This Week

Backing For Birthright

Federations also approve more local say in overseas spending.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Birthright's three prime supporters and
decision makers.

New York

Locals Sign Up

T

The Israeli government pledged $70
million in April and 14 philanthropists,
including co-founders Michael
Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman, have
pledged a total of $70 million.
Of the 189 federations belonging to
the UJC, 118 — including all the
large and intermediate federations —
have so far agreed to help support
Birthright financially, the
UJC's chief executive
officer, Stephen
Solender, said at last
Friday's news brief-
ing.
Birthright sent
6,000 young adults
— mostly college
students — to
Israel last winter
and 2,000 more
this spring.
The enthusi-
asm surround-
ing the winter
launch has widely
been credited with building
support in the federation system, which
initially had some misgivings about the
program. Some feared that the program
would interfere with their own local
Israel programs, while others wondered
how effective a 10-day program would

JULIE WIENER

he North American Jewish
federation system has voted
to become a full partner in
an international program
that sends young Jewish adults on free
10-day trips to Israel.
The United Jewish Communities'
decision to sign onto Birthright Israel
came at a June 15 meeting in
Chicago, where the organization also
formally approved its $41.7 million
budget and agreed that local federa-
tions could have slightly more say in
how their funds are spent overseas.
Leaders of the UJC, formed last
year from the merger of the United
Jewish Appeal, the Council of Jewish
Federations and United Israel Appeal,
announced the decisions at a news
conference on June 16.
The UJC, which announced in
April that it would likely contribute
$39 million to Birthright, has in fact
committed $52.5 million over the
next five years, including $7.8 million
in 2001.
Together with central Jewish fund-
raising entities from diaspora commu-
nities outside North America —
which are expected to commit an
additional $17.5 million — the UJC
will join 14 individual philanthropists
and the Israeli government as

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TER

6/23

2000

20

he`Reform movement's
arm is urging Reform Jews to
"reconsider our giving patterns" by not
increasing gifts to federations and
directing those funds instead to organi-
zations in the United States and Israel
that actively support religious pluralism.
The call, by Rabbi Paul Menitoff,
the top professional at the Central
Conference of American Rabbis,
comes as the Jewish federations' cen-
tral fund-raising system is seeking to
increase funding for overseas needs.
Stephen Solender, the chief executive
officer of the United Jewish

be in accomplishing its goal of enhanc-
ing Jewish identity.
In other business at last week's
Chicago meeting, the UJC approved
its 2000-01 budget, which represents
a $4.4 million cut from what its pre-
decessor organizations spent before
merging.
The UJC's revenues come from
dues of its member federations as well
as 11 percent taken off the top of fed-
erations' overseas allocations.
The new budget includes
a 19 percent cut to the organi-
zation's regional offices,
which are expected to
lay off 15 employ-
ees, or approxi-
mately 25 per-
cent. Although
small- and inter-
mediate-sized fed-
erations have
voiced concerns
about the cuts,
UJC officials say
they will be offset
by plans to deliver
services in new,
more efficient ways.

Spending Rules

The UJC's Board of Trustees also
approved the recommendations of the
newly formed Overseas Needs
Assessment and Distribution (ONAD)

: .

mmunmes, e national umbrella of
federations, called Menitoff's statement
"shocking." He said that such a strategy
would be a "wrong move, and the wrong
people will get hurt — people who need
to be rescued around the world."
In a strongly worded column circulat-
ed this week in CCAR's newsletter,
Menitoff wrote that the UJC has "all but
excluded the religious movements" from
its governance structure and has "shown
little interest in issues of pluralism."
The column urges Reform rabbis
to ensure that they and their col-
leagues from other streams of Judaism

Committee.
That committee, composed primar-
ily of representatives from 18 U.S. fed-
erations, called on federations to
increase their overseas giving. The
bulk of the $237.7 million allocated
last year went to help needy Jews
around the world, to bring new immi-
grants to Israel and to settle them in
the Jewish state.
For the first time ever, federations
will be able to choose where 10 per-
cent of their overseas allocations go,
but the choice will be limited to pre-
approved projects offered by the feder-
ation system's longtime overseas part-
ners, the Jewish Agency for Israel and
the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee.
Federations that increase their over-
seas allocations from what they gave in
1998 could, under the plan, designate
more than 10 percent into the choice
projects, called "community" funding.
ONAD has included in those fund-
ing choices available to individual fed-
erations:
• Feeding elderly Jews in the former
Soviet Union, for which $10 million is
sought;
• A variety of programs for new
immigrants in Israel, for which $27
million is sought;
• Funding Israeli shlichim, or emis-
saries, who do Israel programming in
U.S. communities, for which $1.2
million is sought; and

\

work with local federations to develop
an "equal partnership."
"Synagogue Jews constitute the
majority of donors to federations," he
said. "We need to make certain that
they put the word 'pluralism' in the
UJC vocabulary"
Menitoff's column calls on Reform
Jews to continue supporting federa-
tion campaigns, but says that "instead
of automatically increasing annual
federation gifts, we and our people
should channel those dollar increases,
and additional funds" to Reform insti-
tutions in the United States and Israel.

It also supported p an rop iessuch
as the New Israel Fund that not only
take us and pluralism seriously, but
also disseminate funds to causes in
Israel that most of us support."
In the fall of 1997, when the reli-
gious pluralism controversy heated up
in Israel, Reform and Conservative
rabbis across the country hinted they
would use their High Holiday ser-
mons to urge that contributions be
directed to their movements.
To avert that threat, the federations
launched a special "unity campaign" to
raise $10 million for Reform,

