For 30 years the International Fundraising Congress (IFC) has showcased ideas that have helped fundraisers change the world. To celebrate the 30th IFC, they’ve invited 30 of the sector’s leading minds to share weekly insights into the future of fundraising…

For more information on the IFC, check the Congress Website.

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from Civil Society Fundraising:

Continental drift: Changes in cross-border giving in Europe

The world did not have cross-border charitable giving in mind when it organised itself into separate nations. Charities, over the centuries, have been typically local or national although a relatively small number have always been truly international.  However, in recent years this has changed as both individual donors and civil society organisations have become so much more mobile in how they give and how they operate.

The amount of cross-border donations has increased. Correspondingly, so too have the frustrations of donors who naturally expect a tax benefit for their gifts.  For obvious reasons, governments have always been very reluctant, to say the least, to grant tax relief to a donor making a gift to a charity in another country. This reluctance affects not only lifetime cash gifts but legacies as well.

A temporary solution of sorts has developed over the years, in the use of an intermediary (such as ‘Friends of’ organisation) in country ‘A’ to receive the gift, issue the relevant tax receipt and convey the gift to the beneficiary in country ‘B’. The intermediary usually charges an administration fee for due diligence and other costs.  This, for example, is the solution of choice for gifts being made by US residents to foreign charities.  In Europe, a similar facility is offered by ‘Transnational Giving Europe’ (TGE), coordinated by the King Baudouin Foundation, in Brussels

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The following is brought to us through the courtesy of World ORT.

by Chilean writer Rafael Gumucio

It is being called the hypocritical earthquake in Chile. A distracted visitor could walk through downtown Santiago and visit the upper and middle class residential areas and barely be able to tell that the Earth shook here last week as few times it has ever done so before in seismological history.

Years of preparation, powerful previous earthquakes and undeniable development led Chileans to believe that this catastrophe would practically leave no victims and that the human factor would’t be affected at all. Such as many or better said too many things in Chile, disaster is subtle and many times invisible, but it is there, hidden by our anxiety to be and seem normal, that is to say, to be seen as a First World country.

The greatest danger that encompasses this Chilean disaster is its invisibility. Many buildings (2% of the 1500 of Chile´s central Region) that externally seem to have survived unscathed harbor deep cracks in the interior walls rendering them unusable. The same can be said about the country in general: the facade was left more or less intact, the structure did not collapse, but many of the country`s hidden cracks became deeper and therefore inevitable.

To experience the aftermath of two of the most important and severe earthquakes registered this century is to cover the broad range of an arch. In Haiti, the images, evidence, horror, and astonishment were predominant whereas in Chile, it has been the rumors, subtleness, numbers and paradoxes. In Haiti entire families swatting flies away from the fresh stumps of their relatives are seen in the streets. Horror did everything possible to reveal itself on a full blown scale from the very first day. On the other hand, in Chile, everything has been so strangely slow and concealed that at times it is rather difficult to remember the scale of the disaster. In Haiti, most of the old structures collapsed during the first second of the earthquake while in Chile, it is ironically the new structures that fell. Buildings destined for the rising middle class, the new international airport proudly decorated in a modern and international style, and the recently inaugurated highways, were the first to collapse. Builders say they were supposed to collapse the way they did to save lives. Non professional people wonder if that is so, then what could have happened if the earthquake stroke during broad day light busy hour.

The contrasts multiply in all aspects of both earthquakes. In Haiti, the capital was devastated whereas in Chile, it was the provinces, the forgotten provinces where development has barely permeated the population, a population that now suffers and is unable to count their dead. If the supermarkets in Port-au- Prince were virtual deathtraps, the ones in Concepcion were strangely ransacked by thieves who carried away televisions and food while showing the cameras that they had fistfuls of money but no one to pay it to.

Chile is not Haiti, but it is not Sweden or Switzerland either as we would like to believe. It is somewhere in between, located in a unique limbo in which the structures are resistant but the ornaments fall dangerously. The facades remain standing while the interior walls are split by deep cracks. In Chile, entire regions have been forgotten. Regions, that have never had a hospital or a highway, have new buildings that bring the promise of an upper class lifestyle but made with second hand materials. Income and taxes are a common currency and so are fear, paranoia and hunger when disaster strikes, but they are undeniably distributed unfairly. While most homes in Santiago are relatively intact and have electricity and water once again, many of those who tried to imitate this lifestyle now realize the deep lack of protection rooted in their homes and lives.

Unprotected in buildings that seem luxurious and living too far away from where the decisions are made, the earthquake has reminded them not only of how fragile life is, but of the fragility of the “Chilean miracle” as well.

Read about Chile’s ‘forgotten poor‘ and ORT’s work with the county’s most vulnerable communities.

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from JTA:

Moishe House bringing community to Budapest Jews

When 29-year-old Eszter Susan announced on Facebook last September that she had moved into a Moishe House, few of her friends knew what she was talking about.

Six months later the rambling, high-ceilinged apartment she shares with two other young women has become a focal point of Jewish involvement for dozens of Budapest Jews in their 20s.

There are parties at Jewish holidays, movie nights, lectures on Jewish topics, social action meetings and a Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by a potluck dinner that attracts dozens of people each Friday night.

“It’s about being informal, and being young, and being Jewish,” Susan says while sipping tea at a cluttered kitchen table with housemates Anna Balint, 26, and Zsofia Simon, 22.

“It’s a new model, very horizontal, very grass-roots,” she adds. “It’s about exploring new kinds of Jewish identities – and this is the way things are going to go.”

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The Agency’s New Agenda

an editorial from The Forward

The Jewish Agency for Israel is embarking on a bold and necessary attempt to create a new mission for itself, downplaying its historic role in promoting immigration to Israel and emphasizing instead an intriguing but still amorphous notion of Jewish “peoplehood.”

Applause is warranted anytime a sprawling, calcified bureaucracy seeks new direction and energy, and never more so than in this case. The agency that once effectively acted as a governing body in pre-state Israel, and since 1948 promoted aliyah worldwide, has lost its way. Immigration is no longer as much of a pressing task, and other groups handle it far more efficiently. The pipeline of funding from the American Jewish community has shrunk, both in real dollars and in the percentage of donations sent to Israel, a not-so-subtle message that the Jewish Agency had lost the confidence of its largest flock.

And so the Jewish Agency’s new chairman, Natan Sharansky, and a leadership cadre made up mostly of Russian-speaking Jews, are embracing “peoplehood” as their rallying cry and organizational mission. As reported by our Gal Beckerman, this approach is informed by their experiences in the former Soviet Union, where they nurtured a defiant attachment to other Jews in a society that smothered religion and ethnic identity.

“Peoplehood” is an appealing notion. Most Jews want to belong, to see themselves as part of a historic narrative, a sturdy sub-group with a distinct culture and perspective that comes with certain obligations and a kind of built-in safety net. Jews take care of other Jews. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

That, indeed, was what Zionism was supposed to do, by positioning Israel as the bulwark against genocide and any other hurts against the Jewish people. And herein lies one of the great challenges in defining this alternative direction for the Jewish Agency. Where is Zionism in the new “peoplehood” mission? How does an organization representing the state of Israel promote Jewish identity in the Diaspora without diluting or perhaps even erasing the central message that Jewish historical aspirations lead to Zion?

The second challenge to this embryonic notion of “peoplehood” goes even deeper: Can the Jewish people be sustained without God, without religion? Can a lasting Jewish identity be stitched together without the binding of a traditional faith? It is difficult to imagine how a sense of community and belonging and responsibility alone will be compelling enough for young people for whom being Jewish is one option among many.

But the truth is, both of these deep challenges already face the Jewish people. The initial expectations of Zionism have been tempered by time, as the great ingathering has proven to be more hoped-for than real. And as for God, well, His role has been a source of Jewish debate since that first argument with Abraham.

Now it is up to the Jewish Agency to take this bold idea, translate it into a clear, understandable mission and reorganize a famously lackluster bureaucracy into a fighting force for Jewish identity.

This editorial originally appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward; reprinted with permission.

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A new emphasis on ‘Peoplehood’ reflects both the economic reality and Russian roots of The Jewish Agency.

by Gal Beckerman

Natan Sharansky knows he’s disturbing the status quo. Days before the most recent meeting of the Board of Governors, the body that oversees the Jewish Agency for Israel, Sharansky, its relatively new chairman, declared that the agency’s traditional mission had outlived its usefulness.

“It’s not enough to speak about aliyah,” Sharansky said, talking in front of a delegation of American Jewish leaders. “It’s almost prohibited for the head of the Jewish Agency to say so, but it can’t be our goal [just] to bring more Jewish people [to Israel].”

With these words – and the recent appointment to key positions of people who share his views – Sharansky has signaled his intent to bring about radical change to the financially strapped Jewish Agency, shifting its focus away from Israel and toward strengthening the secular identity of Diaspora Jews.

At the center of Sharansky’s plan is the notion of peoplehood. He and a tight group of ideological allies – mostly other Russian Jews – believe that the Jewish Agency must now become a global promoter of Jewish identity, particularly among the young. Peoplehood, according to its proponents, is defined as a sense of connectivity between Jews who share a common history and fate. It is still an amorphous concept for some critics. Others wonder if it is too weak a foundation on which to base educational programs – especially since this vision of peoplehood is not predicated on having any kind of religious or spiritual identity.

Nonetheless, this new role for the Jewish Agency is one that Sharansky, by all accounts, seems to be pursuing with great passion. It also comes out of necessity. Ever since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the agency has been financed through a combination of Israeli government funds and money from the Diaspora. In the Agency’s heyday, North American Jewish federations regularly contributed between 50% and 70% of the money they raised every year to fund it. But as the large-scale immigration to Israel began to ebb, so, too, did this source of money. By 2004, the last year for which the Jewish Agency provided this statistic, only 23% of combined Jewish federation money was being sent overseas, to be split by the agency, which received 75%, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which got the remaining 25%.

By now it is clear that this source of money has long since dried up. Whereas in 1989, the Jewish Agency received $275 million from the North American federations, last year it received only $130 million, and the projected intake for 2010 is $110 million. Given that Diaspora money makes up one-third of the agency’s budget, the drop has been catastrophic for the large bureaucracy.

“The Diaspora institutions, from the 1970s on, began to cut allocations and put pressure for cuts,” said Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, a prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi who was the founding president of the Jewish Life Network, an organization focused on revitalizing American Jewish life through educational and cultural initiatives. “And the agency, instead of giving up some of its functions and making a real transformation, suffered a slow death by a thousand cuts. It’s been cumulative, and by now they see that they can’t just do less of all of the things they are doing currently.”

Immigration to Israel is also not the giant task that it once was. In recent years, private organizations like Nefesh B’Nefesh, which helps North American Jews make aliyah, have been praised for providing better, more efficient services than the Jewish Agency. And though immigration is still a large budget category, this year it will account for barely more than the education department ($100.59 million, as opposed to $94.29 million for education, out of a budget of $321.71 million).

Two recent appointments to high posts in the agency are further indication of a change in direction.

A new senior position has been created for Misha Galperin, the current executive vice president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. He will be based in New York, and provisionally be in charge of, what the Agency is calling “Global Public Affairs and Financial Resource Develoment.”

Galperin, the most prominent Russian Jew filling a leadership position in the American Jewish organizational world, is one of the main conceptual architects of peoplehood and recently authored a book on the subject.

A few days before the official confirmation of his appointment, which came on March 3, the Jewish Agency announced that Alan Hoffmann, currently the director general of the agency’s education department, will become the director general of the entire agency, elevating someone whose orientation is promoting Jewish education. Of Hoffmann’s appointment, Galperin said that he knows “I have a partner in Israel who is exactly the kind of person that I was hoping would be my partner on that side.”

With these new positions filled, all that remains is to define exactly what peoplehood is and how a sprawling institution promotes it.

Steven M. Cohen, who is a sociologist of American Jewry director of New York University’s Berman Jewish Policy Archive, and has conducted research around the concept, said that rather than being a vague idea, peoplehood can actually be reduced to a very distinct set of values and corresponding commitments.

“There are obligations,” Cohen said. “When Jews are in trouble, you are expected to go help them. When you do tikkun olam [repairing the world], you have to balance tikkun olam for the larger world with tikkun olam for Jews in particular. You are supposed to follow the news about Jews. You are supposed to be involved in community affairs. There are a lot of peoplehood obligations that are real. Things you should do. You should be involved in your community, either religiously or socially. You should be engaged with other Jews doing things that are Jewish. That’s a peoplehood commitment.”

Galperin’s succinct definition of peoplehood is “an extended family with a mission,” and to promote it, one must engender a feeling of belonging, of community. Advocates say that young Jews must be given experiences – like Jewish summer camp or the Taglit-Birthright Israel program – that allow them to see their connection to other Jews and identify with the Jewish story.

Galperin says that contrary to what most people think about the Jewish Agency, it is already engaged in many projects that could fall under this rubric.

“Most donors have no idea that the Jewish Agency puts a significant amount of money into Birthright or that one of its subsidiaries provides an enormous amount of services for Israel experience, for all kinds of trips,” Galperin said. “Or that there are today 400 emissaries of the agency in the United States providing Jewish-identity education through a variety of ways. It’s just not something that is known. So some of what we have to do is positioning and marketing and communication, and some of it is substance.”

The substance, Galperin says, has yet to be clearly defined. There are certain successful programs that already exist. Others will have to be invented. The key for him, and Sharansky, is that the core mission no longer be immigration.

Galperin also contends that such a move will be good for the financial situation of the Jewish Agency, enabling it to find new sources of funding and to draw more from federations. John Ruskay, head of New York’s UJA-Federation, agrees. He, too, has been working on a peoplehood-related project for years and sees it as the critical element for increasing both commitment and funds.

“I see this as a reframing to respond to a new context,” Ruskay said, referring to the agency’s new stated mission. “Sharansky has said repeatedly, whenever there is a Jew that needs to be rescued, the Jewish Agency will be there. But he recognizes that identity is the critical driver. If you’re not identified positively as a Jew, who is going to consider making aliyah? Who will be committed to helping hungry Jews whether in the former Soviet Union or New York? Who will be concerned with securing the Jewish state? In my view, the Jewish Agency, born in 1919, finds itself in a new context.”

Another prominent Russian Jew, Leonid Nevzlin, a former oligarch who now lives in Israel and has become a major philanthropist, has also had a hand in promoting the concept of peoplehood. Through his foundation, Nadav, he has given funds to projects that contribute to this idea. At this year’s General Assembly, for example, Nadav sponsored a series of sessions dealing with different aspects of Jewish-identity building. Nevzlin also sits on the Jewish Agency board and is a strong ally of Sharansky and Galperin.

In an op-ed that ran in Haaretz just before Sharansky became chairman, Nevzlin wrote that the “key to the future success” of the agency was “the realizing of Jewish Peoplehood.” He posited that the organization needed “to change its structure and relinquish its current divisions (education, aliyah, partnerships) – a vestige of past assignments or political considerations.” Instead, he wrote, “it must establish two main operational frameworks: the first for the Jewish communities around the world, the second for Israel.” Although neither Galperin nor Sharansky will confirm that such a planned restructuring is in the works, Nevzlin is a close collaborator with the two, and his ideas have reflected theirs in the past.

It is fitting that Russian Jews should be the ones pushing this particular approach to identity building. Jews who lived in the Soviet Union – the parents of Sharansky, Galperin and Nevzlin – survived decades of communism with their sense of peoplehood intact, even as they lost their religious connection. As Cohen put it, it makes sense that Russian Jews, given their history, should be “predisposed to a secular, national definition of what it means to be Jewish.”

There are those, however, who worry that peoplehood is too vacuous or superficial a concept to be the basis of Jewish identity. Absent the threat of antisemitism, the critics say, it is hard to see what will bind Jews as one “global family.” Others argue that the Jewish faith has done a good job of inspiring a sense of peoplehood, but that the programming envisioned by the Jewish Agency makes no room for religion.

“I think that the agency in the end will not succeed in the educational, cultural, peoplehood mission unless it is able to make a contribution in the development of Jewish religion,” Greenberg said. “That’s going to be a real challenge.”

But that’s a minor worry compared to the larger concern if the agency doesn’t change. “I think the logic is overwhelming and inescapable, and it’s probably the last chance,” Greenberg said. “If this doesn’t work, then the agency will die.”

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward; reprinted with permission.

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2010 Survey of New Jewish Initiatives Focuses on Startup Leaders, Expands to Europe

Jumpstart, The Natan Fund, and The Samuel Bronfman Foundation announced the launch of the 2010 Survey of New Jewish Initiatives. The survey builds on the successes of the ground-breaking partnership that produced the 2008 Survey of New Jewish Organizations and The Innovation Ecosystem: Emergence of a New Jewish Landscape. This year, it will include a special focus on the leaders of Jewish startups. Also, for the first time, the survey will be conducted in Canada and Europe as well as the United States.

“New initiatives, whether they are independent startups or intrepreneurial ventures at established institutions, are the building blocks for 21st-century Judaism,” said Shawn Landres, co-founder and CEO of Jumpstart. “By mapping the field and profiling its leaders, we can anticipate new directions for our communities and focus our efforts where support is most needed.”

The 2010 Survey focuses on understanding the leaders of new Jewish initiatives, in addition to documenting key changes since the previous survey was conducted in November-December 2008. The grassroots energy of “do-it-yourself Judaism” comes at the same time that broad and deep philanthropic investment has sparked the creation and growth of intensive Jewish learning programs, service and travel experiences, and other leadership development fellowships.

The 2010 Survey itself introduces important innovations, in addition to this year’s focus on leadership. For the first time, the survey is open to all Jewish startups, regardless of their budget size; reflecting new trends in social innovation, it also is open to non-tax-exempt social enterprises. The survey’s expansion to Canada and Europe marks the first-ever transatlantic census of innovative and entrepreneurial Jewish ventures.

Summary of key changes in the 2010 Survey of New Jewish Initiatives:

• New self-registration site;
• Special module on the people who found and lead Jewish startups;
• New European survey includes UK and continental European initiatives;
• North American survey now includes Canada;
• All new initiatives encouraged to participate, regardless of budget size;
• Open to social enterprises, not just tax-exempt charitable initiatives.

“The Innovation Ecosystem report has served as a rallying point for innovators and their supporters,” said Felicia Herman, executive director of The Natan Fund. “By repeating the survey now, and extending its international reach, especially in the wake of the economic crisis, we hope to help current and potential funders and nonprofit leaders make data-driven decisions that will strengthen 21st-century Jewish life.”

As previously announced, the European version of the survey will be coordinated by a new transatlantic partnership among the Pears Foundation, Jumpstart, and The ROI Community for Young Jewish Innovators.

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On-the-ground reports from Chile:

from Masorti-Olami:

How about damage ?

In Concepcion, close to the epicenter of the earthquake, Rabbi Angel Kreiman told us that he went to the Synagogue, and “it was like the hurban habayit (destruction of the temple), the walls were all cracked and the roof had fallen down. I couldn’t stay there, so I got the sifrei Torah and left.”

Rabbi Shmuel Szteinhendler in Santiago told us, “we have some damage to our home, but its not too severe … . we will try and replace things and try to go on, while also assisting our kehillah members and at the same time supporting the local community at large who have suffered so much.”

The Rabbis, along with leaders of the Jewish community have come together to form a Crisis Committee. They are the ones best placed to decide where funds raised will go. Rabbi Alejandro Bloch of Santiago told us on Monday, “we have invited all of the community to Ma’ariv, and will make sure that all their basic needs are taken care of.”

from Marcelo Lewkow, National Director of ORT Chile writing from Santiago de Chile:

1 March, 2010

Our life:

Just three days ago, the earth moved violently in a phenomenon we felt would be a life changing event. National televised broadcasts have opened our eyes to the desperate situation in the south, the tsunami, the destruction, the vulnerability, the inability of the state to cope with such a tragedy, and to the military forces, feared so much in the past, being called upon by the populations of damaged areas to protect its citizens. After witnessing all of this, we understand that we, as a country, are experiencing a larger than life moment that will impact us as individuals and as a society for as long as we live.

Life in Santiago reflects the image you may be seeing internationally – most of us now have electricity and water, and after our initial fear and paralysis, we know that our loved ones, community, and city are safe and normalcy is returning to our lives. There are, of course, minor problems such as a shortage of gasoline (this means we only travel if absolutely necessary), electronic methods of payment (we keep cash available and keep all expenses to a minimum), and some minor damages and rioting in the poorer areas that television footage made to appear widespread and destructive, but which were actually short lived and easily controlled. Yet, just 200 kilometres away, the scenario differs greatly and is still not fully understood.

The Jewish schools in Santiago and Vinda del Mar are okay for the most part. Classes will resume next Monday, March 8th, and the Jewish community is quickly organizing itself to coordinate a nationwide campaign to help those who have been less fortunate. Among the less fortunate are a small, but significant, Jewish community in Concepcion, one of the areas which suffered greatly in the earthquake’s aftermath.

The country:

The area which suffered the greatest damage spreads from 150 kilometers south of Santiago and all the way to the city of Temuco, 600 kilometers from Santiago. As the epicentre was under the Pacific Ocean, right next to Chile’s coastline, damage was felt closer to the coast and less so in the mountains. It was the earthquake that destroyed properties, roads, and left people homeless with no basic supplies, waiting for help. Worse than the actual earthquake, a tsunami struck which wiped out entire towns, leaving in its aftermath death and destruction difficult to understand or comprehend.

This part of our country was a place with a major fishing industry and agricultural wealth. The earthquake struck just as the fruits, grapes for fine wine, and wood, were ready to be harvested.

A myriad of small towns throughout the region, as well as a few big cities (Concepcion is the 3rd largest city in Chile) suffered extensive destruction. Entire industries, farm lands, houses, government facilities, and schools were wiped out or severely damaged. An intensive and large scaled effort will be necessary to help this region regain its life and economy to what it was just a few days ago. The impact of what has been lost will be felt throughout the entire Chilean economy and will be severe.

To add further complications to the situation, in a week’s time the newly elected right wing government will be taking control as new state leaders and officers are selected and put into positions of responsibility. We can only imagine the confusion and desperation of both the old government, which will soon be leaving, and the new one, coming into office during the most upsetting of circumstances. There is no denying that there are many urgent needs, and the best thing for Chile to do right now is to continue with normalcy and production to support the reconstruction effort.

ORT in Chile:

ORT has been active in Chile since 1943 and aside from being closely linked to the Jewish community and schools, it is also widely known as an agent for bringing about quality changes in education throughout the country.

ORT Chile has worked with at least thirteen of the schools in the area which suffered the greatest from the earthquake. This work was funded by the government and private supporters, such as Coca Cola and Telefonica Corporation. Computer and science labs, early literacy projects, and technology for the disabled population are among the many projects which have been executed in recent years in the towns which have now been completely wiped away. An ORT professional had been due to travel to Talcahuano this Sunday to train teachers on computer science methodology through a project funded by Coca Cola. Today, Tacahuano hardly exists.

We are fortunate to have on-the-ground reports from both Masorti-Olami (The World Council of Conservative Synagogues) and ORT. As in the aftermath of all natural disasters, the situation in Chile is constantly changing; the information above was posted to eJewish Philanthropy early in the morning [IST], Wednesday, March 3rd, and was the most current available at that time.

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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 Diaspora, and the meetings that August were the first gathering of the expanded organization. Around the table were giants of the Jewish people, including Chaim Weizmann, Louis Marshall, Joseph Sprinzak and others representing both the WZO and Diaspora Jewry and who were invested in the efforts to create a Jewish state. As they planned their joint endeavor toward the realization the “establishment of the Jewish National Home… in Palestine” (as called for by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922), this group had the daunting task of prioritizing the initial work of the Agency. Their deliberations resulted in the emphasis on immigration, settlement and land purchase as key endeavors, with efforts also to be undertaken regarding the greater establishment of language and culture of the new nation. Decisions were made and the rest, as they say, is history.

But again, I wonder, what was it like to sit at that table and make those decisions?

This question weighed on my mind as I attended the meetings of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency last week in Jerusalem. Now, like then, the Jewish Agency is at a pivot moment in Jewish history – a moment where, at the end of many years of debate, priorities must be set and decisions must be made. What direction will this historic organization take at this crossroads in the history of the Jewish state and the Jewish people? Yes, there certainly are differences between then and now – then the very existence of the State of Israel was an aspiration, now it is a reality. Then only a small fraction of world Jewry lived in the land that would become the modern state of Israel, now half the world’s Jewish population calls Israel home. But many of the challenges are the same – how can the Jewish Agency best help make sure that Israel is more than a state, but also a people? How can the organization best ensure that the future of the Jewish nation is secured and enriched by the reinforcement of the national characteristics of the Jewish people?

Those challenges and others face the leadership of the Jewish Agency in 2010 and, like 1929, both the weight of history and the promise of the future cannot be ignored. Then, like now, the Zionist dream was the shared dream of many diverse stakeholders, often sharing common cause but possessing diverse perspectives about how to pursue that cause. We know the history since 1929, but what we don’t know is this: Like those individuals around the table in 1929 that came together to prioritize approaches to ensuring the creation and sustainability of a Jewish nation, can today’s diverse leadership of the Jewish Agency define its priorities to properly ensure the strengthening and sustainability of the Jewish people?

The answer must be ‘yes’ – history, and the Jewish future, demand nothing less.

In his book Community and Polity, Professor Daniel Elazar postulated that in the postmodern Jewish world there needs to be reassertion of Jewish polity – a transition from fragmentation to reintegration. More than ever before, the Jewish Agency can and should play a substantial role in developing that greater sense of Klal Yisrael, integrating the fragments of Jewish life into a shared sense of identity. While its role since 1929 has been reconstituting a Jewish state, the Jewish Agency must now transition to a role of reconnecting a Jewish people. Yes, there can be no question that Israel is and must remain a center of the Jewish people, but a center unconnected from its broader sphere becomes the center of nothing. And just like the efforts of the Jewish Agency have long been to weave the multicolored threads of olim into the fabric of the Jewish State, the Agency must continue to serve as a seamstress in the next phase of Jewish history. But rather than only help bring the threads together as the cloth of a nation, it must now serve a new role in stitching together the quilt of Jewish people, sewing together the unique squares of Jewish life and experience that occur in Israel, North America and throughout the Jewish world. To do so, it must use the expression of individual Jewish identity as the thread that binds the quilt of the Jewish people together.

Of course any prioritization, any design of its future endeavors, must take into account that the Jewish Agency cannot in the abandon some of its key responsibilities in that it is uniquely able to address. But as time changes, and the needs of the Jewish people change, the Jewish Agency cannot remain static. It too must change, and change in the ways the future demands, not the past. Certainly the coming weeks and months will require hard questions to be asked and certain answers to be accepted. But we should not lose site of one question that will be asked, we hope will be asked, one day far in the future -

What was it like to be part of the leadership of the Jewish Agency in 2010 in Jerusalem and what did they decide?

The history books of the Jewish people are waiting for the answer.

Seth A. Cohen, Esq. is an Atlanta-based attorney, activist and author on topics of Jewish communal life and innovation. Seth is an alumnus of the Wexner Heritage Program, Vice Chair and past Allocations Chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, member of the board of Joshua Venture Group and First Vice President of Jewish Family & Career Services in Atlanta. Seth regularly shares his thoughts on where we are going as a Jewish community on his blog, Boundless Drama of Creation, and is a regular contributor to eJewish Philanthropy. Seth can be contacted directly at seth.cohen [at] agg.com.

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The European edition of The Wall Street Journal has published a special section called Social Finance and Philanthropy. Here are just a few of the articles:

Measuring the Bang of Every Donated Buck
Scoring charitable work is evolving from an art into a science.

Making Ends Meet
The credit crunch choked off funding for good causes. And there are worries it won’t come back soon.

Microfinance’s Midlife Crisis
Companies that provide banking services in developing countries are attracting private investment. But is the industry losing sight of its mission to alleviate poverty?

Cross-Border Giving
The rules on tax relief can be complicated. But for expatriates or foreigners seeking to donate to charities in another country it has traditionally been very simple: There is no tax relief.

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