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Unity Campaign
Needs Lift

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN
Special to The Jewish News

t has been almost a year since the
United Jewish Appeal kicked off a
.
\_ j special fund-raising campaign to
benefit the Reform, Conservative
and Orthodox movements in Israel.
Today, so much tension and confu-
sion surrounds it that an emergency
meeting has been called to straighten
things out.
UJA leaders have invited Reform and
Conservative officials to a special meet-
ing on Aug. 3 at the new headquarters
• of the recently merged UJA-Council of
• Jewish Federations to try to clarify mis-
understandings that mostly have played
out as vituperative comments about
each other in Jewish newspapers and
magazines.
The Orthodox Union, which is
modern Orthodoxy's representative in
the special supplemental campaign, was
not invited because the meeting will
\__Th focus on concerns raised solely by the
• liberal movements, said Bernie
Moscovitz, executive vice president and
chief executive officer of UJA.
The special initiative, dubbed by
many the "unity campaign," emerged
last year out of concern that anger with-
in the liberal movements over what
many non-Orthodox Jews see as official
religious intolerance in Israel could trig-
• ger a backlash against the philanthropic
campaign run by UJA and local federa-
tions nationwide.
They were also concerned that the
movements would try to divert Israel-
directed funds from the central fund-
raising establishment and raise money
for their own institutions in Israel.
The campaign, which was supposed
to target special gifts above and beyond
regular contributions, looked at the
start not only like damage control, but
like a win-win proposal for all the par-
ties involved.
But now officials of both UJA and
the religious movements say they are
frustrated, angry and tired of the other
side painting them as bad guys.
UJA fund raising, up nearly 10 per-
cent over this time last year, "hasn't
been this good for 25 years, and we're
out there fending off the bullets with
shields because something needs to be
wrong all the time," said Moscovitz.
At the same time, leaders of the

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Detroit Jewish News

7/31
1998

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