B'nai B'rithon the Brink
MAKOVSKY, DAVID
B'NAI B'MIH OH THE BRINK Searhing for a Focus DAVID MAKOVSKY When people talk about B'nai B'rith these days, they usually do so in the past tense. It has chalked up so many achievements in...
...Among the new retail giants is an organization that B'nai B'rith itself created and that used to oe :*s subsidiary—the Anti-Defamation League (ADL...
...In 1986, B'nai B'rith Women (BBW), a separate institutional entity within BBI, threatened to sue BBI for trying to force a merger between the two organizations...
...To BBI's credit, all of its national fundraising goes to its youth programs...
...In some communities abroad, B'nai B'rith is similar to what it was in the U.S...
...According to B'nai B'rith insiders, District Two, based in Cincinnati, and District Seven, headquartered in Houston, are on the verge of bankruptcy...
...Tannenbaum explained that the plaque cost a full one-third of the Century donor's gift...
...1,402 were not...
...It is hoping that a great future-still lies ahead...
...It is difficult to think that one organization can do everything well...
...In the end, it was feared that this would engender such opposition that it would endanger some of the other recommended reforms, so the idea was dropped—at least for the present...
...BBYO is BBI's national high school organization, which serves 35,000 Jewish youth across North America, and seems unaffected by the turmoil at BBI...
...Back in 1843, when the organization was founded by a dozen German Jews in Sinshei-mer's Cafe in New York, the idea was to provide a sense of fraternity by means of local groups...
...Many Hillel directors like working with federations who do not demand that they funnel contributions to a national office, as B'nai B'rith does...
...The B'nai B'rith agenda has not changed in 50 or 60 years, eStcept for band-aid changes...
...In the past, it is said, BBI's motto was that the volunteer was supreme, and the professional was fungible...
...Former BBI president Jack Spitzer used to say at public fundraising gatherings, "I am not asking for you to support any aspect of the program of B'nai B'rith that serves B'nai B'rith members...
...BBI is currently thinking about expanding its involvement in the area of aging, with more counseling to its membership about health care, nursing home options, and the like...
...On Jesse Jackson, Reich probably reflected a mainstream Jewish position when he said, "Until Jackson condemns black bigots, he will not find full acceptance among the Jewish community...
...It has also given some money to B'nai B'rith youth agencies— yet at lower percentage levels than the men...
...Anyone can shop at B'nai B'rith and find something that will fit...
...Today, less than 43 percent of B'nai B'rith lodges actually elect officers and meet regularly...
...A historian by training, Nei-ditch is creating a thriving Jewish educational publishing division amid BBI's woes...
...The deteriorating relations between the two groups came to a head at the recent biennial BBI convention, held in Baltimore...
...The recent convention in Baltimore voted for a new, full-service Institute on Aging, at the same time approving new Mid-Life and Young Adults Institutes...
...B'nai B'rith's new political action department is the major but not the only factor likely to cause friction between ADL and B'nai B'rith...
...At the same time, we saw a rise in Conservative and Reform involvement...
...When Israeli Ambassador to the U.S...
...The end result: BBI now gives both a plaque and a pin...
...The result was the BBI Research and Planning Report, which laid it on the line: B'nai B'rith is moving almost inexorably toward financial disaster . . . The districts are almost uniformly in financial chaos...
...Fewer than a hundred people—out of a 136,000 membership—gave more than $2,500 a year...
...About 60 percent of BBI's revenue comes from its youth services fundraising (most of this collected at a district level with a myriad of quotas), 20 percent from its insurance program, and the other 20 percent from dues...
...Delegates from overseas come to BBI's biennial convention, and provide a sense of k'lal yisrael...
...As the old adage has it, nothing so concentrates the mind as a noose around the neck...
...The Baltimore convention also adopted a policy of asking people to join BBI without joining the anemic lodges...
...He won...
...Enter Seymour Reich from Great Neck, Long Island...
...When asked specifically about the JWB model for Hillel, he said, "This is not out of the question...
...Over the past 15 years, two of Reich's predecessors tried but failed to get the same restructuring proposal accepted...
...Louis, a member of BBI for 25 years and former president of District Two (BBI is divided into seven regional districts), candidly admitted, "I don't seethe lodges as being viable...
...There is less time available for such activities, and people would rather give a donation than give up an evening or a weekend to help a worthy cause...
...A recent survey indicated that many BBI members think part of their dues goes to ADL...
...When it comes to smaller towns and aged Jewish populations, B'nai B'rith leads the pack...
...Some say this will drain support away from the women's organization over time...
...Thursz, who heads the National Council on the Aging, will probably prove especially helpful to BBI in this area...
...It has its ups and downs...
...Other critics are angry because they see B'nai B'rith moving to the right politically...
...Thursz also understood that B'nai B'rith's socio-economic profile was unique in that it consisted primarily of middle-class Jews...
...Divorce seemed imminent...
...B'nai B'rith takes this stand...
...for its part, BBI sends resident scholars to such tiny places as Little Switzerland, North Carolina...
...Half of those who do join are 65 and up...
...The U.S...
...I want us to be a central clearinghouse for high Jewish culture," he says...
...Why aren't you promoting us...
...The one shortcoming of these weekends is the broader BBI problem, the high average age of the participants...
...This entire program costs BBI hardly anything...
...There was a raising of consciousness, and B'nai B'rith was a vehicle...
...Neumann, saying he came to B'nai B'rith to help the organization achieve "primacy, not just survival," says assuredly that he tells potential young leaders that they should "get on the early train...
...It is precisely that image that BBI would like to appropriate...
...B'nai B'rith's national fundraising effort provides an insight into the character of its amcha...
...Tom Neumann, in a private interview, denied that the ad reflects a hawkish tilt (an accusation made by many Hillel directors as well as others...
...Reich admits that the move has involved "some strained feelings," but does not think that it will tear the B'nai B'rith family asunder...
...According to Jordan Tannenbaum, who most recently served as the BBI associate director of development, the average gift—beyond nominal dues—was S18 to $20...
...Yet, now there is a lot of upscale buying, and B'nai B'rith is Sears next to the Bloomingdale's and Saks of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC...
...His mandate had been to centralize the disparate elements of the B'nai B'rith family...
...Historically, the lodge was the core of B'nai B'rith, and it served primarily a social purpose...
...Reich's detractors say that he skipped over in-house people because he didn't want to taint the new leadership with people associated with the old team...
...They organize the retreats themselves with the help of planning manuals...
...Although the results of the new strategy are net yet clear, the Institutional changes have created a stir...
...One ADL staffer, who requested anonymity, commented on BBI's reaction to the AradJackson meeting, relating it to the lack of substance in BBI's new overall strategy...
...Here its aging membership proves to be a plus...
...Reich fiercely denies this...
...Whether the product is Soviet Jewry, Israel, anti-Semitism, civil liberties, cultural programming or Jewish education, younger Jews are finding more sharply defined outlets where they can shop and buy...
...Yet the admission of women has not turned around the image of the lodge...
...In 1969, BBI had about 200,000 members...
...The fact that dues do not go directly to Washington has created some charges that the districts are not forwarding the full amount of dues on a timely basis...
...Klutznick also spoke about the missing fraternal feeling...
...They have paper members...
...all the money comes from HUD...
...Unconvinced, Reich responded, "Welcome back, Abe...
...Under a complex arrangement, dues from the lodges go to the district, and a certain portion go to BBI headquarters...
...He has reprinted the popular "Torah Today" columns of Judaic scholar Pinchas Peli in book form...
...But the fact that B'nai B'rith's troubles had led to a vacuum in the leadership ranks prompted Reich in 1986 to run for international president...
...B'nai B'rith's new political action department is likely to cause friction between AOL and B'nai B'rith...
...BBI, along with other Jewish organizations, is planning to add one building a year to the existing 21, according to Mark Olshan, director of the program...
...Determined to shake up BBI and make it competitive with other Jewish organizations, Reich wants to attract upscale professionals who might otherwise be attracted to the more "glamorous" Jewish organizations (ADL, AIPAC, federations, UJA, etc...
...At this most difficult time in its history, B'nai B'rith is not yet closing shop...
...Other books published range from the autobiography of the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain to a children's book on David Ben-Gurion...
...We have been saluted by the president, Congress, state legislatures, interfaith and civil rights groups across the country...
...People also had different expectations of Jewish organizations, said Phillip Klutznick, honorary president of BBI...
...It is like imposing the Japanese model on the USSR...
...B'nai B'rith looks at Hillel as if nothing has changed...
...There will be no lawsuits this time, nor will BBW move out of the B'nai B'rith house...
...After World War II through the sixties," the amiable Meyers explained, "there was an increase in Jewish population in the U.S...
...Klutznick, who joined B'nai B'rith in Omaha, Nebraska, 64 years ago and went on to become its president from 1953 to 1959, and later U.S...
...Harry Ackerman, a retiree living in Florida and a member of B'nai B'rith for more than 40 years, said at the convention, "If you love B'nai B'rith, love Mr...
...BBW's main purpose, however, is to provide a social outlet for women...
...We are the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith...
...Looking at the profile of his current membership, he adds, "It could be that the community lodge could phase out...
...BBW considers this move a threat to its organization...
...Until now, it has been assumed that B'nai B'rith -would not give Hillel its independence because youth programs are the one achievement to which B'nai B'rith can point with pride...
...It filled a vacuum in the Jewish community, and it broke the self-flagellation of the Jewish community" during the early stages of the Palestinian uprising...
...The ad was gutsy," Neumann said bluntly...
...He sprinkles his words with Yiddishisms, and his emotive speaking style and stocky physical appearance are reminiscent of a guy who can be eating bagels and lox with you on a Sunday morning...
...Stanley Berman, director of fiscal operations, said fiscal 1989 marks the first "non-austerity" budget, with a 6 percent increase towards a total of $15 million...
...For example, the Los Angeles Federation gives about $1 million a year to Hillels on local campuses...
...B'nai B'rith's contribution goes to a national Hillel staff that trains local directors, and helps Hillel in areas where no federation exists, for example, the Binghamton campus of SUNY (State University of New York...
...BBI wanted BBW members under its umbrella with BBW's dues going to BBI...
...Yet, in an interview, Neumann signaled some possible new thinking in B'nai B'rith about this issue...
...it has now given the professional more authority...
...Thursz's internal problems were accompanied by a drop in membership, a drop in fundraising and a drop in young leadership...
...Thursz saw this as a kind of academic arrogance and condescension...
...Reich wanted a new high-powered staff that would give B'nai B'rith a high-visibility public profile on issues that would attract people to join B'nai B'rith...
...Reich wants more forceful advocacy on issues relating to persecuted Jewry...
...One Hillel director said, "The Hillel world has changed everywhere but Washington...
...In a study that cost between $200,000 and $400,000, Ricco brought together a number of "focus groups"—members around the country who talked about B'nai B'rith's problems...
...Yet, Hillel is not the only star in our constellation...
...No more public rending of garments," Neumann added...
...The organization lhal offers substance and opportunity to participate in issue-oriented activity is going to succeed...
...This set it apart from other leading American Jewish organizations that appealed primarily to affluent Jews as the core of their more elite membership...
...Yet part of it is personal...
...Reich candidly admitted, "In the past B'nai B'rith has just given up to others...
...The old days about which Klutznick longingly reminisced, when men liked to socialize with each other at local B'nai B'rith lodge meetings, is now for the most part gone...
...Reich is ebullient...
...The main problem is attracting younger professionals," says Walter LaRaus, the stocky, outspoken director of BBl's northeast region...
...One district has closed three regional offices in the past two years, another has been unable to open a badly needed regional office because it lacks the funds to do so...
...and affiliation with B'nai B'rith...
...The first step in Reich's shake-up was to change its professional leadership...
...He says that he has been attracting members, who pay an unspecified premium to join, and who will get in on the ground floor of B'nai B'rith's revival...
...Reich has just completed his first of two two-year terms, and lie is still restless for change...
...It might be well advised to specialize in the areas where it can do well, rather than try to be an all-purpose "department store...
...We have no problems of identity...
...I say to you that we don't have to brought back, because we never left...
...This mandate, plus the authoritarian style that was called for in getting different BBI entities to sacrifice their autonomy, inevitably led to internal dissension...
...If B'nai B'rilh wants to remain a viable organization, it must meet the needs of the Jewish community...
...Hillel directors, as a consequence, ignored local B'nai B'rith lodges like the plague...
...It is precisely in the area of aging that BBI has an edge over other Jewish organizations...
...Thursz's trouble was compounded by the fact that the B'nai B'rith staff across the country were hired and fired by local and district volunteers...
...With an entrepreneurial spirit, he keeps churning out quality works on a shoestring budget...
...For the moment, B'nai B'rith feels it must compete with—and inevitably duplicate the work of—other Jewish communal institutions...
...Many Hillel directors wish that the national Hillel office would spin off from B'nai B'rith to become an independent national support agency, much like the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) which gives consultations and staff support for Jewish community centers across the country...
...Whether this will work remains to be seen...
...Yet BBW insiders say that they hope that a change of dues will not cut deeply into their organization, and that they expect to continue along parallel tracks...
...Many who attend these conclaves come from areas where there are few Jews and fewer Jewish educational opportunities...
...I am asking that you contribute to the work which Hillel and BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization) perform on behalf of the entire Jewish community for all our young people in and out of B'nai B'rith...
...I think it is a family like any other...
...Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) fully guarantees the loans needed for the project, which, according to federal regulations, is open to all citizens...
...It is a done deal...
...To understand why requires us first to recall the organization's more halcyon days...
...Neumann is expected lo be the locomotive for long-ierm change by leading the organization's professionals in its new look...
...Mariaschin explained the rationale for less emphasis on social service concerns and more focus on politics by saying, "It was natural that B'nai B'rith's grass-roots constituency base would want lo be active in political affairs...
...Mariaschin added, "To attract young leaders today, you have to offer substance...
...BBI, the volunteer organization par excellence, is about to be transformed, as have other American Jewish organizations, so that it will essentially be run by the professionals...
...Jewish organizations have," experienced a boom in the last 20 years, but B'nai B'rith membership has dropped by a third...
...BBI sponsors nearly 3000 apartments for people of lower income in 16 communities across the country...
...Why so little new young blood...
...The lodge would also be a local contact for the weary sojourner and the aspiring businessman...
...Can you take the formula without the infrastructure...
...The boldest diagnosis of BBPs condition was recently published by the organization itself in an internal document prepared for its biennial convention this past September...
...Some will join both...
...You can't just make statements...
...While fundraising for federations and United Jewish Appeal campaigns are humming along with about 6 to 7 percent annual increases, B'nai B'rith's budget in 1987 was less than in 1986 and its 1988 budget was less than in 1987...
...Some insiders have said that a total program package had to be presented in Baltimore to the rank and file even if there were no ready plans to actuate it...
...The rift between B'nai B'rith Women and B'nai B'rith International has deepened in the last four years, and while apocalypse is no longer the question, the bottom line is bad feelings...
...In an effort to cut costs, BBI decided to dispense with plaques and just give lapel pins to Century Club members...
...One clue is suggested by how B'nai B'rith International (BBI) often describes itself: ' 'We are the department store of Jewish life...
...Pivotal 10 Reich's efforts is Tom Neumann, the new executive vice president of BBI...
...Yet it remains unclear how these ambitious new programs will function, given BBI's cash crunch...
...Reich has brought two key ADL staffers with him to help in the transformation...
...Our [ADL's] infrastructure gives us our credibility with the press...
...Secretary of Commerce, explained, ' 'In the past, people didn't have as much information on what was going on in the world...
...Foxman...
...For example, BBI's statement against the anti-Semitic picketing of MCA chairman Lew Wasserman, whose company produced The Last Temptation of Christ...
...Mariaschin is a senior ADL veteran and more recently served as press spokesman for Alexander Haig's shon-lived presidential campaign...
...In 1987, it was down to about 136,000...
...In recognition that more women work now than in the past, many BBW meetings are held at night...
...Foxman sounds and talks like the rank and file...
...If this trend continues, federations will be funding more and more of the Hillel bill...
...Amid all these clouds, there are also some rays of sunlight...
...The Knights of Columbus and the Kiwanis Club are not what they once were...
...The average age is definitely 65 or over," a Georgia leader says...
...Until recently, members of these clubs received a plaque...
...At the recent Baltimore convention, BBI decided—without consulting BBW—to let the dues of women in the units, composed of BBW chapters meeting jointly with BBI lodges, go to the men's organization...
...In education, BBI has something to boast about...
...before World War II—a social society with strict membership requirements including required recommendations in order to join...
...As the report quoted above states, "For almost five years, B'nai B'rith has operated on a standstill, austerity budget, often cutting programs, leaving staff positions unfilled, delaying new projects...
...Why do you speak of a vacuum [that is, the need for BBI political action...
...Members of inactive lodges still pay dues, however...
...While older people still shop at B'nai B'rith, the pivotal younger market is shopping at the boutique specialty stores, not B'nai B'rith...
...To explain how this decline has occurred to the oldest Jewish organization in the United States isn't easy...
...Although it calls itself the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, ADL is already complaining that it receives less space and less attention in BBI publications than Joseph Stalin receives in Soviet encyclopedias...
...Four fundraisers, who did work there, have all left BBI for various reasons in the last year...
...You list all your achievements, but you hardly mention us...
...Many think it will be an uphill batde...
...We are you...
...Sons that I have raised and lifted...
...We hear talk that the ADL has been reined in, and that the ADL must be brought back into the family...
...The truth is that Hillel's needs have outgrown B'nai B'rith's support capacity...
...Reich radiates with pride as he speaks about BBI's new forceful stand on public policy issues...
...is Dan Mariaschin, who will head B'nai B'rith's new political action department...
...Hillel chapters on college campuses throughout the country began receiving more and more of their funding from the better-heeled local federations while a shrinking percentage came from B'nai B'rith...
...BBI even receives some small federal support on a per building basis...
...Michael (Micky) Neiditch...
...One longtime leader said that the new approach was in fact an abdication of B'nai B'rith's historic role that placed social service in the forefront...
...But the threat of a lawsuit was staved off, and reconciliation talks began with an informal body instituted to facilitate communications...
...The local federation with its corporate-style structure, has become the new coordinator of a social service network...
...Federations, through a complex budgeting labyrinth called Large City Budgeting Conference (LCBC), have even funded some of the national Hillel's office operation...
...Perhaps the new institutes will give these "at large" members something to do while affiliating them with a rejuvenated group...
...While other Jewish organizations have moved to greater efficiency and clearer lines of authority, BBI members have fought them...
...On the other hand, he defends the lodge as a source of "tender loving care," citing a lodge in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that provides assistance to the elderly...
...The Research Planning Committee, in a report prepared with the assistance of an organizational consultant, minced no words: Membership has been moving steadily downward since 1969...
...Today, ADL has de facto spun off from B'nai B'rith and found a booming rr.arkei o.i its own at the expense of its parent...
...In the summer of 1987, Thursz was given a golden parachute...
...Reich's second acquisition, also from ADL...
...The financial situation has created a "survivor mentality, which has led to demoralization of staff and volunteer leadership...
...If the revival does occur, it will not be a moment too soon...
...There arc particular issues that impact upon the grass roots, such as Jewish-Catholic relations, black-Jewish ties and anli-Semitism...
...A full-page ad last March in The New York Times reflected the bold new tone...
...B'nai B'rith people cannot say, 'Oh, yeah, we recognize that federations are more involved.' Where have they been...
...he had once headed a B'nai B'rith camp...
...This is a disappointment, and it undermines an agreement made in 1986 by both BBW and BBI," BBW president Hyla Lipsky said after the BBI vote in Baltimore...
...In 1988, according to the BBI membership department, 1,033 lodges were active...
...By and large, however, federations would prefer to support local student programming...
...The type of people who belong to B'nai B'rith, they say, are fundamentally distrustful of a policy that takes day-to-day decision making out of the hands of lay leadership...
...Today, people get more information themselves...
...To remove staff from the supervision of the local volunteer means a definite loss of local control...
...Campus rabbis reacted adversely...
...They pointed to the growing popularity of their budget requests in local communities...
...Hillel is not BBI's only affiliate problem...
...Indeed, in the early drafts of the Research and Planning Report, the districts were to be cut out—with dues to be sent directly to Washington as a means of centralizing control...
...B'nai B'rith income has not kept pace with the needs of its crown jewel—the youth programs in general and Hillel in particular...
...BBI built an international connection and now has 22,000 members in about 40 countries overseas...
...Half of the senior citizens living in the low income units are Jewish...
...B'nai B'rith has also tried to widen its appeal by allowing women to join...
...Neumann formerly served for 11 years as a successful director of ADL in Houston, and more recently, in the ADL national office...
...A hue and cry broke out...
...I want to make B'nai B'rith attractive to those who wish to continue our work," said Reich in an interview in his New York office...
...Moshe Arad recently met with Jesse Jackson, B'nai B'rith criticized the meeting, noting that Jackson has repeatedly declined invitations to address a forum of American Jewish leaders...
...Yet, Berman admitted that fundraising for this year is $800,000 below projected levels...
...Involved American Jews have been to Israel...
...The test of whether B'nai B'rith's new direction is successful may well be whether B'nai B'rith can finally find its own niche...
...B'nai B'rith overseas has a continuing social function...
...Thursz would say with a smile, "B'nai B'rith is amcha" loosely translated as the Jewish In the end, it was Hillel, B'nai B'rith's college programs, that became Thursz's chief nemesis...
...In large part, it was a reaction to the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel...
...He still maintains an honorary position and currently serves as president of the government-funded National Council on the Aging, but he is not part of B'nai B'rith's upper-echelon leadership...
...With BBI now hiring and firing staff, there is new accountability in the system...
...Rabbi Joel Meyers, associate national director of B'nai B'rith, discussed the heyday of B'nai B'rith, the postwar period when there was an influx of Jewish refugees...
...They read the newspapers...
...Yet these institutes still seem far off, their mandates are broad and vague, and there is simply no money...
...Another element of American Jewish institutional success that B'nai B'rith would like to adopt is the concept of a young leadership cabinet, which UJA has used to build an affluent base of committed up-and-coming stars...
...the genre of service organizations has not been a growth industry in the U.S...
...We in B'nai B'rith are proud of the fact that our dues and our insurance program pay for every aspect of the B'nai B'rith program...
...Hillel has an exceedingly complex psychological as well as financial relationship to B'nai B'rith...
...His background was in social work...
...With an increase of two-career families, an organization can no longer be built around volunteers giving generously of their time...
...The other major function that Neiditch's department performs—until now he has been the entire department, but he is slated to get an assistant—is to coordinate the Institutes of Judaism, in which 2,000 BBI members are organized into 26 weekend educational retreats across the country...
...BBW saw this as an attempt to dismantle the women's organization and submerge it into BBI...
...BBI hired a consultant named Frank Ricco to help it assess its shortcomings and to plot its future...
...There is no vacuum, thanks to you...
...It is time for American friends of the Jewish state to stand up and be counted, to assert proudly our identification with her government and her cause...
...They resented the fact that even decisions on such things as conference participation required approval at the very top of national B'nai B'rith's leadership...
...Neiditch has added a complete study guide to accompany the book, which B'nai B'rith has now published in Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch as well as in English...
...Foxman continued, "We are you...
...Now, the funding is federations, 70 percent...
...In fact, Foxman's ADL does have popularity among the BBI rank and file...
...In the end, Thursz received virtually no cooperation from many B'nai B'rith offices around the country...
...Like any aspiring Jewish leader, Reich realized that the fast track was with ADL—not the decaying B'nai B'rith...
...Past direct-mail efforts at fundraising have been unsuccessful...
...At the same time, BBW is hard pressed to see what future avenues of cooperation will be available and what good a reconciliation board will be if BBI acts unilaterally without consultation...
...One observer has hypothesized that this thinking in the past has been related to the socio-economic profile of the membership who are more involved in small business, and feel that BBI should be run in the same hands-on way...
...Based on the general perception of the organization's emergency status and the findings of the Research and Planning Report, which portrayed an organization on the verge of catastrophe, the delegates yielded to a plan that effectively shifts the balance of power within BBI...
...Neumann says that he has begun the task by finding 26 new young leadership cabinet members in three weeks...
...Once in a while, they play cards or bowl together, but it's primarily elderly men who have been socializing together for decades...
...I am not sure...
...The most important achievement in Baltimore, however, was that Reich and Neumann got the gathering to approve a system, which had been defeated repeatedly in the past, that would bring all BBI staff across the country under Neumann's control in Washington...
...One person closely identified with B'nai B'rith for decades commented, "The lodges are a joke...
...Some observers anticipate competing public statements that will sow confusion among B'nai B'rith supporters in the field...
...Three years ago, Hillel campus directors ended up picketing in front of the B'nai B'rith headquarters building on Rhode Island Avenue, N.W., in Washington D.C., in support of their right to form a union to bargain collectively with their employer— BBI...
...This is not the bagel-cutting generation...
...But I think it is a passing phase...
...He speaks up for the Jews...
...B'nai B'rith has become an aged organization...
...They have identified success as standing up and not taking it from anybody...
...BBI's current troubles have caused it to rethink that philosophy...
...Berman said the organization is now dependent upon Neumann, hopeful that he will ' 'provide overall fundraising direction...
...They listened to Washington only when they wanted to...
...While Neiditch is rather self-effacing, his goals are not exactly modest...
...It is this profound difference in membership, perhaps more than any other issue, that gives BBI a distinct set of structural challenges that other Jewish organizations do not have to face...
...It is important to note that membership may be judged like other consumer behavior, and it is therefore correct to surmise that the B'nai B'rith product hasn't excited potential customers . . . All projections indicate a continued and accelerated downward [membership] spiral...
...The friction between BBI and ADL is nothing new...
...There are moments of pride and disillusion...
...Obviously, political actions and communications blend together, with ihc aim of trumpeting B'nai B'rith's message loudly and unequivocally...
...But you can't just make statements, unless you have the research infrastructure...
...Seventy-five years ago, B'nai B'rith created the Anti-Defamation League...
...Leaders of other Jewish organizations privately criticized BBI for not recognizing that Israel must maintain relations with a broad spectrum of American political leaders...
...Although the results of the new strategy are not yet clear, the institutional changes have created a stir on many fronts...
...And they have betrayed me,' " commented a longtime BBI affiliate (Isaiah 1:2...
...Part of it relates to the type of unequivocal stands by ADL that have made BBI want to change gears to emulate it...
...In the growing independence of Hillel, Thursz saw another ADL in the making...
...According to Council of Jewish Federations figures, 10 years ago federations and B'nai B'rith had a 5050 partnership in support of Hillel on campuses across the country...
...Yet there is no celebration in the B'nai B'rith family...
...The ad, headlined "A Message from B'nai B'rith," declared, "Israel today is a nation under siege—by Palestinian Arabs, by a hostile press, by hypocrite governments...
...You have every reason to be proud...
...In the end, the marketplace will judge...
...for quite some time...
...Abraham Foxman, ADL's international director, said in his speech at the convention, "I am perplexed...
...Now is the time to take some of it back...
...Thursz was always proud of the mass character of B'nai B'rith...
...its members came not from the upper crust of American Jewish life, but from ordinary Jews...
...A committed Jew and an articulate Manhattan-based probate lawyer, Reich was a rising star in ADL and served as head of one of its national commissions...
...While there are full-time fundraisers at B'nai B'rith field offices, there is no professional staff attending to fundraising at BBI headquarters...
...It has chalked up so many achievements in American Jewish life, and yet, like a good many of its members, it has entered the twilight years...
...BBI in Washington serves in an advisory capacity to ensure that local B'nai B'rith groups know their responsibilities, and to advise them on financing and on how to deal with the federal bureaucracy...
...They looked to the leader of B'nai B'rith to tell them about Jews and the world...
...Three BBI status groups were created to attract funds— the Century Club ($100-$299), the Covenant Club ($300-$599), and the President's Club ($600-1199...
...The synagogue, once just a place to daven, has become a multipurpose institution with a myriad of wide-ranging programs...
...He proudly points out that BBI recently obtained a gift or 575,000 from Don King, the noted boxing promoter, lo improve black-Jewish relations...
...Of the more than 2,400 lodges, nearly 200 meet together with the chapters of B'nai B'rith Women...
...B'nai B'rith's more public profile has also brought charges that BBI has become trigger-happy with its press releases...
...Community sponsored Jewish community centers, for example—complete with auditoriums, gymnasiums, libraries and the like—provide a level of service B'nai B'rith cannot compete with...
...There is sometimes jealousy and anger...
...Years ago, for example, ADL opened a separate office in Israel, although BBI has its World Center in Jerusalem...
...Every local community in which this program is functioning has its own board of directors...
...Daniel Thursz had served for 11 years as BBI's executive vice president...
...Stuart Raskas from St...
...Another shining star in the BBI constellation is its housing program for the elderly...
...In fact, BBI gives no allocation to ADL, which has a budget almost twice the size of BBI's...
...B'nai B'rith, 30 percent, an increasingly lopsided partnership...
...These local lodges would also provide a hitching post for German Jewish traveling peddlers who were a significant part of the early membership...
...The whole idea of a fraternal organization is no longer in style, and we are trying to adapt to the times...
...Another educational highlight is the continuing Jewish Education Department, headed by Dr...
...BBW's programmatic agenda consists primarily of supporting a children's home in Israel...
...Moreover, rs nai r> nth members are increasingly older...
...At this writing, he is also the front-runner to succeed Morris Abram as chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations...
...He has reprinted B'nai B'rith's Great Book Series of 30 years ago, while updating them with an annotated bibliography...
...Basically, I think B'nai B'rith members are proud of their progeny...
...Neumann is brash and determined lo shake BBT out of the doldrums...
...BBI's decline can also be seen as part of a wider phenomenon...
...Another Hillel director said, "B'nai B'rith might control Saigon, but they don't control the rice paddies...
...Until recently, BBI gave ADL a token SI50,000 contribution each year, but due to BBI's financial difficulties, even this contribution has been discontinued...
...The ADL staffer said that the BBI statement on the Arad-Jackson meeting was wrong: "B'nai B'rith wants to outdo ADL...
...He also stressed that the ad does not take sides on the internal debate going on in Israel...
...Its lecture bureau, based in New York and led by Ruth Wheat, channels prominent Jewish personalities to Jewish communities around the country, and receives very high acclaim from community leaders and lecturers alike...
...he is willing to try-new approaches and pursue new directions...
...The whole idea of a fraternal organiiation Is no longer in style...
...Reich explained that now "women will have a choice on how they wish to affiliate...
...Over the years, as the number of Jews has grown and as their needs have leaped geometrically, a professional response has supplanted much of B'nai B'rith's volunteer lodge apparatus...
...There was little, if any, sanction at the top...
...Yes, Hillel is our crown jewel...
...The organization's financial trends look ominous...
...The issue was financial: Since BBW is in better monetary shape than BBI, the women's group saw it as a potential raid on its treasury...
...Two districts are having difficulty funding current needs, and a third will balance its books with difficulty...
...Other ihan political action, the only other BBI department that has had its budget significantly increased is communications...
...to the outside it will seem as if two B'nai B'rith groups are vying with each other for public attention...
...Now the friction between BBI and ADL will undoubtedly increase...
...Thursz wanted a more quiescent national Hillel office that would do B'nai B'rith's institutional bidding...
...It is currently in desperate straits, and its only hope lies in the fact that its new leadership is painfully aware that it must do something dramatic to stave off a fate worse than death in institutional life—irrelevancy...
...Commenting on his speech in a private interview, Foxman tried to put the institutional relationship in the best light...
Vol. 14 • January 1989 • No. 1
