’s main overseas partners, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Ethiopian National Project, the Israeli government and other Israeli groups, to identify emergency and post-war rebuilding needs. So too with the Hurricane Katrina response, which saw pro-active disaster relief planning before the storm hit, and has produced a series of community building initiatives recognized throughout the Gulf Coast.

The UJC/Federation system also saw increases in fundraising, culminating in a record nearly $900 million Annual Campaign in 2008, with the federation system raising some $2.4 billion total resources during the last year.

“We have built a tremendous team here, even as we have gone through challenging times,” Rieger said. “We have people on board who can lead us, a strategic plan in the making, and by the end of the year a move to a new headquarters, and it seemed like the perfect time for me to hand off the ball to a new CEO who I hope will be able to devote a substantial portion of a career to building our continental system.”

In addition to the organization’s key accomplishments, Rieger said he was particularly proud of the leadership team of professionals and lay leaders in place.

“This team already has demonstrated the capacity to create a collaborative environment, in which colleagues are empowered to step up to new challenges and responsibilities, to lead the system into the future.”

One recent example of UJC staff impact, he said, was the just-completed Campaign Chairs & Directors Mission to Poland and Israel. UJC staff who led the mission received “not one but two standing ovations” from the participants, “all of that for a new team that had never led such a venture. That is a vote of confidence in our staff, something which makes me so proud.”

Rieger, a native of Chicago, came to UJC from Pittsburgh, joining UJC in the fall of 2004, after 23 years as president of the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. There, he led such major initiatives as a Soviet Jewry resettlement effort that raised one of the highest per-capita amounts nationwide, the restructuring of the relationship between the federation and its foundation, the launch of a worldwide Jewish communal training program with the JDC, one of the first successful community wide capital campaigns, which raised $55 million, and in his final year there, a total financial resource development achievement of $35 million.

Rieger, paraphrasing the words of the Jewish sage Hillel, said UJC ultimately demonstrates that there is an imperative for a bold and innovative continental Jewish federation collective system, because “we’ve got to be for more than our own community – we’ve got to be for the broader needs that extend beyond our borders.”

“In that sense it is a responsibility of all of us, to figure out how to maximize the impact of our work. If during the last four years and the year to come we will have made any progress on that road, and I feel that we have, then my time at UJC will have been well spent,” he said.

“Serving the Jewish people for the last 39 years since joining the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland at the entry level has been an honor and a privilege,” Rieger added.

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$2 million shortfall at JTS

By {fullname} · June 26, 2008

Guest post by Editor Man

Stewart Ain of the New York Jewish Week reports that the Jewish Theological Seminary is facing a $2 million budget shortfall:

Although the seminary hired two new senior faculty members this year — Evyatar Marienberg and Michelle Lynn-Sachs — it was made clear that a hiring freeze is now in effect and that adjuncts and those faculty who have contracts that end next year should not expect to be rehired.

In addition, the faculty was told that those earning more than $100,000 would not receive a cost of living increase or a raise next year. Those who earn less than $100,000 would receive a cost of living increase and a 2 percent raise, according to those who attended the meeting.

Elise Dowell, the seminary’s senior director of communications, said she did not attend the meeting but understood it was a “somber meeting in a respectful way.”

She said the steps proposed were “what any responsible administration would do.” Dowell stressed that there are “no plans for future cuts at this time,” but added: “We constantly review where we are, and to be financially responsible we will be looking at the institution at large and identifying ways to deal with the current economy.”

Asked about the $2.2 million budget shortfall, Dowell would say only that the seminary would be taking “slightly over $2 million” from a “rainy day fund.”

The bleak economic picture comes at a time when the seminary is still searching for a development director to succeed Rabbi Carol Davidson, who recent left.

The article reviews the seminary’s mega-budget crisis from several years ago, and highlights the degree to which the institution has declined to share basic information about its finances:

Nor would Dowell disclose the size of the operating budget, how much money was in the “rainy day fund,” whether the seminary had ever tapped it before and whether it was different from the reserve fund from which the seminary borrowed millions just a few years ago.

Nor would Dowell disclose the size of the operating budget, how much money was in the “rainy day fund,” whether the seminary had ever tapped it before and whether it was different from the reserve fund from which the seminary borrowed millions just a few years ago.

In December 2004, The Jewish Week reported that the seminary was facing a debt of about $50 million, had imposed a hiring freeze and had to sell land at Amsterdam Avenue and 100th Street it had bought four years earlier for graduate housing. In addition, it sold two apartment buildings on 122nd Street adjacent to the campus that had been used to house students. Graduate students are now tenants there.

The seminary has been circumspect in its finances and it is not known whether all of the money borrowed from the reserve fund — estimates of the amount taken range from $26 million to $50 million — has been repaid.

As this story unfolds, it will be interesting to see if JTS Chancellor Arnie Eisen will be any more forthcoming about the financial details than his predecesspor, Rabbi Ismar Schorch, was.

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Eckstein makes interesting PR move

By Jacob Berkman · June 25, 2008

Interesting development at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: The group has eliminated the position of communications director, responsible for media relations and PR.

This is not a budget-related layoff, according to a source close to the situation. The IFCJ, which raises millions of dollars a year from the evangelical community to support Israel and Jewish causes, has hired an outside PR firm to handle its media needs.

The IFCJ’s founder and president, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who has a television show dedicated to talking with the evangelical community about Israel and spends what must be millions on television advertising, is known in the industry to have a voracious media appetite. When he sat down at the JTA offices with the Fundermentalist in May, he was actually in town to hire the firm.

When asked about his focus on the PR side of things, Eckstein said that his goal is not just to get the evangelical community to support Israel, but also to get the Jewish community to accept and appreciate the help received from conservative Christians. In order to do that, he needs publicity for IFCJ’s efforts, he said.

Eckstein’s organization has become a major donor to both the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel – and he has placed a premium on making those organizations publicize his support. The JDC retained the services of the publicists at 5wPR to deal exclusively with Eckstein-related issues, according to an IFCJ source. They did so after JDC, to paraphrase, had some trouble last year in adequately getting the word out about his JDC projects, the source said. Over at the Jewish Agency, a strategic partnership that Eckstein struck up with the organization in which he agreed to give $45 million to JAFI, is now in peril. The reason: Because the Jewish Agency is not promoting his organization’s involvement as much as Eckstein would like. Among other issues, the agency has does not list the IFCJ on its letterhead as a partner, as it does with its longtime backers, the United Jewish Communities and Keren Hayesod.

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As the dollar falls: A roundup of JTA’s recent reportage on the dollar crisis

By Jacob Berkman · June 25, 2008

The overseas arms of the North American Jewish federation system – the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee – are clearly hurting by the dollar’s fall. Both face significant budget crunches, having lost an estimated 25 to 35 percent of their buying power overseas.

Here’s a roundup of our recent coverage of the issue:

JTA’s Dina Kraft has some insight from the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors meeting in Jerusalem this week into how the Jewish Agency is dealing with its budget crunch. The agency is asking for more partnership with Israel’s government, and the prime minister told the organization that he is on board.

In case you missed it, JTA’s Grant Slater filed a story last week out of the former Soviet Union about how the Joint’s budget crunch is affecting programing on the ground. This is as the Joint just laid off 60 people, as we reported from New York.

Meanwhile, while both organizations deal with budget crisis, they are also haggling over who should fund World ORT. A deal between the two organizations over how they should split the pool of money that the Jewish federations allocate for their core budgets fell through last week.

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