Israel Matzav: Jewish Federations of North America hits iceberg, pats itself on the back

Friday, November 15, 2013

Jewish Federations of North America hits iceberg, pats itself on the back

Earlier this week, the Jewish Federations of North America held their annual general assembly here in Jerusalem. Luckily, I wasn't paying attention or someone would have gotten me a ticket. I had way too much work to take a couple of days off to live blog a conference this week.

There's another reason it was good I didn't go: Michael Freund explains some of what I would have found frustrating:

But in light of the recent findings of the Pew Research Center regarding American Jewry's frightful descent into assimilation, the upbeat tone of this GA was entirely out of place and even inappropriate.

Indeed, even more than its predecessors, this GA was reminiscent of the ill-fated RMS Titanic as it steamed straight for an iceberg in the northern Atlantic ocean in April 1912, oblivious to the impending doom.

After all, it was more than a month ago that Pew shocked the Jewish world with some grim data when its October 1 survey revealed that intermarriage rates among non-Orthodox American Jews have soared to 71 percent and that nearly one-third of Jews under the age of 32 do not identify themselves as Jewish by religion.

These are the statistics of shared suicide, a glaring sign that large portions of American Jewry are simply melting away and shedding their identity.

If the Jewish federations were serious about confronting this crisis, they should have taken the extraordinary step of reformatting the GA's schedule in order to focus on the existential emergency at hand.

Instead, in an act of pathetic hubris, they had the gall to add a single session on Monday, with the self-aggrandizing title, "Responding to Pew: How Federations are Successfully Engaging the Next Generation."

"Successfully"? Who are they kidding? BACK IN 1990, after the National Jewish Population Survey revealed an intermarriage rate of 52% (which was subsequently the subject of much debate), the Jewish world was stirred into action, vowing to do whatever was necessary to stem the tide of assimilation.

Here we are, more than two decades – and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on bolstering Jewish identity – later, and for all intents and purposes the situation has only worsened as growing numbers of Jews turn their backs on their heritage.

Clearly, the Federation system has proven to be a colossal failure, and it bears much of the blame for this catastrophic situation. It sets the spending priorities of the Jewish community, allocates funds and oversees various initiatives.

Nonetheless, they have presided over nothing less than a disaster of epic proportions, even as they celebrate their own failures at the GA.

This isn't responsible leadership, it is a reckless letdown.

Read the whole thing. It's devastating.

One of my friends commented on Facebook:

And what was the crowning achievement of the GA?

Marching to the "Pluralistic Section" of the Kotel.

Literally banging their collective heads into The Wall.

I've quoted the Talmud many times that every generation gets the leadership it deserves. We're in bad shape.

Labels: American Jews, Jewish Federation General Assembly, Jewish Federations of North America, Pew poll