This Week
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Empty Nest
B'nai B'rith searches for a future amid
changes in U.S. Jewish life.
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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hen B'nai B'rith
International activists
gathered this week for a
convention in
Washington, it was the first time in
the 157-year-old organization's history
that the sitting president faced a seri-
ous challenger.
Richard Heideman, the incumbent,
ended up winning by a vote of 236-
111 over Daniel Frank, a vice presi-
dent from Minnesota. But, say many
within the organi-
zation, the mere
fact that he was
challenged was a
sign of grass-roots
dissatisfaction with
this historically
notable but long-
troubled institu-
tion.
A Washington
lawyer and former
Detroiter,
Heideman has
overseen major
budget cuts during
the past two years.
His zeal for change
— particularly a
failed effort earlier Richard Heideman
this year to form a
partnership
between the B'nai B'rith Youth
Organization and the Jewish
Community Centers of North
America — has rankled many mem-
bers.
It is hardly news that B'nai B'rith
— buffeted simultaneously by Jewish
assimilation and Americans' shrinking
interest in membership organizations
— is sharply declining in the United
States, although membership in the
other 157 countries where B'nai B'rith
exists has remained fairly stable.
Adult membership in the United
States is now slightly more than
100,000, less' than a third of what it
was 20 years ago.
Painful Reshaping
Other American Jewish membership
organizations have also seen drops in
"Healthy Kids Are Happy Kids"
the membership rolls. But serious
financial problems and a lack of clarity
about its mission have compounded
B'nai B'rith's woes.
For years, B'nai B'rith leaders were
accused of ignoring the problems and
allowing a multimillion-dollar deficit
to accumulate. Now its leaders are
addressing the financial challenges. In
the past two years, $4 million has been
cut from the now $13.5 million budg-
et, and staff has been reduced from
275 to 225.
Under the previous president, the
group altered its national infrastruc-
ture, replacing a
network of seven
districts with a sys-
tem of 18 regions.
But the various
changes have fueled
discontent among
some longtime
members.
Meyer Rosenthal,
a former district
president in New
Jersey, said the
regions "don't have
the respect or com-
munications of the
local leaders" and
that "local people
feel disenfran-
chised."
Founded as a
men's fraternal
organization in 1843, B'nai B'rith is
one of America's oldest Jewish organi-
zations, and consists of a network of
"lodges" — local groups of people
who get together to socialize, volun-
teer and raise money for charitable
causes.
That sort of group has gone out of
fashion, however. -
In recent decades, said Jonathan
Sarna, a professor of American Jewish
history at Brandeis University, "the
most successful organizations have
been single-issue organizations," such
as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and
the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, because -people know
,
what they are giving to.
B'nai B'rith is certainly not a single-
issue organization. Ask a member
what the organization does, and he or
she will talk about its youth group,