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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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EHL Consulting: Jewish charities should stop crying poverty

By Jacob Berkman · August 6, 2008

A plethora of Jewish charities that do much of their work in Israel and overseas but collect most of their money in the United States have been quite public about the financial trouble the weak dollar has put them in, using their budgetary problems as a cry for help.

(See Birthright, the Reform Movement, JAFI, JDC and more.)

But one team of philanthropy advisers says that’s exactly the wrong way to go about fund raising in this tough economic climate.

“Survival is not a selling point to donors,” said Avrum Lapin, of the EHL Consulting Group, which counts among its clients eight Israeli groups that raise funds in the U.S. “They obviously did not consult us,” he said with a smile of two of the largest Jewish organizations to use such tactics.

Lapin and Bob Evans, the principals at EHL, sat down with the Fundermentalist on Tuesday to discuss a number of issues, among them raising money for Israeli groups.

Evans, who sits on the editorial board of GivingUSA, said that despite the economy, he expects to see a 1 to 2 percent increase in philanthropic dollars in 2008, to about $330 billion.

Much of that increase will come from Warren Buffet’s starting to transfer funds into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation this year – part of a five-year plan to transfer the majority of his wealth to the foundation – and the granting of most of Leona Helmsley’s estate, valued at between $5 billion and $8 billion, to charity.

While the philanthropic landscape is moving away from the long-held rule that 80 percent of all philanthropic dollars come from 20 percent of donors toward a landscape where 90 percent of dollars coming from 10 percent of donors, Evans says that the state of philanthropy is OK for now as long as the total dollars keep going up.

Philanthropy, just like the economy, needs to instill consumer confidence, he said.

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The Non-Profit Times’ most influential list includes no Jewish orgs

By Jacob Berkman · August 5, 2008

The Non-Profit Times today released its Power and Influence Top 50 list, an annual ranking of the philanthropy world’s most, well, influential decision makers.

Sadly, no professionals at Jewish organizations or foundations made the cut.

But Diana Aviv, the president and CEO of the Independent Sector – and the former head of UJC Washington – was at the top of the list. (Of course, the list is put together in alphabetical order and not in degree of influence.)

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Digesting the Jewish news: A billion for Brandeis, Israel’s losing fiscal war, and change in Milwauk

By Jacob Berkman · August 1, 2008

Looks like we’re still in the midst of the summer slowdown, but these nuggets from the Jewish media are still worth checking out:

• Israel’s 41-year-old economic war against the Palestinians has failed, says the Forward.
• Brandeis University is embarking on a $1.2 billion fund-raising campaign, making it the youngest university ever to seek more than a $1 billion in one campaign, reports the Boston Jewish Advocate.
• The Jewish community in Milwaukee works with Common Ground to fight for social change in Wisconsin.
• The L.A. Jewish Journal reports on how the Jewish community felt the 5.4 magnitude earthquakee that hit Los Angeles this week.
• More than 100 kids from rocket-addled Sderot are getting a break from the quasi war zone this summer at American summer camps, reports Carolyn Slutsky of The New York Jewish Week.
• The Jewish federation in San Francisco gives its support to Tel Hai Academic College, a growing university on Israel’s northern border, reports J., the Jewish weekly of northern California.
• Michigan suffers from a lack of leadership, says the Detroit Jewish News.
• Geneologists are set to meet in Chicago, says the Chicago Jewish News.
• The Baltimore Jewish Times offers tips on how to beat the sagging real estate market.



Postscript:

• The Fundermentalist did not steal the idea for this column from the Forward’s Bintel Brief, reports the Fundermentalist; he stole the idea from Ami Eden, a.k.a. Editor Man, who came to JTA from the Forward.

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Jewish Funds for Justice works with churches to save burned-out Baltimore neighborhood

By Jacob Berkman · July 31, 2008

This block is like scores of others in the Oliver Neighborhood of Baltimore. The Jewish Funds for Justice and BUILD are working to knock these houses down and build housing for low income residents in an attempt to save the neighborhood.

The Baltimore Sun has a story about a fascinating urban renewal project in Baltimore. The Jewish Funds for Justice worked with a church group, BUILD, to construct affordable housing in Oliver, one of Baltimore’s worst neighborhoods.

If you’ve ever seen “The Wire,” you can get a pretty good sense of this neighborhood. I was down there during the winter to check out this story (which is in the hopper), and it is a total wasteland.

For anyone who has taken the train through Baltimore, Oliver is the neighborhood on your right just as you enter Penn Station there – the one that looks like Kosovo during the war, block after block after block of boarded up and burned out row houses.  It is not the neighborhood from the HBO show, but it is almost as bad and almost as drug-ridden.

BUILD organized churches to raise $1.2 million to buy lots to build 75 new homes for low- to medium income families, and another 47 will be built, the Sun reports. Jewish Funds for Justice organized local Jews in Baltimore to match the $1.2 million.

The first homes were dedicated in a ceremony with Baltimore’s mayor, Sheila Dixon, and the Maryland’s governor, Martin O’Malley, July 28.

The block in the photo above, which I took this winter in the area where the homes are being built, is one of acres and acres of similar landscape. It will be replaced by new homes as shown in the photo in the Sun article.

This is not a straight philanthropic effort, I was told this winter. The houses will be sold and investors will take a small profit – albeit a much smaller profit than if this was a straight development deal.

Still this is a socially conscious project and in an area of Baltimore that is not Jewish at all. While other rebuild projects might seek to renovate areas abutting Jewish neighborhoods, Oliver Street is nowhere near Baltimore’s Jewish center.

But in a city where black-Jewish relations have been strained at best and non-existent at worst in recent years, this is a project that could go a long way to rehabilitate more than just a neighborhood.

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Project Genesis clarification

By Jacob Berkman · July 31, 2008

The post from Tuesday regarding the Russian Genesis Philanthropy Group had several inaccuracies.

The project to fund Jewish identity programs for Russian-speaking Jews is funded only by Russian billionaires,while American groups such as the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Chais Family Foundation are only consultants and/or board members. Philanthropists Lev Leviev and Vladimir Goussinsky are not involved with the project.

The Jewish Funders Network is running the organization’s American operation out of New York. It has similar arrangements with Matan in Israel and Charities Aid Foundation Russia, a British-based organization.

Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, the former executive director of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities, has left the federation to set up an independent office in Moscow focused on reaching out to unaffiliated Jews in Russia, a central goal of Genesis. He has been called upon to consult on the project, but is not an employee.

Read the full story on this interesting project here.

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Digesting the Jewish news: Baltimore federation up, LA economy down and the UJC doesn’t know what to

By Jacob Berkman · July 25, 2008

I’m going to come out and say it. It looks like it was a slow news week in the local Jewish world. But these stories from the Jewish newspapers still made the cut:

• In what’s unfortunately becoming a trend so far as stories go, the L.A. Jewish Journal tackles how the falling economy is affecting the Jewish community in a cover story this week. Synopsis: “A broad survey of Jewish schools, synagogues and social service agencies big and small – from the JDC to Project Chicken Soup – depicts a mosaic of caution and pragmatic optimism, an awareness that the sky is not yet falling, but it very well could.”
• The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore had a record year, despite the economy, reports the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• A non-synagogue based congregational school grows in San Francisco, reports J.
• The UJC is trying to figure out what to do about the Falash Mura still remaining in Ethiopia and may need to raise more money, reports the New York Jewish Week.
• The tanking real estate market might scuttle the sale to a Christian group of Camp Swig, one of the oldest Reform summer camps in the country, reports the Forward.
• Boston has changed the date on its annual sales tax break week to accommodate religious Jews who would have lost out because it was scheduled to fall during the week of Tisha B’Av, says the Boston Jewish Advocate.
• In Washington, kids from Sderot get respite at summer camp, says the Washington Jewish Week.

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Bloomberg and Gates Foundation pledge half a billion dollars to fight smoking

By Jacob Berkman · July 24, 2008

New York’s billionaire mayor and the country’s largest foundation are teaming up to kick smoking in the butt.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is going to invest $125 million to fight tobacco use and push for tobacco-control policies in developing countries, according to a Bloomberg story posted on the Gates foundation’s Web site. The total includes a $24 million commitment to Michael Bloomberg’s Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which the mayor started in 2005 to help developing countries control tobacco abuse.

Bloomberg started the initiative with a $125 million outlay. He will now add another $250 million of his own money over the next four years.

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Reform movement says short dollar is killing its growth in Israel

By Jacob Berkman · July 23, 2008

The Reform Movement today sent out a mass email appeal seeking $500,000 to help make up a shortfall in its budget for Israeli program.

The movement has lost 30 percent of its budget because of the falling dollar, said the email signed by the Reform hierarchy – and is soliciting one-time gifts of $500.

Here’s the email

July 23, 2008 | 20 Tamuz 5768

As leaders of Reform Jewry we need your help to save the future of the Reform Movement in Israel.

With the dramatic fall of the U.S. dollar in the last few months, the IMPJ, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, finds itself in a financial crisis. Through no fault of its own, the IMPJ has 2 million fewer shekels than originally budgeted, representing more than 30% of its funding. To stay afloat, the IMPJ has had to lay off half its staff and has drastically cut back on its operations.

The timing could not be worse. Never before in Israel’s history has the Reform Movement been so strong and vibrant. With almost thirty congregations now flourishing in Israel, its own Reform youth movement, two kibbutzim, the Har Chalutz community in Northern Israel and its own Religious Action Center, the Reform Movement has become, according to a recent Israeli survey, the movement that 34% of all Israelis identify with the most (compared to 23% for the Orthodox).

This is why we need your help. Unprecedented in our Movement’s history, every major North American Reform organization is working together to save the IMPJ. As chairpersons and presidents of these organizations we have pledged to raise $500,000 over the next six weeks to help the IMPJ over its immediate financial crisis.

As someone equally concerned about our Reform Movement in North America and throughout the world, we are asking you to quickly respond to this email with your own gift that will be immediately sent to underwrite IMPJ’s budget and to alleviate IMPJ’s financial crisis.

Please consider a one-time gift of $500. Please take a moment to make this gift online at our secure site: http://www.urj.org/israel/impj. Canadian residents click here for a tax receipt form. Together, we can secure the years of hard work and the solid foundation that has been laid for the Reform Movement in Israel.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Peter Weidhorn
Chairman
Union for Reform Judaism

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
President
Union for Reform Judaism

Barbara Friedman
Chair
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institue of Religion

Rabbi David Ellenson
President
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institue of Religion

Rabbi Peter Knobel
President
Central Conference of American Rabbis

Rabbi Steven Fox
Executive Vice President
Central Conference of American Rabbis

Steve Bauman
Chairman
World Union for Progressive Judaism

Rabbi Uri Regev
President
World Union for Progressive Judaism

Rabbi Robert Orkand
President
Association of Reform Zionists of America

Rabbi Andrew Davids
Executive Director
Association of Reform Zionists of America

Joan Garson
President
ARZA Canada

Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel
Executive Director
ARZA Canada

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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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