Tuesday, June 9, 2015

THE HOUSTON FLOODS -- JFNA FUTILITY IN MICROCOSM

You belong to a federated community that has paid millions in Dues to JFNA since the merger that created it. You confront a disaster -- heretofore unheard of communal flooding that has impacted the Jewish community, its neighborhoods, synagogues and institutions in unheard of ways. You see that JFNA has opened a Mailbox only weeks before for relief after the tragic overwhelming earthquake(s) in Nepal and had once offered professional leadership after the Katrina disaster struck New Orleans in 2005.

So what did Houston and JFNA do after the floods? Some history is in order:

  1. Hurricane Katrina brought out some of the best in JFNA (and some of the worst -- even though JFNA senior professionals on the scene received  Rabbinic clearance to deliver a Torah to the community on Shabbat the then JFNA CEO threatened the firing of any JFNA professional who did so based upon what he claimed was the advice from his personal Rabbi) -- senior professional leaders on the ground like Gail Hyman and Howard Feinberg worked in partnership with a local community under siege. By 2008, both Hyman and Feinberg had left JFNA.
  2. Working with her lay leadership, Board Chair Kathy Manning, but without the requisite staff, pushed her Executive Committee to a significant emergency grant in response to the 2008 Hurricane Ike which struck Houston and other Texas communities full force.
  3. Fast forward to May 2015. The torrential rains produced epic flooding in Houston (and Dallas and elsewhere in Texas). JFNA responded, to its credit, immediately, with a $25,000 allocation advocated not by the Chair of the Executive as in 2008 but by CEO Jerry "How-Did-I-Come-Up-With-This-Number?" who may or may not have advised the Executive Committee after the fact. $25,000 represented a fraction of the need in Houston.
  4. There are no longer senior JFNA professionals competent to partner with a federation in the midst of a disaster unlike the case in 2005. They can collect the facts and express concern but JFNA no longer has the capacity to even pretend to act as the epicenter of overall Jewish community emergency response as might have once been the goal. But, then again, the JFNA of 2015 is no longer anything more than a trade association masquerading as the central address of Continental Jewish communal life (gets you an invite to the White House though).
  5. And, so...
              ~ Houston opened its own Emergency Fund "publicized" as it were 
                 in FedWorld by JFNA; and
              ~ The Houston Federation reached out and brought Howard Feinberg
                 in to work with its local leadership in meeting the needs created by
                 this crisis -- yes, the senior professional that JFNA no longer "needs"      
              ~ Howard took a brief leave from his important work for WorldORT to 
                 assist Houston.

Best I can tell, JFNA -- an organization that fails us at every turn -- did so again. At its Board meeting, JFNA heard an excellent report about what the Houston Federation did and is doing -- JFNA did send that $25,000 (that's your money) and was thanked profusely by Houston's Board Chair -- the federation "system" had "raised" $75,000 as at June 1 as individual federations committed dollars directly to the Houston Federation Fund.

Please contribute to assist the Houston Federation at www.houstonjewish.org/houstonflood

Rwexler          


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something is amiss here. I was at the JFNA Board meeting last week. I heard the JFNA Chair of Disaster Relief seem to suggest that JFNA did more than merely send a check. I heard the Houston Federation Chair thank JFNA for all of its help. Is this just "reading the script?" Doesn't JFNA have staff that could or should be on the scene providing the direct assistance that Howard Feinberg once did? Are we now at the point where we send JFNA checks that total $30 or $40 million and then have to contract separately for disaster assistance, FRD guidance and the like? And, now that Becky Sobelman-Stern has left do we have to hire consultants to work through merger matters and communal consulting matters? This organization has reached the point of no return whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

Richard, you don't take into account that JFNA's budget has been "flat for the last several years". Even with the meager increase in dues this year, the organization is dreadfully constrained. If, lets say, the budget went to $42 or $48 million than now we're talking! With this, FedWorld would not only showcase the mailbox of disasters, but provide live video footage. The timing couldn't be better. With Sandler aka Sanderson coming in, videos should be a given since that is that Federations principal platform. Fiction portrayed as real life. We're doomed!

Anonymous said...

Hard to tell if the second anon is speaking tongue in cheek. I wouldn't have used "flat budget" I would have used "bloated" budget. Furthermore the organization is not constrained because of the budget but rather because of its leadership both lay and professional. To the first anon, Of course on call JFNA would not say that ORT had to loan Feinberg to Houston, which I assume they were thrilled to do. It is also completely consistent with prior behavior that JFNA would take lots of credit beyond what they did.

RWEX said...

I believe you are all correct.

Anonymous said...

You can't mention Katrina without mentioning the work Jerry Rosen did down there. The consummate mensch--went far beyond his proscribed duties in the stricken areas.

RWEX said...

any thanks. My error completely -- Jerry is one of the best. It seems that so many of the best at JFNA, who were committed by action and passion to serve our communities and the Jewish People, are no longer there, doesn't it? I shall never forget them; neither should any of us.

Anonymous said...

And don't forget the work that Eric Stillman did operating out of Houston and also Lee Wunsch and the Houston community who all pitched in with such incredible support.

Anonymous said...

And don't forget the work that Eric Stillman did operating out of Houston and also Lee Wunsch and the Houston community who all pitched in with such incredible support.

Anonymous said...

The point seems to be that all those who worked on disaster relief for JFNA in the past are gone -- gone on to other organizations which value their service as JFNA did not -- leaving jana under its current leadership with no ability but to dole out dollars raised by someone else, at another time. And that leadership is again crying "poor" -- that it lacks the funds to accomplish the goals set for it when it has demonstrated no ability to accomplish a single goal. It's laughable but these pleas are lapped up by the JFNA Chair and his Board as if they had some legitimacy when they have no legitimacy whatsoever.