JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Digesting the Jewish news: Trans-gendered job program in SF, a new non-profit hub in Detroit, and Go

By Jacob Berkman · July 18, 2008

I read ‘em. Now you read ‘em. The best of the Jewish newspapers:

• The Jewish Vocational Service in San Francisco is working with three other local non-profits on a job placement and training program for trans-gendered people, reports J. The Jewish Weekly of San Fransisco.
• A synagogue in Detroit spearheaded a project to buy a 32,000-square-foot space and turn it into a multi-tenant center for non-profits that will allow them to share space and save money on overhead, reports the Detroit Jewish News. (I wouldn’t have put this so high up if I didn’t think it was an interesting model. Check it out.)
• The New York Jewish Week takes a deeper look at the shenanigans at Ehud Olmert’s New Jerusalem Fund.
• The federation in Seattle is still recovering from the shooting there in July 2006, in which one woman was killed and five injured, reports the Forward.
• The LA Jewish Journal takes an in depth look at Birthright NEXT, Michael Steinhardt’s attempt to keep young Jews engaged when they return from Birthright.
• The Sixth & I Historic Synagogue is sparking a Jewish revival in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown, says the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• Outside the city, a new Jewish environmentalism program takes root, reports the Washington Jewish Week.
• After first being denied, the Chabad rabbi at Princeton has finally been granted chaplain status says the New Jersey Jewish News.
• The Fundermentalist spent a few days in Sderot, but England’s PM Gordon Brown, who will be in Israel next week, apparently wimped out on scheduling a visit to the rocket-addled region on Israel’s border with Gaza. The London Jewish Chronicle calls him out.

1 Comment | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers

JDC shows up on Russian list of organizations suspected of fraud

By Jacob Berkman · July 17, 2008

A holding company set up by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was included on a Web site set up by the Russian State Tax Authority that named potentially fraudulent organizations, according to the Forward.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Real Estate Company, an offshore company set up in Cyprus to oversee the Joint’s real estate holdings in Russia was included on the Web site set up by the St. Petersburg division of the tax authority because the company had not earned a profit in more than two and a half years, according to the Forward. The company was being looked at for suspicion of hiding profits or nefarious financial transactions.

The Joint responded by saying that the company was legal and the listing was just a formality:

“They’re just serving notice to us that we will be audited in September. It’s not a big thing,” said Asher Ostrin, the JDC’s director of programs in the former Soviet Union.

Yevgeniy Khorishko, an official at the Russian embassy, supported the JDC’s stand, saying that the listing is a routine matter and that it implies no wrongdoing or legal peril.

Why does the Joint need an offshore holding company?

According to Ostrin, AREC grew out of efforts to make sure that Russian Jewish communities can support themselves in the long run. The JDC’s strategy has been to establish Jewish community centers and use the income from rentals and fees to cover the expenses of running and maintaining the buildings.

The concept is a common one among Jewish community centers in America. The difficulty, JDC officials say, is that Russian laws prohibit nor-for-profits from any activity that generates income. In response, Ostrin says, JDC officials established a commercial holding company in 2006 on the island of Cyprus to run and maintain its properties. Ownership of the JDC’s properties has been transferred to the holding company. Tenants — both Jewish and non-Jewish — have paid their rent to the holding company.

According to the Forward, the setup did trigger some degree of internal debate:

Four former JDC senior staffers, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, say that AREC sparked a heated internal debate. According to these sources and to internal documents and e-mails shared with the Forward, a number of JDC employees, as well as Russian community leaders, objected to establishing the offshore company. These sources say that they and other critics of AREC protested that an offshore shell company would look suspicious to Russian authorities and that it could damage efforts to build partnerships with local communities. The appearance of AREC on the Russian tax list has revived that suspicion in some quarters. ...

Ostrin said that internal opposition to AREC was minimal and that any questions were answered.

0 Comments | Share This | American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, digesting the Jewish papers

Digesting the Jewish news: IDT faces layoffs in Israel, Baltimore prisons seek religion and interns

By Jacob Berkman · July 11, 2008

I read ‘em so you don’t have to… but these stories in the Jewish newspapers are worth checking out:

• The New York Jewish Week has two economy-related stories: Synagogues in New York are mulling a fuel tax for their congregants to offset rising energy prices, and the falling dollar has hit Israeli non-profits hard.
• Chicago Jewish News… JEWISH DRUNK: How journalist Neil Steinberg became the best known alcoholic in Chicago.” If that won’t make you read it, I sure can’t.
• Kosher consumers in Massachusetts feel the financial sting of the immigration raid at Agriprocessors says the Jewish Journal Boston North.
• The Cleveland Jewish News profiles “The Shul,” a synagogue-without-walls that is is an informal, nondenominational, home-based program “for anyone who wants to show up.”
• The falling dollar is forcing IDT, the Newark-based phone company owned by an Orthodox Jew, to lay off employees at its Jerusalem call center, which employs hundreds of American immigrants to Israel, reports the Forward.
• If you’re in Los Angeles you might want to read this for tourist tips, as the LA Jewish Journal lists its Best of Jewish LA.
• The San Francisco Giants have demoted Jewish outfielder Brian Horwitz, a.k.a. “The Rabbi,” to their Triple-A team in Fresno.
• Prisons in Baltimore are thinking about increasing their religious services, reports the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• Chess mania hits yeshivas in New Jersey, says the Jewish Standard’s Josh Lipowsky.
• Jewish interns flock to D.C. for the summer reports the Washington Jewish Week. There’s got to be a Lewinsky joke in there somewhere. A Fundermentalist shout out to the person that sends in the best one.

0 Comments | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers

Do Jewish nonprofits have it tougher?

By Jacob Berkman · July 3, 2008

The New York Jewish Week reports this week that the editor in chief of the Chronicle of Philanthropy thinks Jewish nonprofits might have a tougher time than others as the economy weakens, primarily because they are smaller than others.

The Jewish Week asks:

Is what’s happening among Jewish nonprofits mirroring the situation in the philanthropy world in general, or is it worse?

Stacy Palmer, editor in chief of the The Chronicle of Philanthropy, says she believes things may be worse among Jewish nonprofits than generally in the world of philanthropy.

“It’s going more slowly in the general nonprofit world,” she said. “The big groups [in the general nonprofit world] are raising a little bit less money but are not being forced to make cutbacks. But smaller groups are being squeezed,” she said.

The president of Jewish Funds for Justice, Simon Greer, told the Jewish Week that tough economic times may just separate the wheat from the chaff.

“When the vast majority of Jewish organizations are doing well or holding their own and there are a few that aren’t, you’re probably getting a shaking out of organizations that were already in trouble, and in hard times they’re going to be in more trouble.”

“If your mission is not exactly in line with where people are, it doesn’t take much to push it over the edge,” he says. “UJC was having troubles in economic good times. JTS was starting to have trouble in economic good times. It would be nice to lay the blame on the stock market, but that’s an easy way out. It’s about these organizations.”

2 Comments | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers, fundraising

Digesting the Jewish media: Baltimore rebuilds, high tuition in Wisconsin

By Jacob Berkman · June 27, 2008

We read through them so you don’t have to. But check out these stories from the local Jewish world if you have a chance:

• The Baltimore Jewish Times has a cover story on a $500 million urban redevelopment project to restore the Lower Park Heights area, which during the first half of last century was an east coast Jewish Mecca that you’d probably recognize from any number of Barry Levinson films. But the area has become a slum since the Jews migrated northwest towards Baltimore suburbs.
• After nearly 60 years of helping Jewish refugees find better lives in New York, The New York Association for New Americans is expected to shut its doors this summer as a result of a dwindling case load and difficulty in competing for social service contracts, reports Adam Dickter of the New York Jewish Week.
• The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle tackles the high cost of Jewish education with a multi-part series.
• The Washington Jewish Week’s Richard Greenberg looks into the “suspect” teachings at the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school in Alexandria, Va.
• The American Conference of Cantors will hold its annual conference in San Francisco, reports j. the Jewish Weekly of San Francisco.
• In Chicago, a 127-year-old Jewish hospital shuts its doors.
• The Forward looks at how dollar woes are affecting overseas agencies. (Feel free to check out JTA’s coverage of this topic over the previous few weeks as well.)
• Suzie Brozman, who was in Israel with the Fundermentalist earlier this month, jumps into the fray with her reportage from Sderot.
• And.... The New Jersey Jewish News reports that Rutgers University co-hosted an international conference on Alzheimer’s disease in Israel with the Hebrew University and Al Quds University-Medical School.
• The L.A. Jewish Journal has the headline of the week: “Ice on Mars: Good for the Jews?”

0 Comments | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers, Uncategorized

$2 million shortfall at JTS

By · 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.

0 Comments | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers, JTS, organizations

Digesting the Jewish papers: Local agencies feeling the pain

By Jacob Berkman · June 20, 2008

The Fundermentalist wants to make your life easier, so here’s the lowdown on the scoop in Jewish newspapers across the country. This will be a weekly Friday feature…

• Jewish agencies in San Francisco have been hit hard by the economic crisis, reports J. The Jewish Weekly of San Francisco.
• Adam Dickter at the New York Jewish Week reports that social service agencies in New York are facing steep cuts in services for the elderly.
• Jewish members are becoming minorities at JCCs across the country says the Forward.
• The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles looks at gay marriage.
• New Jersey Jewish News editor Andy Silow-Caroll saves the Fundermentalist some time by writing about a fascinating project in Israel, Ayalim, student built communities that are picking up the Israeli pioneering mantle.
• In the Boston Jewish Advocate, the Me’ah Jewish educational program, a partnership between the Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Hebrew College celebrates its 14th anniversary.
• The Cleveland Jewish News disputes the notion that the Soviet Jewry movement is 40 years old. It actually started in 1964, at Beth Israel-The West Temple on Cleveland’s west side, says an editorial in the paper.
• Having trouble selling your house? Try auctioning it, says the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• Technion economist tells Michigan Jews how to pull their state out of the economic dump, reports the Detroit Jewish News.

4 Comments | Share This | digesting the Jewish papers