• About
  • Support AJW
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us
American Jewish World
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Surviving the hell of death camps

    Surviving the hell of death camps

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    Tracing family roots in Germany

    Tracing family roots in Germany

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Surviving the hell of death camps

    Surviving the hell of death camps

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    Tracing family roots in Germany

    Tracing family roots in Germany

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Jewish federations talk up collaboration

American Jewish World by American Jewish World
May 23, 2020
in News
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

READ ALSO

On trumpet, Frank London

Editorial: In the ghetto

The federations face an uphill battle at a time when studies show younger American Jews are less affiliated with Jewish institutional life

By URIEL HEILMAN
OXON HILL, Md. (JTA) — There was the vice president of the United States, two Supreme Court justices and an Academy Award-winning actress with a compelling Jewish story. There were Jewish professionals, lay leaders, clergy and recent college graduates. The West Point cadets’ Jewish choir performed. The Israeli prime minister appeared via satellite from Jerusalem.
Part pep rally, part training and part family reunion, this week’s annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America drew some 3,000 people to a conference center outside Washington to cheer federations’ philanthropic work, listen to presentations ranging from European anti-Semitism to crowdfunding, and to schmooze.
As usual, much of the talk at the General Assembly was how to bolster North America’s 153 Jewish federations.
“We can go beyond exchanging ideas to actually exchanging services,” Jewish Federations CEO Jerry Silverman said in a speech at the closing plenary. “JFNA expanded the resources of our consulting and community development department, but what if we also leverage and share the resident expertise in this room and across our federations?”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly at National Harbor, Md., via satellite, on Nov. 11. (Photo: Ron Sachs)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly at National Harbor, Md., via satellite, on Nov. 11. (Photo: Ron Sachs)

The federations face an uphill battle at a time when studies show younger American Jews are less affiliated than previous generations with Jewish institutional life and less likely to give to Jewish causes — let alone clearinghouses like Jewish federations.
Though federation annual campaigns are up by about 7 percent compared with this time last year, the number of federation donors has declined by about one-third since 2000, according to the sociologist Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. Meanwhile, last year’s Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews found that 43 percent of non-Orthodox Jews ages 30-49 donate to Jewish causes — in contrast to their counterparts ages 50-69, some 60 percent of whom give Jewishly.
At the conference, the answer to these trends was twofold. One, organizers showcased dozens of federation programs that are piloting new models for programming and outreach. Billed by organizers as “fedovations” — a mashup of the words “federation” and “innovation” — they included case studies in reaching younger donors, providing services to the elderly, planning profitable events, and finding ways to engage and excite unaffiliated community members. Jewish Federations plans to share these success stories in a federation-wide online database to be deployed in the coming weeks.
The second answer was for federation leaders — and some of the plenary speakers from outside federation, including the actress Marlee Matlin — to drive home the message of the importance of collective action in the Jewish world.
“We do have the intellectual and financial potential to effectuate substantive change, but only if we work together,” Jewish Federations board chairman Michael Siegal said in a plenary address Monday. “Federations must lead this charge and convene the necessary organizations and thought leaders because, simply, we have the reach that others do not.”
Barry Shrage, the president of Boston’s federation, called Combined Jewish Philanthropies, said that while many federations are doing terrific things, the challenge for the federation network as a whole is to identify priorities and then chart a course to address them collectively.
“At the end of the day, do we have an agenda or do we not have an agenda?” Shrage told JTA. “Where are we going?”
He also dismissed concern about shrinking donor bases, saying the number of high-end donors is growing — they contribute the bulk of federation dollars — and that federations should not measure their successes by the checkbook.
“The most important thing is not to count how much money we’re raising,” Shrage said. “It’s to count how many good things we’re doing.”
Vice President Joe Biden affirmed the Obama administration’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security and talked about his experience taking each of his kids to the site of the Dachau concentration camp when they were 15 to teach them about the “incredible resilience and indomitable nature of the human spirit.”
Biden also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “really great friend” — in contrast to the recent characterization of Netanyahu as “a chickenshit” by an anonymous Obama administration official in an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who also spoke at the G.A.
Seeking out Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, in the audience, Biden said, “Ron, you’d better damn well report to Bibi that we’re still buddies. You got it, right?”
Netanyahu, speaking to the assembly on Tuesday by video link, focused on Iran.
“Iran is not part of the solution, it’s a huge part of the problem,” Netanyahu said, referring to reports that the United States may be coordinating with Iran in their shared battle to crush the ISIS jihadist group in Iraq and Syria. “The Islamic state of Iran is not a partner of America, it is an enemy of America and it should be treated as an enemy.”
Netanyahu said such treatment should extend to nuclear talks now underway between the major powers and Iran “by keeping tough sanctions on the regime, by making clear that the international community is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from breaking out or sneaking out to get the bomb.”
He said a deal that would allow Iran a limited uranium enrichment capacity would be a “disaster of historic proportions.”
In another plenary, NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg got U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to discuss the Jewish values that drive his work (tzedaka) and Justice Elena Kagan, who grew up Jewish on the Upper West Side, to reveal that she has become a duck hunter since joining the nation’s highest court.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s former chief rabbi, gave a rousing plenary address about the importance of Jews’ commitment to each other despite their differences.
“I don’t need you to agree with each other; I need you to care about one another,” he said.
A late-night session featuring Goldberg and the editors of two Israeli papers, Aluf Benn of Haaretz and Steve Linde of the Jerusalem Post, was packed. Goldberg related that his conversations with Netanyahu and officials in his government left him with the impression that the Israelis plan to wait until the next U.S. president takes office before trying to rebuild ties with the White House.
The conference’s theme was “the world is our backyard,” and it included a sprawling indoor space designed like a backyard replete with patio furniture, artificial turf panels and giant dandelions. The corners featured small stages where presenters — the list included author Peter Beinart; Philip Gordon, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region; and Matt Nosanchuk and Noam Neusner, the current White House Jewish liaison and a predecessor in the post — held court during mealtimes. But many of the sessions were not listed in the conference booklet and had poor turnout.
Deborah Covington, vice president for planning and allocations at the Chicago Jewish federation, Jewish United Fund, said she came to the G.A. to network with peers and hear about federation work outside of what she regularly encounters. On that count, she said, the G.A. was a success.
“The breakout sessions felt relevant to me,” Covington said. “I thought it was a particularly good conference this year.”

Related Posts

On trumpet, Frank London
Music

On trumpet, Frank London

May 19, 2025
Editorial: In the ghetto
Editorial

Editorial: In the ghetto

April 21, 2025
Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring
Visual Arts

Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

April 20, 2025
Taking care of little Joel
Books & Literature

Taking care of little Joel

April 20, 2025
Moving Jews beyond Hitler’s reach
Books & Literature

Moving Jews beyond Hitler’s reach

February 17, 2025
Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse
Latin America

Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

February 16, 2025
Next Post

Jerusalem light rail becomes terror target

Comments 0

  1. S. D. says:
    11 years ago

    It is my experience that the effectiveness and quality of Federations in different cities varies widely, as a whole, and among programs within the Federation. Philadelphia, for example, has had a vital Jewish Family Childrens Service, but without sufficient funding, programs were cut too heavily. I welcome the idea of shared resources and knowledge, and perhaps minimum standards could be a result of that, so there is at least a certain amount of consistency nationwide. People tend to expect that, if only because of the same name being used. One doesn’t know that each is completely separate as an organization, unless one is involved in it.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECENT ARTICLES

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

May 21, 2025
Editorial: Repression in the guise of fighting antisemitism

Editorial: Repression in the guise of fighting antisemitism

May 20, 2025
On trumpet, Frank London

On trumpet, Frank London

May 19, 2025
Editorial: In the ghetto

Editorial: In the ghetto

April 21, 2025
Surviving the hell of death camps

Surviving the hell of death camps

April 20, 2025

About

Since 1912 the AJW has served as an important news resource for the Jewish community. The Jewish World unites the main Jewish communities in St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as those in Duluth, Rochester and smaller cities, and bridges the divides between the various Jewish religious streams.

Quick Links

  • About the AJW
  • Advertising Information
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Subscription Information
  • Jewish Community Directory

Contact Us

The American Jewish World
3249 Hennepin Ave., Suite 245
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tel: 612.824.0030 / Fax: 612.823.0753
editor@ajwnews.com

  • Buy JNews
  • Landing Page
  • Documentation
  • Support Forum

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Food
  • Health & Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Opinion
  • About the AJW
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Support AJW
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.