The Jewish World Speaks
all three from the Jerusalem Post:
Jewish charities fear Wall Street chaos
US Jewish social service agencies and nonprofits say they expect this week’s string of bankruptcies, buyouts and takeovers on Wall Street to severely cramp their end-of-year fund-raising as individuals curtail their donations and whole companies suspend their philanthropic programs.
Officials at the UJA-Federation of New York, which supports 102 social service agencies in the New York area, told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday they were particularly anxious about the fate of Neuberger Berman, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers whose executives have historically contributed a significant proportion of the approximately $42 million raised annually from Wall Street.
Analysis: Some things can’t be privatized
When the Jewish Agency ceded aliya activities in North America to Nefesh B’Nefesh, it didn’t lose all that much in organizational terms…
It is worth noting that the agency’s primary functions, in terms of organizational size and focus, have long been coordinating partnerships between Israeli and Diaspora communities, managing large social welfare projects in Israel, and providing a Jewish world infrastructure for small communities worldwide…
While community partnerships and social projects would exist even without a Jewish Agency, it is the last function - the network of emissaries in small communities who are instrumental in rescuing Jews in times of crisis - that even the agency’s most energetic detractors acknowledge would be difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Gov’t, JA start forum to aid distressed communities
The Jewish Agency announced this week the establishment of a joint forum with the government that would coordinate assistance to Jewish communities around the world in times of crisis.
The Jewish Agency’s Smart Decision on Aliyah
There has been no shortage of stories in the Jewish media, and blog-o-sphere, surrounding the recently announced agreement between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh on administering the North American Aliyah portfolio. There has been particular interest in what this decision means to the future of JAFI.
in today’s Haaretz, Dr. Alex Sinclair writes:
In a recent Haaretz opinion piece, Anshel Pfeffer wrote that the Jewish Agency, by ceding its aliyah portfolio to Nefesh B’Nefesh, has “signed its own death certificate.”
A more thoughtful examination of this recent decision leads to a very different conclusion: that the Jewish Agency has made a profound and admirable strategic decision about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora in the 21st century.
Read Dr. Sinclair’s complete op-ed piece here.
Time To ‘Retool’ the Jewish Agency
from the New York Jewish Week:
The Jewish Agency for Israel’s (JAFI) decision last week to outsource the entire aliyah operation in North America to Nefesh B’Nefesh, a 6-year-old American group promoting aliyah, is indicative of both the need for change in the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and in JAFI’s relationship to the organized Jewish community…
The time has come to institutionalize the direct relationships among federation leadership and Israeli philanthropists. It is not only a way to work together to meet the human service, social, health, educational needs, among others, in Israel, but it is also an approach that will lead to closer ties between Israelis and American Jews…
Utilizing the decision to outsource aliyah service to Nefesh B’Nefesh should be taken as heralding the beginning of new ways of working together with non-profits in Israel. It should be replicated in other service areas and the connections should be made directly, thus strengthening the ties between Israel and the North American Jewish community.
Excerpts are from the article , Time to ‘Retool’ Jewish Agency by Stephen Donshik, formerly director of the Israel Office of UJA-Federation of New York. Click the link for the complete article.
MediaWatch: Our Jewish World
Some of our largest organizations are in the Israeli papers these days.
(first two) from Haaretz:
The Jewish Agency’s diminished role
Last week, the Jewish Agency signed its own death certificate. The agreement with Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), the private organization that has been helping thousands of Jews immigrate from the United States and Canada, whereby the agency will cease its aliyah operations in North America and NBN will become the only address for those thinking of making the plunge, means that the agency is relinquishing its main historic mission in the world’s largest Jewish community. It also embodies the fundamental change in the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora.
They’re at it again! In one corner, a powerhouse philanthropic agency of the Zionist world - the Jewish National Fund of the United States (JNF-USA). In the opposite corner - the owner of more than 10 percent of Israel’s land and one of its primary land-management agencies, the Keren Kayemeth L’Israel (KKL). The latest disagreement, according to a recent article in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, is over who has the rights to the name “Jewish National Fund” in English and to the iconic blue box. JNF-USA is reportedly taking legal steps to make both name and box its own registered trademarks. The larger issue is the future of millions of dollars in donations collected by JNF-USA.
from the Jerusalem Post:
‘Teacher’s birthright’ may get $100m. boost
The plan to bring thousands of Diaspora Jewish educators to Israel on free trips could receive over $100 million in state funding, according to initiatives being developed in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Planning work within Masa over the past month has confirmed the initial perception that “something like this [program] is needed, it is possible, and there’s an identifiable target audience for it.
and not to neglect the other side of the Atlantic; from the Los Angles Jewish Journal:
Q&A with Rhoda Weisman — Jewish woman on top
I don’t think that we as a larger community have been successful in creating a very strong pipeline connecting the baby boomers to Gen X and Gen Y. There’s never been a time when leaders in their 20s and 30s have been as equipped for leadership as now: Many of them have come from homes of privilege where they’ve been able to advance themselves in a whole number of areas. So, you have people in their 20s that have the same skills and talents etc., as people my age and in their 40s.
The Challenge of Connecting to American Jewry
We reported Sunday on the new partnership agreement signed between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh dealing with Aliyah from North America.
Writing in today’s Jerusalem Post, an analysis on what this does, and does not, mean from their Jewish world correspondent, Haviv Rettig:
Analysis: Making aliya the American way
It would be a mistake to view the agreement announced on Sunday between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh to cede aliya promotion in North America to the smaller organization as a mere logistical arrangement, as Jewish Agency spokespeople have claimed in recent days.
Nor is the Jewish Agency’s ceding ground in itself a history-changing event, as Nefesh B’Nefesh officials believe.
Even so, Sunday’s announcement was a momentous one. It amounted to a recognition by the Jewish Agency that the Jewish world has changed. The agency has come to recognize that the spectacularly successful tools it has developed over some eight decades, during which it brought over three million Jews to Israel, do not work in the United States.
JAFI and NBN Form New Partnership
Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh
Reach Historic Agreement for Increasing Aliyah
from North America
A “one-stop Aliyah shop” has now been created by both organizations to streamline the Aliyah process for North American Olim
Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency for Israel have reached a successful conclusion to the mediation process which has been held between the two parties over the last several months. The two organizations announced today the signing of a new agreement outlining an unprecedented collaborative venture for North American Aliyah. In this new “Collaborative Venture”, Nefesh B’Nefesh will have primary operational responsibility for marketing and promotion. The Jewish Agency continues its exclusive responsibility for the Aliyah eligibility process with the appropriate authorities in Israel, and to pay the airfare of every new immigrant to Israel. (more…)
