Hadassah and Young Judaea Israel are determined to paint JAFI as the ‘bad guy’ here. True, JAFI is closing the absorption center, but not before the end of the year. Not only that, they gave over a years’ notice.

What made Hadassah – Young Judaea pull the plug in Arad early. Why when they have known this for about nine months did they wait until the end of June to make decisions that were effective almost immediately, tell the Fall participants, and fire the Arad staff?

Here is what JAFI had to say this afternoon,

Last year the Jewish Agency announced that it was closing its absorption centers in Lod and Arad at the end of 2008;

Lod-because of the down-scaling of aliyah from Ethiopia
Arad-the location was not attractive to olim making the running of the facility financially unfeasible because of the small numbers staying there.

Nevertheless the Jewish Agency was committed to keeping the Arad facility open until the end of 2008 in order to provide for the WUJS Arad program.

WUJS Arad for its own reasons decided not to continue through 2008.

Seems to me, Hadassah – Young Judaea has failed in marketing the program. Will Jerusalem become their golden bullet if it sells itself?

related posts: WUJS Arad Bites the Dust

The Hadassah PR Team Spin

all bolding emphasis is mine