New Priority

North American olim landing. atBen-Gurion
Airport were a less-frequent sight in recent years.

Jewish identity becomes the new focus
of the Jewish Agency.

RACHEL POMERANCE

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

North America, which provide more
than half of the Jewish Agency's $290
million budget
The contours of the strategic plan
— and budget decisions to match it
— were expected to be mapped out
this week at the group's board of gov-
ernors meeting in Jerusalem. In addi-
tion to strengthening Jewish identity,
the plan calls for continued focus on
immigration and absorption as well as
fostering the involvement of diaspora
Jews in Israel.
Last year, 22,000 immigrants arrived
in Israel. While Jewish Agency officials
point out that that number represents
a considerable increase from aliyah
rates in the 1980s, it is a major slide
from the 1990s when, after the fall of
the Iron Curtain, 80,000 to 90,000
emigrants from the former Soviet
Union arrived in Israel each year.
But agency officials say that despite
the decrease in aliyah, absorption costs
have risen due to the immense needs
of new Ethiopian immigrants. Now,
the Jewish Agency is preparing to
manage the expedited aliyah of some
20,000 Falash Mura — Ethiopian
Jews whose ancestors converted to
Christianity but who have returned to

W

ith immigration to Israel
down, the Jewish Agency
for Israel is shifting its prior-
ities in an attempt to maintain its rele-
vance — and its funding from North
American Jewry.
Long focused primarily on aliyah and
absorption, the agency is poised to put
into action a strategic plan that lists
strengthening the Jewish identity of
young Jews around the world as one of
its top priorities. To that end, it plans to
devote more resources to Zionist educa-
tion and youth programming in Israel.
Positioning itself as something of a
rescue operation in the fight for Jewish
continuity, the agency said in its plan,
which was approved last fall: "Without
focused and dramatic intervention,
further decline is certain. Jewish-
Zionist education is a front-line
response in a battle we simply cannot
afford to lose."
That battle cry fits neatly with a top
concern of many Jewish communities
worldwide, particularly in the highly
intermarried Jewish communities of

TUC Assessed

New study on UJC merger prompts debate.

TOM TUGEND

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Los Angeles
merican Jewish leaders who
created the United Jewish
Communities umbrella organ-
ization out of three separate agencies
in 1999 are largely frustrated and dis-
appointed by the outcome of their
labor, according to a new study.
The two-year "From Predictability
to Chaos? How Jewish Leaders
Reinvented Their National Communal
System" found that some top leaders of
the Jewish federation system felt they
had missed the chance to form a truly
representative and forward-looking
voice for American Jewry.

A

2/24
2005

26

Among the apparent losers in the
merger, according to the study, are Israel
and overseas beneficiaries of the federa-
tion fund-raising system, as well as rab-
binical, intellectual and Zionist segments
of the American Jewish community.
Howard Rieger, who took over as
president and CEO of the UJC last
Sept termed the study "construc-
tive and useful," but questioned some
specific points and recommendations.
UJC and federation leaders from
around the country were slated to
discuss the study in New York with
its two authors, Gerald Bubis and
Steven Windmueller, respectively
founding director and current direc-
tor of the School of Jewish
Communal Service at Hebrew Union

0

r .

.

New York

0

Jewish practice.
After a meeting with Jewish Agency
officials Jan. 31, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon announced that Israel
would double the rate of Ethiopian
immigration to 600 per month, which
would complete the group's aliyah by
2007. It will cost $10 million per year
for the next three years to run the
compounds housing the Falash Mura

in Ethiopia, agency officials said.
Absorption of the Falash Mura in
Israel will cost the agency some .800
million, most of which will be shoul-
dered by Israeli taxpayers, said Sallai
Meridor, chairman of the Jewish
Agency's executive.
About $20 million of the Jewish
Agency's budget is spent on the 7,000
Falash Mura still living in absorption

College-Jewish Institute of Religion
in Los Angeles.

The three constituent organizations in
the merger were the Council of Jewish
Federations, which focused mainly on
serving the needs of 229 North
American communities with federations
and social welfare funds; the United
Jewish Appeal, which oversaw fund-rais-
ing, mainly through the federation sys-
tem, for Israel and overseas needs; and
the United Israel Appeal, which moni-
tored and distributed funds for Israel by
way of the Jewish Agency for Israel and
monitored U.S. government allotments
for refugee resettlement.
While praising the dedication and
good intentions of the organizational
leaders, "the study reveals a tale of
unclear expectations, unshared
visions, mixed motivations and multi-
layered power games," the authors say
in the report.
Toting up perceived "winners" and
"losers" in the merger, the study cites
local federations as coming out on
top, with executives of large-city feder-

Streamlining

The study is based on written responses
and in-depth interviews with 88 "stake-
holders," mostly men and women
involved in the merger, augmented by
other prominent Jewish personalities.
As the study describes, attempts to
combine the alphabet soup of
American Jewish fund-raising and
communal institutions date back more
than 60 years. It took seven years of
discussion To establish the UJC.
The merger represented the largest
20th-century effort of its kind in the
American nonprofit sector, and the
"most significant institutional trans-
formation in modern Jewish life,"
according to the study.
One major impetus, the study
notes, was the desire to streamline
the entire federation system and
make it more accountable.