Wanted: A New Agency

Jaffe, Eliezer

WANTED: A NEW AGENCY In one expert's view, it's a delusion to think the Jewish Agency can spend our philanthropic dollars wisely or well—so it's time for a change. How much influence do American...

...The plain fact is, of course, that the politicization of the structure guarantees the politicization of the function...
...The central and most serious error of American philanthropists and UJA leaders is the delusion that a politicized World Zionist Organization, Zionist Congress and Jewish Agency can produce "appropriate, efficient and effective expenditure of monies collected...
...For the ten consecutive past years, the UIA obtained grants from the American government to aid in the resettlement of Soviet and Eastern European Jews in Israel, for a total of $240,615,000...
...This benevolent tolerance of the intrusion of Israeli politics into the distribution of American Jewish philanthropy represents an irresponsibility and a defeatism totally unbecoming of Diaspora leadership...
...rationalized as an inevitable reflection of the larger political environment in Israel...
...Such attacks, he believes, feed into the disposition of many American Jewish philanthropists who hope to change the allocation of the philanthropic dollar, keeping more of it for communal needs in America, sending less on to the United Jewish Appeal and eventually to Israel...
...The purposeful blurring of welfare work with Zionism is detrimental to both welfare work and Zionism...
...Beyond the deep emotional tie, the content of this relationship is overwhelmingly financial...
...The least that American and other diaspora Jews can do is to run their philanthropic affairs more responsibly, and use their considerable resources in a more sophisticated and innovative manner...
...For fiscal 1983, the Agency has requested a total of $282 million from the UJA-UIA, as well as funds for Project Renewal ($21 million in 1982), the Israel Education Fund ($5.9 million in 1982) and the Debt Retirement Program ($44.6 million in 1982...
...And this in the one sphere of activity...
...How much influence do American Jews have over the way their philanthropic dollars are spent in Israel...
...Despite the rhetoric of Jewish Agency officials, it is not "Zionism" that is at issue here at all, nor even Jewish "commitment...
...You know very well," he concluded, "that many of us are trying in our own way to break down the bureaucratic walls...
...Yet, incomprehensibly, the UIA has only 30 percent representation on the Jewish Agency Assembly and Board of Governors, and only three representatives—out of 13—on the Jewish Agency Executive...
...In dollar terms, the UJA-UIA alone provided $2,857,752,000 to the Jewish Agency in the course of the last eleven years— more than 65 percent of the Agency's operating budget...
...Perhaps the best current example of how this works out in the real world and of the difficulties American leaders encounter when they do try to "break down the bureaucratic walls" has to do with Project Renewal...
...Perhaps Project Renewal should, indeed, become a government rather than an agency enterprise...
...Even if we accept the unacceptable equation of Zionism with fundraising and philanthropy, such a Zionism does not justify utter passivity with regard to issues of fiscal responsibility, accountability, efficiency and morality...
...Committee...
...A good friend of mine, a former chairman of Project Renewal and now General Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal in a large eastern metropolis in the United States, wrote to me recently complaining about the persistent attacks on the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Congress...
...But unfortunately, the Jewish Agency and its parent body, the World Zionist Organization, are highly politicized institutions...
...In essence, therefore, the agreement consigns the Jewish Agency to the role of conduit for funds, and restricts it from meaningful involvement in policy formation or administration, by barring it from direct relationships with the neighborhood steering committees...
...These comments summarize in a nutshell the dilemma, the bewilderment and the essential powerlessness of many relatively sophisticated givers when it comes to their relationship with Israel...
...Whoever agreed to such meager representation for such a major "stockholder" shares much of the blame for the diminished responsibility and accountability to American donors...
...That is why I think the time has come for the fundraisers to develop and establish new mechanisms for spending their money in Israel...
...Actually, the "shares" of the American Jewish community in the Jewish Agency are even more formidable than the figures suggest...
...The Americans have accepted this arrangement because they have chosen to interpret the problem paternalistically, defining it as a product of "Israeli bureaucracy" rather than as a struggle over social policy, control over the use of massive philanthropic funds, and, ultimately, political power in Israel...
...The issue here is that American Jewish leadership has neglected its responsibility to its own constituents...
...Of course, he admitted, changes are needed in the way the Agency is managed...
...In fiscal 1982, UIA support for programs in Israel amounted to $298 million...
...And the final insult to the unknowing American and other diaspora fundraisers is found in paragraph 15 of the agreement, in which the Ministry of Housing and the Jewish Agency signers sum up the whole spirit of the agreement, that "Jewish communities will have no veto power on decisions of the Local Steering Committees which have been authorized by the Interministeria...
...Jaffe is Associate Professor of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
...Weeks later, when Jerold Hoffberger, Chairman of both the UIA and of Project Renewal, finally read a copy of the agreement, he rejected as absurd any notion of denying Americans veto power concerning the use of their Renewal funds...
...Its core is the response of American Jews to the pleas of the Israeli Government and of the Jewish Agency, which is the major recipient of tax-deductible philanthropy for Israel...
...Dare they, perhaps, rely on themselves...
...The result of these two meetings—which were held with neither the participation nor even the knowledge of any American connected with Project Renewal—was an agreement whose effect was to place Project Renewal under the control of the Ministry of Housing...
...Given the potential power the American Jewish community might wield, its fatalistic and passive approach to the question of politics in the Agency's functions is incredible...
...These, he said, "have not helped me in my present capacity"—that is, in his fundraising efforts...
...Since so large a portion of the Agency budget derives from the UJA, it is appropriate that the UJA (and UIA) be held accountable for the efficient and effective expenditure of funds by the Agency...
...The UJA at present transfers its Israel-bound funds to its principal beneficiary, the United Israel Appeal (UIA...
...That politiciza-tion has not only been tolerated by UJA donors...
...That is not the issue here...
...it has been explicitly Dr...
...These Federal funds account for nearly seven percent of the total Agency budget...
...Project Renewal, which was to have been a showcase of serious and mature involvement by Diaspora communities in the philanthropic work their dollars support...
...My friend then went on to write that "the Agency is a miniaturized stereotype of the whole Israeli scene, and for it to be any other way it would have to operate in a vacuum or be directed entirely by non-Israelis...
...The Jewish Agency representatives also agreed that "the Jewish Agency will not establish a planning section and will not appoint evaluation teams for Project Renewal...
...The net effect of the agreement, negotiated and approved without the knowledge of relevant Americans, was the relegation of the donors to third-class status...
...Income from the UJA comes to 87.5 percent of UIA's funds...
...The Jewish Agency was relegated to such functions as "contact with Jewish communities abroad and responsibility of dealing with the twinned communities," "responsibility for activities abroad such as campaigns and public relations," "decisions on twinning relationships," "allocation of approved projects to be adopted by the (diaspora) communities," *\esponsi-bility and supervision of volunteers," and "monitoring and reporting on progress of projects to the communities abroad...
...They cannot rely on the Jewish Agency, which is inescapably a reflection of Israeli political arrangements, nor, for the same reason, on the World Zionist Organization and the World Zionist Congress...
...How much power do their leaders have...
...In December, on the eve of the World Zionist Congress, two meetings were held between representatives of the Ministry of Housing (including Minister David Levy, Moshe Katzav and Daniel Shimshoni) and representatives of the Jewish agency (including Chairman Arye Dulzin, Akiva Lewinsky and Yechiel Admoni...
...And income from the UIA, in turn, is the major source—more than 60 percent—of the Jewish Agency's annual operating budget...
...The American Jewish donor gives his money to his local federation, which transmits the Israel-bound dollars to the United Jewish Appeal...
...For decades, it has played along with Israeli demands to give money but not to get involved in its disbursement...

Vol. 8 • April 1983 • No. 4


 
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