The time is out of Joint.
William Shakespeare. Hamlet
(act 1, scene 5)

My car was broken. After I took it in to get repaired, I was forced to travel by the public transport, therefore I began to read a lot. The sad texts attracted: A Harlot High and Low by Honoré de Balzac, Hamlet by Shakespeare. At the same time I came across the article of Jacob Berkman from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), devoted to financial crisis of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the JDC) and the Jewish Agency in Russia. It is also a tragic narration and unlike the classical masterpiece is quite real concern. Esther Gobsek and the Prince of Denmark died long ago, but the Jewish elders, who relay on the food aid and medical service of the JDC, which has an acute shortage of money for these purposes, are still alive…

Having thought a little, I suddenly understood that, first of all, the rumors about the JDC?s poverty are quite exaggerated and, secondly, I can give a lot of valuable advice to the JDC that will allow reducing its financial deficit substantially. These pieces of advice concern the realities of being in St. Petersburg, but I am sure they are completely applicable to many other cities of the Former Soviet Union, where the JDC has to reduce their social programs greatly due to its abject poverty.

The first piece of advice: the St. Petersburg office of the JDC is situated in the main street of the city, Nevsky Prospekt, its? living space is about 500 sq. m. A first-rate repair was made in this office, every day numerous office clerks take their working places and during many years they do not know the meaning of staff reduction and wage cuts. The style and scope of the office does not look like the office of a charitable organization, but rather like the headquarters of a wealthy business company that successfully deals with oil, diamonds, or something equally pleasant or profitable. The removal of this office to more modest premises somewhere in the outskirts of the city, and reasonable staff reduction, will allow saving tens of thousands of dollars annually.

The second piece of advice: the large luxurious apartment, also in two steps from Nevsky Prospekt, in the house settled exclusively by the representatives of the city business elite is rented for the director (natsig) of the St. Petersburg office of the JDC, who is, according to the logic of Mr. Steven Schwager, the chief executive officer of this organization, must be one of the “starving Jews.” Monthly rent payment for this apartment, as a matter of fact, is well known to other starving Jews of St. Petersburg, and is quite comparable with monthly budget of a local Jewish organization, for instance of the St. Petersburg Institute for Jewish Studies, headed by myself. The rent of the apartment for the natsig, just of a little less space, as well as a little less elite and in a little less central district of the city will give many tens of thousands of dollars saved annually.

Here comes the third advice. When my car was still running, I used to listen to the radio in it. And each and every radio station I switched to, would advertise YESOD, the House of Jewish Culture. It was opened two years ago and became the subject of the JDC’s main pride and joy in St. Petersburg. Their commercials could be heard constantly. Thousands of dollars could be saved monthly on such advertisements ? especially taking into account that between the missions of American sponsors and the pompous events, accompanying them, the YESOD building is empty and a booming echo walks over its large atrium.

Oh this YESOD! That is the place where the golden vein of saving comes to the surface! It is difficult even to imagine how much food is possible to buy for the starving Jewish elderly instead of, for example, the “Comedy Club” meeting with girls in rather candid dresses and rivers of champagne that took place at the YESOD recently. This meeting has been organized in a hurry for the visit of Irv Smokler himself, the president of the JDC. Surely the president does not understand Russian and therefore he could not evaluate all off color jokes that rang at the meeting. Evidently, he did not feel the pain for Jewish culture, for which the House of Jewish Culture should become a temple. But is it possible that watching the luxuriant and vulgar show he himself did not think about the immense resource for saving cash assets that became so scarce nowadays?

Besides saving on advertisements and events not being of current concern for the starving Jews, it is possible to find additional cash assets for the elderly at the expense of very expensive programs in reaching out to “new people” to YESOD ? those programs cannot be called effective, and as a rule, those few “new people” that the JDC managed to attract, are not Jewish. It is important not to forget that substantial money saving could be reached by the reduction of the JDC’s own projects ? those, that for some unclear reason duplicate projects of local Jewish organizations, which in fact work much more effectively and for significantly less money. For example, the JDC?s program “Lehava” in “searching new young leaders,” that was an ignominious failure, or a slack educational project named “Eitan.” When the staff of “Eitan” puzzle over the problem how to pack the empty classrooms of YESOD and to spend all the money allocated by American sponsors, the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg, an indigenous organization that has been huddling in small rooms at Rubenstein Street, for the last fifteen years conducts cultural and educational projects that are quite popular in the city. The number of its participants is several times more that of “Eitan” and the budget is at minimal 20 times less…

This is a small portion of the advice that I can offer to the JDC as assistance in managing poverty that attacked it. Truly, I have a doubt whether the JDC will consider my advice. It is much easier and smoother to cry about its great distress and to ask for extra money from the North American Jewish federations than to search out internal reserves and to refuse itself in “small joys of life.” However, if the JDC would like to listen to “the voice of Jewish street,” I am sincerely ready to represent my consultation services and, taking into account the JDC’s material distress, I shall consult absolutely free.

Dmitry Elyashevich
Doctor of History, professor, Head of the St. Petersburg Institute for Jewish Studies