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You are here: Home / The American Jewish Scene / It’s Time to Get Off the Dance Floor

It’s Time to Get Off the Dance Floor

November 20, 2009 By Maya Bernstein

Gary Rosenblatt, in his article “The Push & Pull of Jewish Philanthropy” in this week’s Jewish Week, writes:

“Start-ups look to federations and foundations for funding but don’t want to be associated with federations (too old school for them); federations may support the new start-ups as part of their effort to attract younger donors and be innovative, but resent that the start-ups keep their distance; and family foundations may play in both camps but are seen as unpredictable, and maybe too independent. Meanwhile, these three key groups are interdependent as well at times, relying on each other for funds, ideas and/or credibility. And the dance goes on.”

This delicate dance between federations, family foundations, and start-ups reveals a distressing set of fraught relationships in our community. It is unproductive, and, ultimately, detrimental, for the Jewish community’s different key factions – those with experience, those with money, and those with a pulse on the community’s needs – to be suspicious and resentful of each other, and, simultaneously, to need each other. Is it possible for us to do some communal family therapy?

Ronald Heifetz, in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers, writes about the nature of communities engaged in this type of “dance.” He says:

“Engaged in the dance, it is nearly impossible to get a sense of the patterns made by everyone on the floor. Motion makes observation difficult.”

His suggestion? Let’s all get off the dance floor for a bit:

“To discern the larger patterns on the dance floor – to see who is dancing with whom, in what groups, in what location, and who is sitting out which kind of dance – we have to stop moving and get to the balcony.”

This ability to take a step away from the frenzied momentum of the dance is critical for the health of our community. If the groups about whom Rosenblatt writes continue to be in relationship with one another while harboring stereotypical, resentful ideas about each other, we will continue to dance in circles. It is imperative to create dialogue opportunities amongst members of these groups (perhaps local Conversations, for heads of start-ups, Federations, and Family Foundations?) to address these preconceptions.

In fact, on the Sunday night of the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly last week, just such a conversation took place. It is likely that if individuals from these three arenas were to convene for a more significant period of time to discuss their perceptions of the most pressing needs in today’s Jewish community, and to brainstorm creatively about how to meet them, they would agree more than they would disagree, or, at least, would begin to agree to disagree more productively.

There is no question that the existence of a burgeoning, young, energetic cadre of Jewish social entrepreneurs, eager to create Jewish engagement opportunities outside of existing institutions, is threatening to existing institutions. And there is also no question that the existence of the Jewish Innovation Ecosystem is heartening to Foundations; it marks their success – after all, a new generation of Jews is committed and engaged. Jewish social entrepreneurs will be the first to admit that they have many needs, many of which may be met by these existing institutions – needs for funding, for infrastructure, and for the experience of veteran professionals in the Jewish nonprofit sector.

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, the author of The Particulars of Rapture, in her chapter on Mishpatim, writes: “before the new can come into being, a sense of absence must be recognized.” The challenge we face as a community is to bring our warring factions together. Let them sit together around the same table. Let them acknowledge what is absent, what has been lost with time, what has changed. And then let them begin to dream and build together. They may find that, as T.S Eliot writes in Burnt Nortonofn his Four Quartets, “at the still point, there the dance is…both a new world and the old made explicit, understood…”

Maya Bernstein is Director of Education and Leadership Initiatives at UpStart Bay Area, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose mission is to advance early stage non-profits that offer innovative Jewish engagement opportunities. Maya is an occasional contributor to eJewish Philanthropy.

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Filed Under: The American Jewish Scene, The Blog Tagged With: GA2009

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. William Rapfogel says

    November 20, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    The article is intriguing and the “dance” goes on. But keep in mind that effective and efficient organizations like Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a UJA-Federation of New York affiliate, can serve the tens of thousands who receive food every month, the thousands of crisis intervention clients, thousands living in its affordable housing, and hundreds getting career counseling or job training and so much more…only because of the ongoing commitment made by UJA Federation. Innovative programs such as Met Council’s Handyman repair service and new kosher soup kitchens make profound differences in the quality of life of needy families but don’t seem to generate the same “buzz” at boutique foundations. Yet, young volunteers “get it” and dedicate time and in some cases contribute too. Met Council’s Growth Fund has helped nearly 100 smaller non-profits build capacity and set a road map for the future and our Project Amood develops young leasers in the Russian Jewish community. Buzz-oriented “boutique” foundations need to better understand how important UJA-Federation is to making a difference and need to recognize that much can be done within existing organizations if they look more closely and don’t stereotype the groups.

  2. Bob Hyfler says

    November 20, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    Either because it is too painful or too precise I tend not to be comfortable with the “family” metaphor. However Maya Bernstein’s thoughtful piece points me to think that the “organized comunity” and “foundations” are analogous to a semi estranged couple competing for their “innovative” child. One offers seed funding, operational freedom and unconditional love, the other offers a history of successes and failures to build upon and future sustainable platforms, collaborations and mechanisms for business infrastructure and funding. The irony of course is that down the road today’s young innovator is more likely to inherit in her middle age the assets and challenges of the organized community while foundations, liberated as they are from keeping the trains and buses of organized Jewish life running, move on to kvell over a new generation of grandchildren.

  3. Naava Frank says

    November 20, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    I applaud Maya’s comments. I think as a community we have broken ourselves up in to silos and factions.

    We need to take a step back and look at the potential we have to achieve more by building the system as a whole and working together.

    I believe deeply in the power of ‘conversation’ and the important role of facilitation (note: the Schusterman Facilitation Intensive http://www.leadingup.org/facilitation_intensive). Numerous Federations and Central Agencies for Jewish Education around the country are building their capacity for facilitating conversation.

    Next we need to work on ourselves, to do tzimtzum – (contraction) of our individual egos to develop some space for diverse collective egos.

    Naava

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