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 It is said these large organizations and others like them are at the doorsteps of obsolescence and they are outdated infrastucture for a time that has passed.
I believe, however, these organizations are too big to fail and that the support they need is not from the government, but from all of us.
Now to be clear, these organizations suffer from deficiencies that need prompt remediation. But like the financial systems that are essential to the endurance of an efficient economy, these Jewish organizations serve important roles in the maintenance and endurance of strong Jewish communities. Their history alone does not require their continued existence, but the legacy of their successes should give us pause before we cast these organizations off to the bookshelves of Jewish history. Billions of dollars raised by Federations and millions of olim assisted by the Jewish Agency have helped transform Jewish life in Israel and in communities around North America in a magnitude that cannot be quantified. Also, we often say that if these organizations did not exist, we would need to recreate them, subtly recognizing that their shortcomings should not override the merit of their continued existence.
But just as status does not equal merit, existence does not equal success. While these organizations may be too big for us to allow them to fail, disputing and denying their shortcomings will not help in renewing them for the next Jewish century. The missions encompassed by their initial development may still be sound – but the environments in which they pursue their vision have changed. With respect to Federations, while the amount of communal need has not diminished the impact of communal giving, the demand for philanthropic choice has increased the need for organizational flexibility. And with respect to the Jewish Agency, core aspects of the role it must fill have changed; Aliyah has become an evolutionary project not just an existential one and the need for the Agency to play a role in building the social capacity of the Jewish State should now be on par with its other historic roles. Yes, they may be too big too fail, but they cannot be to small-minded in redefining what success looks like.
In their influential study on the lifecycle of organizations, Danny Miller and Peter Friesen categorized troubled organizations with similar characteristics. While our large Jewish organizations might have aspects of all of the archetypes, perhaps the most fitting is the ‘Stagnant Bureaucracy’. In that state, the organization has ossified to a point where it is neither receptive nor responsive to changing dynamics around it and where the weight of its own organizational infrastructure make it less likely to adequately adapt. These characteristics do not mean the essential purpose of the organization is outdated, but they do make a clear case that the strategic and tactical approaches taken by the organization must be updated. Organizations, however, cannot update themselves. The success of their ability to change requires committed and visionary leadership as well as the prodding and patient constituents; in other words, it requires all of us.
So as we embark on this next great chapter of Jewish organizational life, we should remember there are organizations that are too big to fail. It is not the size of their payrolls that make them so, but it is the size of the ideas they embody. And in a world where the smallest and most instantaneous message can often be the most impactful, we should not underestimate the potential impact of the renewal of our largest and most enduring organizations on the success of our collective Jewish future; a future that is also too big to fail.
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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Seth, As usual you write a thoughtful piece which challenges your readers and the organizations you support. I agree with the latter part of your post more than the first part. I don’t think the issue is the size of the organization which matters but the role it plays in the life of a community. If one looks at Jewish history, one sees a constant reshuffling of what is central and what is niche. Niche doesn’t mean small – it means that it plays a defined [often indispensable] role in the life of a community, but not necessarily the central one.
I don’t know what the Federation system will look like 10 or 20 years from now but my guess is that it will be an indispensable node in the complex of Jewish life, but not necessarily the central institution. After all, the federation system only became the central address after 1967 [for all sorts of reasons]. Before then, no one assumed or treated it as THE central planning address or funding address. Or take the example of B’nai B’rith: There was a time when B’nai B’rith was the largest organization in Jewish life, considered by politicians the central address of world Jewry. That organization continues to this day, and does fine work, but no one considers it the central address. After emancipation in Europe, governments helped build central synagogues and recognized central spokesgroups – most of those institutions still exist today but few play the same dominant or unchallenged role. And these examples are just suggestive of many, many more.
It is not historically or inherently obvious that the only way to provide for a thriving Jewish community in the 21st century is through sustaining the large organizations of the last 1/3 of the 20th. Maybe so, but probably not. There are so many changes that to assume that the status quo ante should define the future is a problematic proposition. I don’t diminish that we are undergoing and observing changes in Jewish organizational life which are wrenching, and that any change has costs and losses. But if it turns out that the Jewish world chooses to vote with its feet and dollars and we find that smaller, targeted responses to the variety of Jewish needs and interests define this century, I am not convinced that our community cannot or will not thrive. The large organizations may re-invent themselves, they may decide to spin off some operations, they may decide that targeted subsidiaries will be more effective, government support may obviate the need for certain services… who knows? But to assume that ‘thrival’ depends on their survival is an interesting leap which only time will prove or disprove.
This strikes me as an instance of “eilu ‘v’eilu.” What I read in Seth’s post is that federations and the Jewish polity for which, in Dan Elazar’s terms, they serve as the “framing institutions” have performed some vital functions which may be important to maintain and renew, even in today’s world. I think that’s true. The capacity to aggregate resources and act in the name of the “community” (semi-fictive though it may be) to address major historic challenges is one we should not lightly dismiss as passe. Similarly, federations’ ability to sustain a broad infra-structure of organizations and services that meet a wide range of needs, some glamorous, some less so, is one that the best of today’s innovative start-ups may one day value. However, as Rick argues, it is by no means a given, that federations – at least as we have known them – represent the only way to carry these functions (and the values they embody) forward. The challenge federations face is to show that they are indeed still capable of doing what they once did in today’s very different climate and culture. Like Seth, I’m prepared to give federations the benefit of the doubt, rather than simply write them off as hopelessly antiquated. But, I also want to remain open to new organizational forms that may emerge to do some of the things that federations have done, and perhaps others that they haven’t. Some of these new forms may evolve from federations themselves as they embrace change and risk. Some may evolve from the innovation sector as it matures and addresses the challenges it will inevitably face in broadening engagement, building financial resources, coordinating efforts, and achieving sustainability. Perhaps the two will even find a meeting ground and co-create the next iteration of Jewish community. In the end, what I believe Seth, Rick, and I all agree on is that if federations are to be vital elements in the 21st century Jewish community it will be because they do not view their continued existence as a given, but rather the product of their successful transformation.