The Good Old Bad Old Days

Let's end a contentious week with a little nostalgia.

Several Comments this week with regard to the halcyon days of yore -- the years of the UJA -- a couple dissing UJA and UJA lay and professional leaders almost in rage and others questioning what was it really like, inspired us to examine what we see and ask ourselves that very question: "what was it like"? In Tateh's Comment earlier today she related a former Federation exec's memories:

"....he said that in the old days UJA provided speakers and outside
solicitors, gave a good brand name for the campaign (UJA), ran good
missions and a young leadership cabinet...and about once a year sent
someone to berate the allocations committee.....(whom) nobody listened
to..."

We understand that to be a pretty good summary if one also adds: created the Lion of Judah Endowment, the Campaign Chairs/Directors Mission; the Voyage of Discovery and every Special Campaign. We know much of this from history because so few of the old UJA leaders walk our halls any more -- Arlene Kaufman, Rani Garfinkle, Rich Wexler, Mark Wilf, Joel Alperson, Jane Sherman and maybe a few others whom we can count on the fingers of our two hands. Many have moved on to lead other organizations and chair their federations. And the professional staff has become denuded of those who once toiled at UJA.

We have heard that UJA was a "self-perpetuating oligarchy" but we have also heard that these were leaders who "cared," gave to their capacity and beyond and, in their demands on others to meet their own giving standards, created jealousies, some of which have so lasted to these days that we have received bizarre Posts from a few who can't get beyond those days that ended 8 years ago. We have been told that UJA Budget meetings lasted two days over which lay and professional leaders battled over priorities in a respectful (and sometimes not so respectful) give and take focused on how best to use donors' money in the best interests of the Jewish People. Today, we know, the UJC Budget meeting lasts maybe four hours including lunch with no "battles" tolerated..

One thing we know first-hand is that these leaders -- these men and women -- were nuts!! They would see each other in the halls at 111 (when more of them walked those halls) and suddenly they would be hugging and kissing, reminiscing in laughter. They actually loved each other -- a love that grew from sharing a common passion and a common cause...and some leaders outside UJA or on its fringes resented the love and passion that those crazy folks shared.

Sounds idyllic? Maybe because it ended eight years ago, and culturally at 111 Eighth Avenue we bear no relationship to those "UJA years," it's more mythic than real to us. Today we're owned by the federations who, but for a few, seem to have little interest in how their resources are being spent and no interest in the joyless space we occupy. If they cared, UJC could and would be so different.

Could that culture of passionate expression that was UJA be revived? We think so -- really restructure UJC; divide responsibilities between Campaign/ Community Building (Annual and Supplemental) and Allocations/Program/Washington/UJC Israel; restore the National Campaign Chair to her/his rightful role (as contemplated in the merger that created UJC) as a co-equal to the Chair of the Board (but responsible only for fund raising), elevate the Campaign Cabinet to Vice-Chairs status and raise the profile of the CEO/Campaign-Capacity Building sufficiently to attract once again the best and brightest to the position -- for starters.

And, find lay Chairs like a Marvin Lender, a Shoshana Cardin, a Charles Goodman, a Carole Solomon, a David Hermelin, z'l, to take us there with a chief professional partner who emulate Stanley Horowitz, Steve Nasatir, Bob Aronson, Steve Hoffman or John Ruskay. Then, see how we do!!!

Shabbat shalom

"Trainwreck"

When UJC was created, to satisfy the interests of federations and the merging organizations, the new entity was subjected, if that is the right word, with a Board of 133 members. As we at 111 have come to learn, when authority is so minutely divided, particularly in an organization so disengaged from its owners over the past three years, a power void is created. Thus, the chief professional and chief volunteer officers easily accreted power to themselves. Every leader, professionally and lay, who has looked carefully at UJC's performance relative to its cost has had to reach the same conclusion -- governance reform is a critical threshold mechanism to create an environment where change can be implement and a nimble, responsive organization created in its stead.

Further, where "the only good ideas are ours," an organization where challenge to any idea of UJC's leaders is discouraged with language such as: "are you on my team or not" -- the language of the bully -- it is a place where only the owners can demand change. Recently we read, in a different context, of a work environment where professionals could respectfully challenge, offer opposing views and push back: "If you had an opinion about (a subject), (the CEO) made it clear it was your job, your duty, to argue, yell, scream, whatever."

We here know that papers describing two potential "special campaigns" that have been transmitted to the UJC Board for its discussion next Monday, have not been fully thought through, fail to contemplate the implications upon the federation Annual Campaigns (particularly in these fragile economic times), and have not been fully discussed with the UJC staff. Yet, the Board is meeting, so out the door these went -- filled with great ideas, fraught with gaps in logic, timing and the potential conflict with the AC. If anyone at UJC pushed back, urged these "plans" be held for more input, greater discussion, the suggestion would be "you're not a team player."

We need governance reform; we need it immediately.

"Your Comments"....continued

We were reading your Comments with great interest and had concluded, sort of, that, perhaps, we could have the kind of give and take, the kind of dialogue, through this Post that we can't have within UJC because its top leaders won't/can't permit discussion or debate to take place. Then, along came a writer misnamed "Wise" to "rationalize" the humiliation, isolation and degradation of fine, dedicated professionals passionately committed to UJC as a "housecleaning" justified as a means to finally "rid" UJC of the invidious influence of United Jewish Appeal. It frightens us that there are those who actually believe, eight years post-merger, that these horrific "means" are justified by a fictitious "end." If you are a "leader" of UJC, "Wise," that, in and of itself, explains a great deal. We feel very sorry for you (and "umich65," you appear to be speaking in tongues).

We still hope that readers like "disappointed21," "oldjewpro," "tateh," "chai," "maya, "jon,""fotp" and others, even those who have attacked us about our perceived lack of "civility," to continue the dialogue that you have begun. (And, for a far more insightful Blog on the subject, visit http://organizedjewishworld-fotp.blogspot.com/)

More later.

Your Comments

Your bloggers appreciate all of your Comments, even from those of you who believe that all we are doing is "....(airing our) dirty linen in public" or accusing us of "personal attack(s)." We note that none of our correspondents have questioned the facts that we have reported.

We want all of our readers to be assured that were there the opportunity for open and honest give and take within UJC, this Blog would not exist. When the most senior of professionals at UJC pushed back, look at the humiliation they suffered to the point of resignation; when lay leaders have pushed back, they have been relegated to the outside looking in. The doors at UJC are closed to any criticism. We have sat in silence for too long to be cowed by those who write that we are "uncivil" and need to "move on to another agency." When any organization, and certainly UJC, is essentially run by one professional and a single lay leader, any criticism will be perceived as "personal." When we find that UJC has once again become a place -- as were CJF and UJA, as we have come to learn -- where debate and discussion are welcomed, this Blog will cease to exist.

We will continue to welcome all of your Comments. If debate isn't permitted within UJC (ask those who were summoned to New York last March, ostensibly to "discuss" the "Organizational Strategy," only to be told they could ask questions but there would be no changes), then, perhaps, as Tateh, Jon and chai suggest by their Comments, debate can take place here.

Toward a New School in Ethiopia

The Government of Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel all opposed a further Jewish communal or governmental presence in Ethiopia as they geared up to complete the aliya of Ethiopians certied as Jewish to Israel by the end of 2008. Yet, ignoring the advice of the GOI, JDC and JAFI on the ground in Gondar, UJC has proceeded, with the anti-establishment NACOEJ (the North American Conference of Ethiopian Jewry) UJC, which had supported the Government's and its organizations earlier decision to end operations in that country of poverty and strife, determined it would raise funds among the federations to build a school -- a decision described by one of Rieger's senior professionals as "...an unassailably (sic) good thing to do." Let's fact check this.

All parties agreed, including UJC, that when the remaining 1,800 Ethiopians of Jewish origin would be brought to Israel, operations in Ethiopa would cease. Rieger, impacted by a beautiful Jewish liberal ethos, decided that a school for some of the 8,500 remaining Falash Mura who claim Jewish heritage but were not certified by the GOI, JAFI or JDC should have a school. That was the "process." Then, with annual federation allocations to JAFI and JDC core needs dropping like a stone, and no UJC advocacy for them in the communities, Rieger reached out to his junta of Large City Federation Executives to support his "school plan." This school was not a priority of the participating federations or in UJC's plan.

The MetroWest federation popped for $200.000 or more, Chicago and Cleveland for $50,000 each, and so on down the line. While more enlightened federations declined the "opportunity," the school moves ahead. So what if UJC is out of step with the Government of Israel, with its own experts on the ground, with the JDC and JAFI, it is funding a school because it could and without regard for the reality that all Ethiopian Jew will have been brought home to Israel by year's end.

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Does it care? Is this any way for our national system to behave?

News Flash...News Flash...News Flash...News Flash

Were this an Internet Message Alert from CNN.com or its ilk, the title would read: Junta Agrees to Prop Up Dictator. We have learned that late last week a group of Chief Executives from among the Large 19 Federations met with Howard Rieger and decided, much like a South American military junta, to continue to support Rieger without regard for the consequences to UJC short-term and long-term. Some do so out of a misplaced sense of friendship, others for fear that joining in efforts to remove the CEO would evidence "weakness" that could ultimately negatively impact on members of the junta in their own communities.

Without regard for the reality that UJC costs these federations into the millions annually in dues, with little, if any, return on their investment for their own federations, their donors or other federations whose dues are less, the junta determined that keeping Howard in place was the best plan "for the moment." These federation representatives further resolved to take a more direct role in UJC and, in particular, in the development and management of the UJC Budget -- an effort to forestall more federations from unilaterally determining to cut their dues.

It would be interesting to know what the reaction of the junta members would be if they knew the way in which the UJC CEO deprecates them with no restraint to his own lieutenants. More on that in an upcoming Post.

Thoughts

Today, the day we celebrate the life of a great American leader, and one of our heroes for the way he lived his life, his personal courage and his willingness to "speak truth to power." UJC is closed. So some time for some random thoughts:

• To our Readers, thanks for writing us with your encouragement...and your criticism. We don't know about you, but we found the following "Comment" to be amusing:

"I am not questioning whether your blog has some merit. However, I cannot completely fathom why you have chosen to continue under this grandiose guise of anonymity...Anonymous blogging is the medium of choice for angst-ridden teenagers, not adults hoping to be taken seriously."

This Comment was sent to us by "Super." What irony!! Given "Super's" Comment that must be her/his real name!!! Thanks flagontheplay for your support!!

• In an article in this week's TIME profiling Bank of America's "President and CEO" offered this observation:

"I don't feel the need to be a dominant force through talking first of talking the most. That's not one of my needs. Listening can be a competitive advantage. Some people just can't do it."

Rob Mann, UJC's Training Chair always teaches us the importance of listening and hearing. To UJC's leaders, silence is just a void to be filled...by them. There is no voice they would rather hear than their own.

• Even in summarizing the system's achievements (press release incorporated in Rieger's January 16, 2008 View), UJC can't resist its apparent need to overstate -- for example, "...some 4,000 Jews from around the world gathered in Nashville for UJC's annual General Assembly. We were there, maybe 2,000 at an event scripted by UJC leaders alone that at its peak merited third page coverage in the Forward. National successes have been so few that our leaders continue to relate back two years to UJC's truly heroic work during the Katrina aftermath. A "...full study set to launch in February, 2008" is announced as an achievement of 2007 and predicted to "...be a turning point for the federation system." Nowhere does UJC disclose that this "study" will cost the system $845,000 -- now, the approval of that expenditure was quite the achievement!!