WHAT COMPASSION, WHAT HUMANITY

Over the past four weeks, even preceding the Budget Committee meeting at which a $37,000,000 Budget (still seems like an obscene amount of money) was recommended for approval and weeks in advance of the UJC Board meeting at which such a Budget will be routinely approved, UJC started firing us. Secretaries, some here for over 20 years, and caring and loyal professionals, gone. In his View last Friday, the CEO, Mr. Rieger, wrote of the pain of such an experience for those remaining and the pain of the entire experience.

Someone ask M. Rieger just who, specifically, he fired. Any one at all? Who did he seek out to give this most painful message to? Maybe the anguish was just too great for him to emerge from the Riegerbunker but we heard he just left the messy task to his underlings. But, his View said how difficult it was for him. In the Jewish Week Purim kuntz about Mr. Rieger, the premise was that "Mr. Revert" as they called him, fired himself. What an idea!! Buh-bye.

Women

On Friday, May 9, Howard Rieger sent all of us at UJC an e-mail message expressing his "mixed emotions" about a great professional's, Debbi Roshfeld's, decision to leave UJC for greener pastures. While Debbi may be leaving by her choice, we see a pattern as terrific women professionals have left in large numbers over the past two years that speaks volumes.

Look at the list of women -- all women -- professionals who have left should cause lay leaders the same concern it has us: the Senior V-P of Marketing and Communications, Senior V-P Development and Planned Giving, Assistant Director Planned Giving and Endowment, V-P Development (who also ran the GA), Associate Vice-President, Marketing and Communications, Senior Director, Governance, the Associate Director, Planned Giving & Endowment and, now, the Director, Overseas Programs/Missions and the Director, the UJC-Mandel Program for Leadership Excellence, Vice-President, Development in Atlanta. The list goes on and on along with a long list of secretaies many of who had dedicated their professional lives to UJC and thought they were part of a team. Women all. (And UJC would tell you, remember we hired Becky Caspi to head UJC Israel.) There is something wrong going on here -- does anyone care?

UJC, as we understand it, has strong women as Chair of its Executive, Chair of GOIO and Chair of its diminished JPI. Do they care?

Budgets

On this special day on the Jewish calendar -- Israel's 60th birthday -- the embattled CEO delivered an e-mail to us here in the bunker that is 111 Eighth Avenue telling us that 37 of us will be without jobs as the courageous Budget & Finance Committee approved a budget cut to $37 million as the Largest City Executives had demanded. (Of course most of us had already read these results in the JTA.) In what passes for management here, every professional, every staff member, fears for his/her job -- where the axes will fall are unknown but suddenly the Chairman says we will be fired by May 27 so "...as not to string us along" -- and the results are being blamed on the Budget Committee.

Where is that "Great Place to Work" survey form? In fact, where is the Great Place to Work Report?

Chag Sameach.