Will We Let This School Fail?

Rarely a day passes without hearing from one of my friends in the Jewish world about a new project in which they have become engaged or an organization for which they are fundraising. The conversation that ensues is often one about shared interests and common concerns. Sometimes the conversations result in my renewed optimism and other times they cause me to have sobering realizations; but never have they made me sick to my stomach. Until last week. An unexpected call from a former colleague who left Atlanta to move to Asheville, North Carolina started out with the usual pleasantries – work, family, memories of old times. But quickly the conversation turned to the matter that was obviously on my friend’s mind – the state of affairs of the nascent community Jewish Day School in Asheville... Continue Reading

August (1929) and Everything After: The Jewish Agency at the Crossroads of History

The fruit of three thousand years of civilization and a hundred generations of suffering may not be sacrificed by us. It will be sacrificed if dissipated. Assimilation is national suicide. And assimilation can be prevented only by preserving national characteristics and life as other peoples, large and small, are preserving and developing their national life. – excerpt from “A Call to the Educated Jew” by Louis Brandeis History teaches everything, including the future. – Alphonese de Lamartine What was it like to be part of the leadership the Jewish Agency in August, 1929 in Zurich? Less than a month earlier, the 16th Zionist Congress established an expanded Jewish Agency after a seven year long debate about how Zionist efforts would incorporate a wide array of Jewish groups in the... Continue Reading

WiseGen and the Great Transition

“He whose wisdom exceeds his works, to what may he be compared? To a tree whose branches are many, but whose roots are few; and the wind comes and plucks it up and overturns it upon its face. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarish (Perkei Avot ) “Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Hang around a board meeting of any Jewish organization long enough and one can’t help but think there is only one generation of Jews worthy of engagement, cultivation and leadership development: the proverbial “next generation.” Referred to as NexGen, NowGen, young leadership and so on, they are constantly the focus of an immense amount of community angst, optimism and energy. Our Jewish organizations ceaselessly engineer new ways to engage these future generations in the... Continue Reading

A Chanukiyah of Predictions for 2010

December is the time of the secular year where we look backward and forward – making best-of lists and summarizing our prognostications for the future. While many faiths join together for revelries related to the secular new year, for Jews it is also the season to recall the value of perseverance and faith in collective Jewish endeavors, as well as the unexpected miracles that we encounter along the way. So in the spirit of the new year but nevertheless inspired by how one ancient prediction regarding a small vessel of oil gave rise to the miraculous tale of eight nights of luminescence, here are eight predictions for the coming twelve months of 2010: 1. The new “I” word is… Imagination. If 2009 was the year when the newness of Jewish innovation became more widely discussed (or perhaps,... Continue Reading

Strange Love of National Organizations (or how I learned to stop worrying and love my local community)

Do not separate yourself from community – Hillel (Avos 2:5) All politics is local – Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill Quite simply, the GA is a reminder of the gravitational force of national Jewish organizations and the important role they play in connecting us to one another. We often exhort one another to ‘ not recreate the wheel’ in our respective community efforts, but if it wasn’t for networked cadres of national leadership and large conferences like the GA there wouldn’t be opportunities for the mass in-person sharing of new ideas and lessons learned in order to avoid such redundant efforts. Certainly technology has given us all the ability to communicate more quickly (even instantly) and has removed geography as a barrier to the exchange of ideas. But nevertheless, there is no substitute... Continue Reading

Encountering Israel at the GA

Partialness gathered all its parts and the whole wasn’t formed How was the whole not gathered from all the parts, though All their recesses fit and their crevices, how was the whole not formed though all the components were set one by one… excerpt from “Partialness Gathered” by Rivka Miriam (Israeli poet) At its most basic, the GA is a gathering of Jewish people and ideas, mixed together among and around shared passions and diverse interests. A modern-day Council of Four Lands, it brings together Jews from across North America and around the world collectively discuss to challenges, seek opportunities and create bonds of fellowship around the common cause of community. And while the conference is convened by the (newly renamed) Jewish Federations of North America, one never loses sight of the... Continue Reading

A Moment in Time: Sunday Night at the GA

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” – Henry David Thoreau Anyone who has been to a GA knows that there are two schedules – the one that is published in the program book and the one you make for yourself. Between the plenaries and the salons, there are meetings squeezed into bar booths and between sofas, old stories being recalled and new opportunities being explored. Whenever so many people from so many places come together, there is often too much to discuss in too little time; the GA is a microcosm of the Jewish world – passionate, exhilarating and exhausting. Yet somewhere among the hectic schedules there are moments both superb and sublime that comprise the GA, moments that sometimes reflect upon the past and... Continue Reading

Not Too Small to Matter: Hybrid Organizations and the Future of Jewish Innovation

A few weeks ago one of my friends suggested a new game – innovation bingo. The rules are simple, sit in a room full of under-40 Jewish volunteers and professionals and wait until the word ‘innovation’ (or some variant) is used. Then yell bingo, and you win. The real fun, my friend joked, is not whether someone wins, but how quickly it takes for someone to win. Unfortunately, nothing about Jewish innovation is as simple as the rules to my friend’s proposed game.  Inspiring and nurturing Jewish innovation is still easier said than done, and the manner in which the rapid increase of Jewish start-ups are supported and integrated into the broader fabric of contemporary Jewish life presents not only opportunities but  challenges as well. Whereas the last Jewish century has been, in part, built... Continue Reading

Too Big to Fail: Large Jewish Organizations and the Imperative of Success

Unless you have been in a cave for the past year, you have no doubt heard the debate about how certain financial institutions are too big to be allowed to fail (therefore necessitating government intervention/support). And unless you are totally unengaged from the organized Jewish world, you have no doubt heard debate about whether certain Jewish organizations are too big to survive. Local Federations (and the national Federation system) as well large muti-national organizations such as the Jewish Agency for Israel are the subject of ample criticism (sometimes much deserved) for being too big, too slow to change, and possessing leadership that is too entrenched and myopic to successfully transition to a new era of Jewish communal life. It is said these large organizations and others like them are at... Continue Reading

Defining the Mission, Vision and Values of the Next Jewish Century

Words matter. For the People of the Book, there is almost no greater truism; we are a people inspired by a covenant and guided by the words of five books. We are a people that have revived a dead language and created words to express modern experiences, and we have no lack of artists that illuminate those words into a beautiful tapestry of Jewish memory and storytelling. But we are also a people that struggle with the meaning of certain terms and how we define them. We guard words so that they singularly reflect certain Jewish experiences (Holocaust) and we empower words so that the serve as a reminder of our collective Jewish future (Peoplehood). But even though we are a people that love language, we still struggle and debate the meaning of certain words and how we define them for use in our Jewish... Continue Reading

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