The Federation Campaigns

For many years now I have been very unhappy with the way UJC( United Jewish Communities) /Federations are organized and the way they distribute the money they collect. My difficulties are both procedural and substantive. First, the procedural. The local Federation puts up a slate of candidates each year, which have been hand-picked by the existing board and the professional staff. If somebody wants to run a competitive slate because they disagree with whatever, it is almost impossible to win. If you get enough signatures, I imagine you can have the alternative slate included in the mailing, but there’s almost no way for an alternative slate to get the message out to the community without spending mega bucks on general newspaper and television ads. The upshot of this is that there is no competition for seats on the board of directors. When there’s no competition, it’s all very cozy. There aren’t too many disagreements, but then again, there aren’t too many new ideas. It’s steady as you go.

There’s an additional difficulty in challenging the status quo. There’s no guarantee that the old guard, who are major contributors, will not pick up their marbles and go home. No responsible person wants to destroy this magnificent fundraising mechanism that has been built up over so many years. Yet, there’s something really undemocratic when the organization is run by very rich people and their friends. JUF could be a primary vehicle for Jews to participate actively in their own communities. If there was competition with different ideas and approaches, and if voting meant something, people would be involved emotionally and intellectually. The process would stimulate debates and discussions. There would be a genuine election with all the excitement and interest that such an election generally stimulates. Instead, what we have is a yawn, if that.

My substantive disagreement is this…the way the system seems to work is there are all these organizations receiving a certain amount of money. All the directors decide is how to make slight changes at the margin depending on the money raised and other special conditions. So, if the Bureau of Helping Jews Who Have Trouble Making Their Condo Payments gets $200,000 every year, they will get $200,000 next year, plus or minus $20,000, depending on how they make their pitch, etc. When a new organization comes along with a good cause, they get added to the rolls and they, too, get a few dollars. The money is dissipated amongst many different organizations each with their own bureaucracy, each doing a little bit of good, each with a friend in high places. Very few of these organizations have any chance of making a big impact because their funding is limited. At the same time, they always get enough to keep on going, so they never fold. I believe it is preferable to fund a few organizations in a robust way than to subsidize many organizations in a marginal way.

I also object to giving 40-50% of the money raised to Israel. The danger to Jewish life in America right now is much greater than in Israel. We have an intermarriage of 50%, and liberal Jewry will effectively disappear way before the next century rolls around. It’s a triage situation. There isn’t enough money left over for America, once you give 40-50% to Israel. At present, the amount of money allocated to Jewish education, and what is euphemistically called The Jewish Future, will not have a sufficient impact to change the general direction of American Jewish life. The money spent on Israel can be used more effectively in America. Israel has a GNP of $157 billion as of 2005. A few hundred million is not going to make a big difference. The same money can make an enormous difference for Jewish education and in reducing the intermarriage rate. The only reason you wouldn’t choose America, where the danger of Jewish extinction is clearly greater, is that you have given up and written off the American Jewish community. I’m sure many Israelis feel that way. They feel they should try to get as much money from the American Jewish community while the going is good, but there is no long-term hope for any liberal Jewish community outside of Israel.

In America, in the last decade, 500,000+ Jews left Jewish life and began going to church. It is not inconceivable that two-three million Jews, even going forward, will leave Jewish life. From a people point of view, valuing each Jew equally, there’s a greater, and more certain, danger in America for the extinction of Jewish people than in Israel. In many a G.A. meeting there was the near total absence of anything having to do with the American Jewish life. Entire conferences were built around Israel. Israel in trouble is an established winning fundraising theme. Telling these same machers that their own friends and family are in trouble because of the danger of intermarriage is apparently a sure-fire way to reduce donations.

In the future I hope this will change. I feel the core theological and political focus ought to be the Jewish people, which would place the entire Jewish people at the center, rather than the State of Israel. The new emphasis would provide a basis for greater investments in local Jewish education, welfare and community development.

To be continued