I am more than disappointed that I can not turn my attention to the infinite cesspool that passes for our Federation Health and Fitness Corporation.  I have been a busy guy grabbing up VOS JCC and Federation documents and tax returns and believe it or not, I am just overwhelmed at the extent of what has transpired there.  Really, I think that I am just about burned out because I think I would need a staff of ten full time people just to catalog their idiocy.  Unfortunately, I have to save that for future posts because the word of the day is that Jess Schwartz Academy just got sued for fraud. (click for complaint)

What is noticeable about the lawsuit is that the attorney who filed it is a very sober gentleman, a very skilled litigator with an excellent reputation.  He is not a gentleman who would waste time on a spurious claim. Number two, Fraud is the most difficult tort to prove, the damages from Fraud are not dischargeable under bankruptcy, and I bet you can count on a match stick the number of private non-profit schools in the United States that have a Fraud claim pending against them.

Again, a complete disgrace for the managers of the Jess Schwartz Abyss, and a complete disgrace for the Pardes Board for abrogating their responsibility to the school, to the Pardes Parents, and drinking the Cool Aid that was poured by the imitation tzadikkim who fancy themselves community leaders.  Why on earth would anyone running a school want to merge it with the detritus of JSA?  When you lie down with a dog, you wake up with fleas.

I really like and have friendships with many people on the Board of Pardes, and I think Jill Kessler is one of the finest and most caring educators in the country, but I am so angry at their collective stupidity as regards this merger.  This lawsuit will be settled, or it will go to trial, and it will cost JSA quite a bit of money, and any thought the bank will be okay with having the school sit empty, and that they will not foreclose, is going to vanish faster than a twinkie at a fat farm. Because realistically, the reserve funds that they were going to use to pay the mortgage are going to be devoted to litigation.

So there will be two options here: 1) Someone with a fat wallet will bail the school out and settle the case because they will not want their precious monument to themselves seized, sold at auction, and occupied by a non-Jewish enterprise, like a parochial school, or 2) These same “community leaders” will lean on the Federation to fund the settlement of the lawsuit, and the Federation, as is their pattern and practice, will again renege on more funding commitments made to our vulnerable populations, and to Israel.

How about a quick apology from the Pardes Board to the Pardes community for putting everyone through the idiocy of the merger, then opening up the financial books so we can begin to better understand what challenges the school is facing so that we can help the school, and let’s just get on with it?

Or, in the alternative, please send out another FAQ and tell us if it will still be called Jess Schwartz Academy if a christian parochial school gets hold of the JSA campus.  Will it still be called JSA, Our Lady of JSA, the Virgin of Guadalupe JSA, The Academy of the Immaculate Conception of the JSA.  Oh and uh what tefillah goes best with a Hail Mary?

As my youngest used to say when he was about 5,

Huggety Geshpuggety.

Before I embark on the next few posts, which will center on the Federation Health and Fitness Club of Phoenix, I wanted everyone to be aware of a really remarkable organization here in Phoenix: The Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix.

From their mission statement:

OUR MISSION

Sustained by our heritage, the Jewish Community Foundation strives to create a permanent legacy for a strong, vibrant, enduring Jewish community locally and abroad.

For nearly 40 years, the Jewish Community Foundation has been helping people support the Jewish and secular causes that are important to them. We provide resources to make the community’s vision a reality and we respond to emergencies facing the Jewish people. The Jewish Community Foundation is the largest resource for Jewish philanthropy in the Greater Phoenix area. We have earned the trust of our donors and the community of professional advisors – attorneys, estate planners, trust officers, insurance professionals, accountants and financial advisors – who work with us to help donors achieve their charitable and financial goals.

This is the Crown Jewel of financial performance and propriety of our community.  They manage more than $41,000,000.00 worth of highly liquid assets, their organization dots every “i”  and crosses every “t”, and because their Board of Directors is filled with professionals, and not the interlocking nest of cronies that infects our Jewish Federation, they do not do stupid things with the community’s trust.  They are not a monument to themselves, and they are the only possible foundation for our future.  So, for those of you who really are able to and want to support Jewish Philanthropy, and want to make sure your money is not wasted on running health clubs and mismanaged schools (where self dealing is the coin of the realm), I would urge you to review the Jewish Community Foundation and direct your giving there.

The Synagogues of The Reform Community, while having had some vicissitudes, are very well run in the areas of financial disclosure and propriety, and they have been strengthened by good Boards of Directors and Rabbi’s who understand their core mission to their congregations.  These are also excellent places to support.  I know that one of our congregations, without fanfare and with great modesty, made a $100,000 donation to the city of Joplin to help with Tornado relief, and also made a further donation to help the Jewish Community of that tornado devastated city.

It is great to be able to admire what is best about our community.

AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST THERE IS A POSTSCRIPT WHICH WAS ADDED ON 6-25-11.

I think if you have an IQ over 80 and you are a Pardes Parent, you are probably concerned about the postponed, or delayed, merger of Pardes and Jess Schwartz Academy. There are several questions that immediately come to the fore regarding this merger, which the stewards of our trust on both school’s boards attempted to pull off quicker than a prom dress.

1)  What was the mad rush all about? Surely Pardes would naturally end up with some of the remaining students from the defunct Jess Schwartz Academy.

2) Why merge, change the school’s religious affiliation to become Pluralistic, and change campuses?  All of these things were announced to us loyal Pardes Party Members by Comrade Ginsberg at that meeting of the JSA Supreme Soviet.

3) Why was the merger forced on Pardes?  Why was Pardes faced with the threat of alleged competition from a Hebrew Language Charter School that zero community support from any Rabbi, nor even our terribly mismanaged Federation?

4) Why was JSA’s management so intent on having their building occupied one year after their ill-conceibed merger with King David destroyed their own school and King David?  Why would anyone think that Reform Jews would support a Hebrew Language Charter school, and rush their kids out of Pardes?

Category:  I’ll take Mitch Ginsberg for a hundred, please.

Mr.Ginsberg is a mortgage banker, and I assume he is familiar with the mortgage that bears his signature as the Chairman of Jess Schwartz Academy. The mortgage on the Jess Schwartz campus is clear:

Surprise: Jess Schwartz Academy is in default of their mortgage. See the above paragraph on insolvency as a condition of default. Since the Trustor’s (JSA) existence as a going business has been terminated, the lender, J.P. Morgan/Chase, has the right to foreclose on the building. This is a very common clause in almost every commercial mortgage I have ever seen, because it is axiomatic that once a tenant or trustor ceases to occupy a commercial building, they will default. Statistically the lender knows that on average, a trustor will default on their payments within six months. If I have read the JSA financial statements correctly, they have a reserve fund that will allow them to make payments for just under two years on the mortgage, but they are in default if there is no school operating on the premise. The reserve fund is immaterial to the lender because the lender knows that the longer a building stays vacant, the less the building will bring at sale or at auction, so they will move to cut their losses. I do hope J.P. Morgan/Chase has been informed of JSA’s cessation even though I am not a shareholder of that bank. I am sure that the management of JSA has behaved ethically and informed J.P. Morgan/Chase that they are no longer an ongoing concern and that there is not a school operating in the building. Discard that last sentence, I just took the needle out of my arm.

Ta-da:  The JSA Board tried so hard to bully Pardes into defaulting on their campus and moving to JSA in order to save their precious building before it is taken from them. I am getting sick to my stomach again.

Why the Jewish News identifies Mitchell Ginsberg as the Jess Schwartz Academy Board Chairman, when the school is defunct, I will never know.  I am going to start signing my letters: Mark Greenburg, Board Chair of the Frank N. Stein Jewish Day School.   Like Mr. Ginsberg, I also have some vacant buildings with no students, so I guess that makes me an educator also.

More fun stuff about our Federation Health and Fitness Company in the next post.

THIS POSTSCRIPT WAS ADDED 6-11-25

PS – I have been asked why I have not pointed out the obvious issue of the ineptitude of the Pardes Board in this whole merger fiasco.  The answer to this is a bit more complex, and aside from some sick joy that I might feel from clubbing a baby seal, the fact of the matter is that I have been extremely critical of the Pardes Board over the issue of the merging the school with Jess Schwartz and I will continue to do so until Pardes calls off the merger once and for all and makes their financial information available to the general public.

I do not believe that the Pardes Board has ever acted in a manner that reflects mendacity, or that they have exhibited malice aforethought in an attempt to mislead the parents, or in any way have they ever done something that they did not believe was in the best interest of the school and the community.

I do believe however that they have exhibited incredibly poor judgement in certain instances (Pardes’ continued involvement with the JTO as example one, an organization whose misallocation of funding propped up JSA long past it’s life expectancy, allowing it to spread its mismanagement melanoma to King David, killing both schools in the process. The misallocated scholarship dollars could have been dollars allocated to Pardes Students which would have boosted enrollment and strengthened the school.  Instead, the Pardes Board has chosen to stay with the JTO because it is “good for the community”, a complete abrogation of their responsibility to the school) and in particular, with attempting to merge the school with JSA in haste, without parental approval, and choosing to do a merger with people as financially reckless, inept, and mendacious as the leadership of JSA.

That the board of Pardes was mislead and pressured by JSA’s leaders and our past Federation leaders, who have been responsible for the wreckage and disgrace that is our Federation, the JCC, and JSA, to merge is not surprising, nor is the fact that they buckled under pressure to do this merger surprising because people do not make good decisions when they are pressured, bullied or coerced.  So, this decision, as misguided as it was, is probably not entirely their fault.

It is certainly the case that these stalwarts of stupidity did not approach Pardes’ Board and say, “Hi there.  You know, we have built an unsustainable campus over at the JCC and even put JSA right next to it on adjacent land.  Unfortunately, even though the President of the JTO made sure that the Treasurer of JSA was the sole decision maker on the awarding of scholarships, so that we could continue to prop up JSA, we destroyed both our school and King David in the process.  Unfortunately, we are about to lose the buildings in foreclosure because they are not occupied, so could you help us out.?”  Instead, these “leaders” came to Pardes’s Board, proposed the merger, and backed it up with pseudo reasoning, including, but not limited to the imminent threat Pardes would face from a Hebrew Language Charter School, the miracle of Pluralism, the financial grants available from Ravsak and Peje, and the old reliable persuasion of doing the mensch-like thing for the community.  And the shame of the Pardes Board is that they bought into this vision hook, line, and sinker, seeing themselves as beacons of leadership for the Jews in Phoenix, alone in their ability to bridge divides, trading away what is right for Pardes for their new role as community leaders.  The Board of Pardes has no such mandate.  They are not the leaders of Phoenix’s Jews, they are just the Board of Pardes.

It is shocking that no one on Pardes’ Board had the courage to tell these “leaders” that their vision for the community has led to the ruination of the Federation, the JCC, JSA and King David and that their vision, continually resold like a line from Harold Hill in the Music Man, was not a vision that the Board could countenance.

I continue to be amazed that the fine example set by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix is not the model that all Jewish organizations in the valley follow.  Had the Schwartz’ given their money to the JCF, or had the Levine Foundation chosen the JCF as stewards of their generous gifts, the openness and integrity that is imbued in their operations and governance would have prevented this disaster from happening.

It is equally true that the purity of the misguided intentions that I ascribe to the Board of Pardes stand in stark contrast to the contempt I have for the self appointed community leaders like our Federation geniuses, JSA Board Members, and JTO Leaders who suppress debate and destroy our assets through their ineptitude, mendacity, and bullying.  These “leaders” will not make the Jewish Community more vibrant, larger, or more welcoming, and they have no place in leadership roles for our community.  Shame on all of us for not using our collective strength and financial power to speak out and withholding our funding until we get leaders who are open, forthright, and encouraging of debate.

Please indulge me for a moment and imagine you are a shareholder of Apple Computer and attending a shareholders’ meeting. Steven Jobs, Apple’s CEO, steps to the podium to announce that he is merging Apple with the shell company that used to manufacture the Commodore 64 Computer. The Commodore Company, in this example, is just the husk of a bankrupt company that ceased production in 1997. So the first question that is asked, is: “Where will the company be located? Then, “Will Apple absorb Commodore’s debt?”, and then of course, “Who will run this combined enterprise?” And the CEO of the company, answers every question with: “We are not really sure about what we are going to do, we are just going to wing it, that’s why this merger makes so much sense.”

Now, the person next to you in the meeting, turns to you and says, “I am sure you have a lot of anxiety about this because you have an investment in Apple, but what is important is that they are both computers, so, dude, Cowabunga and get on board!” I am guessing that you might question the mental health of the person next to you, their ability to think logically, and then assume they are a Greater Fool. The Greater Fool is a momentum junky, someone who thinks that the merger will work, that there will always be someone to sell their investment to. The problem with the Greater Fool Theory is that eventually, time runs out, and there is no one left to pick up the pieces, no one who is actually that foolish. Eventually, you run out of fools.

I imagine, as it applies to Pardes and Jess Schwartz Academy, there is now a shortage of fools. There are no longer major donors willing to step up, donate millions more to JSA, or buy into Mitch Ginsberg’s top down vision of Totalitarian Torah Teaching. By the way, Pardes’ FAQ identified board members who will be on the board of the merged school. Mitchell Ginsberg’s name was not identified as a board member of the new school, so why is he involved in making decisions about how the school is to be run in the future? Is it possible that Pardes has not been forthcoming about Mr. Ginsberg’s role in the future to ease anxiety due to his proven record of school destruction? Take a look at today’s Jewish News. The way I understand what has been written, is that Mitch Ginsberg is very involved in what will be happening in the future and how the two campuses are to be operated.

I am thrilled that the Jewish News reported that the Pardes Board Chair, Ms. Lieberman and the JSA Chair, Mr. Ginsberg would not tell the Jewish News the amounts of their outstanding mortgages. After all, we are not equipped as parents to comprehend the extremely secretive world of mortgages and debt, and we should thank them both for protecting us from this dangerous information. This very big secret about the amount of their mortgages can be found by visiting the Maricopa County Recorder’s office online and pulling copies of the mortgages. Click here for the Pardes Mortgage, click here for the JSA Mortgage. The mortgages are 4.8 million dollars and 1.608 million dollars, which equals about $6.4 million dollars. To board chairs Ms. Lieberman and Mr. Ginsberg: I salute you both for protecting us, keeping us from evil mortgage facts, helping us stay in the dark. We are your loyal mushrooms.

I know that I have never destroyed a school or blown through 3.5 million dollars of donated money and turned it into dust in a two year period, but if I may just offer a suggestion without overstepping: If it is really so important to merge schools, sell the JSA Campus, which apparently has an assessed value of $3.6 million dollars, and take the $2,000,000 balance and pay down the mortgage on Pardes’ current campus. Then, Pardes would not have to be a deadbeat and shaft their lender, and when Pardes could prove that they needed more space, they would be able to get financing to build a bigger school. Imagine the headlines: “Newly Merged Jewish Day School Acts with Integrity.”

In 2002, the Jewish Federation of Phoenix published a study entitled The 2002 Greater Phoenix Jewish Community Study. This study breaks down the community of Jews in Phoenix and asserts 44% of all Jewish Respondents identify as Reform Jews, 24% as Conservative, and 3% as Orthodox. So how is it that Pardes boasts a population that is so far out of line with the demographic report of 2002. I never got a survey from Pardes asking me about whether I am a Reform Jew, an Orthodox Jew or a Conservative Jew. I am a self described Reform Jew who puts on Tefillin in the morning and then grabs an Egg McMuffin on the way to Pardes to drop off my son. So if you want to tell everyone I am Orthodox because I put on Tefillin, knock yourself out, but I am guessing I fall short in piety and Orthodoxy. So, I think that Pardes, with lust in their hearts for that shiny new campus, has given us statistics that are shaped to make their decision to rush into the arms of Mr. Ginsberg seem like a good idea. What is truthiness if not a fabrication repeated endlessly until it sounds like and even becomes truth? Not to worry, with the money coming in from the grants from PEJE and RAVSAK, the school will be fine.

I think it was telling how the Jewish News inserted the quotations from the Executive Director of the Jewish Genetic Diseases Center Halle Farber, who is sending her daughter to Pardes and was quoted as saying:

“There’s an anxiety in waiting, that no one knows what the school is going to look like,” said Farber. “But I’m prepared to be patient because I have a lot of faith in the leadership and I also know it’s going to be a bumpy road. I don’t expect all the answers to come (by) September. I think it could take a year or more until we’ve figured out what the final picture is going to look like.

“At the end of the day, it’s about education. It’s not about if the kids are wearing kippot, if the kids are wearing uniforms or which campus they’re going to be on. … I don’t care about the trappings that come with it. I think it’s very foolish to get hung up on those kinds of details. People need to look at the big picture.”

I applaud Ms. Farber for speaking her mind. Huge on the “warm fuzzy”, short on the details, good about encouraging everyone to wing it and wait for a few years to see if it worked. By the way, if it is about the big picture, and not as Ms. Farber asserts, about those pesky little details like adding $1.6 million more dollars of mortgage debt to a financially struggling school, straddling two campuses and two mortgages, embracing the managerial wrecking crew that destroyed King David and JSA, and the magic of Pluralism, then what is it about? Maybe it is that same thrill a person of would get by taking their life savings and placing it on 27 red.

My blog site is getting quite a few hits. There are more than 320 people who have read my story about the millions of dollars wasted by the Jess Schwartz Administration, which I posted on June 12. I am including a report that is generated by WordPress, the site host, that verifies that I am being truthful about the readership of my blog.

I appreciate the feedback and the questions that are being sent to me about the issues surrounding the merger of Pardes and Jess Schwartz Academy, the lack of financial disclosure at Pardes, and the mismanagement and change of mission at the Jewish Federation.  I have received ten emails that are framed around the question about what I think the parents should do about the merger of the schools.  Because the question of the school merger is most pressing, and because the merger is not completed, I am going to focus on that topic.

Rabbi Kahn’s article mourning the loss of the Reform School is a must read.  I do not want to take Rabbi Kahn’s words out of context because his article about the merger is both scholarly, insightful, and copyrighted. I do not have permission to reprint the blog here on my blog nor have I asked for it.  The following passage is a small portion of his writings on the subject of the merger and should not be taken out of the context in which it was written.  But clearly, he shares with many of us a profound sadness, and has his own misgivings about the wisdom of the decision.

I think that you should ask your Rabbi to publicly provide guidance on this matter, especially if your Rabbi is a Reform Rabbi’s whose Temples send kids to Pardes.  I think this is Temple Chai, Temple Solel, Temple Emanuel of Tempe, Temple Kol Ami and Temple Gan Elohim, and Kehillah of Arizona. These are learned men and women who have many years of learning and I do believe it is their place to provide commentary, for or against the merger, and to provide guidance.

Until the other Reform Rabbis come forward and we can have a consensus, or in the absence of the Rabbi’s coming forward, then the leadership void must be filled by parental action.  There is really only one parental action that is effective, and that is to withhold your re-enrollments until we get the answers that make us feel comfortable about what will happen at Pardes.  I know that withholding re-enrollments would be a very effective action because the Board Members with whom I have spoken have urged me to refrain from asking parents to withhold their re-enrollments if they are unhappy with the merger.  Due to the fact that there are ten parents brave enough to be writing me,  the witholding of $120,000 of tuition, until we get the answers we are entitled to receive as parents and supporters of Pardes, will put an unpleasant amount of financial pressure on Pardes. 20 parents doing this, withholding tuition until we get the openness and answers we are entitled to get, would certainly get the attention of the Pardes Board.  The Board’s silence in the face of so many questions, reflects an arrogance and a misunderstanding of their mission in leading the school.  Unlike a heavily traded corporation where the shares are heavily diluted, there are about two hundred families sending their children to Pardes. Without the tuition from two hundred familes, Pardes becomes Jess Schwartz Academy, a collection of empty buildings.  Moving the school into forced Pluralism, where the t’fillah is going to be designed by Rabbi Kanter (who I am sure is a very fine Rabbi), an ordained Conservative Rabbi, without consulting the Reform families, seems to be smug, misguided, and the kind of high handed action that I would expect from the Board of Jess Schwartz Academy, not Pardes. Certainly, the continual circular referencing of what this will mean to have PEJE and Ravsak (see blog of the 12th) on board and supporting the merger is very far from comforting.

It is clear, that the immediate way to help Pardes, and insure the future of the school, will be to enact the tough medicine of withholding tuition, pledges of support, gifts, and the like, to make sure this last Jewel of the Reform Jewish Community of Phoenix is not swallowed by the chronic mismanagement that has destroyed two schools and set fire to the educational assets of the community.

Until the Board understands their responsibility to the parents of the students who attend the school and decides to be open about Pardes’ finances, the exact reasons for the merger, and explains to us why abandoning the Reform Jewish affiliation that has served the school so well is smart, then the continual financial support is akin to enabling an addiction.  If the school fails, like JSA and King David did before, we will all regret, and be to blame for not holding the board accountable for their actions.

I have seen a very odd trend. While the Phoenix Federation Health and Fitness Company and their VOS JCC have increased their censorship of dissent and deleted me as a friend on Facebook (a type of censorship for sure, preventing me from posting on their site, which is a wee bit infantile to me), the number of hits to my little paean of protest is increasing. The bad news for the management of Federation H&F and Pardes is that the more I get deleted, the more I write, and the more I write, the more hits I get. I am not sure that stifling dissent is going to solve the myriad of financial issues at Federation H&F or at Pardes, but it is worth a try. It is working a bit in Syria. My house did get egged a few nights ago but that has more to do with my son’s choice in girlfriends than my opposition to the Pardes merger. Oh well.

This morning, when I woke up, I went to look at this blog to see how many people read it the day before. There were 137 people who read it yesterday and over 152 people who read it today. Now maybe some of those are people who have read it more than once, but I doubt that it represents a majority because my writing is neither profound nor particularly witty, so I can’t see it as a “must” read with a lot of repeaters.

When I picked up my phone, I had a text message from a member of the Board of Pardes. I have a few friends who serve on Pardes’ Board and I know them to be very good people. I just disagree now with the merger and with Pardes becoming a Pluralistic school because I do not have enough information to make a good decision about whether or not I support it. However, that does not mean that I do not respect these directors as people, they are my friends and it just means I disagree.

The text message said that the word-on-the-street was that I was advocating for parents to take their kids out of Pardes. I told the director to read the blog and judge for himself. The director texted back ten minutes later and said I was doing exactly what he said I was doing. I called the director and said that I disagreed and simply thought the school should be transparent, explain the reasons for the merger, disclose their finances, and not hide behind the oft repeated refrain that “this merger is good for the community.” So, the director said that I should not be suggesting any actions that would be harmful to the school and that telling parents that they should explore their options if they are unhappy is harmful to the school. The director went on to say that Pardes would make their financial statements available to anyone who wanted to review them. I told the director no one should have to ask for this and as a matter of course it should be made public (like the Federation’s information or Jess Schwartz’ information), and that making people ask for the financial information puts many of them in an uncomfortable position. Many people who depend on the Jewish trade for their livelihood can not speak out in the manner that I have, and if I was the owner of Yonah Shimmel’s Knish Factory, I can assure you I would be more circumspect.

Later in the afternoon, I got another text from the same director saying that CBI did not make their financial statements public and that religious non-profits do not make their IRS 990’s public. The point in fact is that Houses of Worship, Churches, Synagogues etc. are exempt from filing IRS 990’s, and Pardes obtained a waiver many years ago because they were originally part of Temple Solel and therefore exempt. I doubt, if the issue was pressed, that Pardes would hold onto their exemption. But, if Pardes does not want to be transparent, that will be to the detriment of Pardes and it will hinder financial support for Pardes. In general, it is very difficult to offer advice to the Captain of the Titanic and doubly hard, if you are like me and viewed as the leper with the most fingers.

I would think that the quickest way to end this discussion once and for all about Pardes’ financial situation would be to make their financial statements available online, like Jess Schwartz does, like the Federation does. Their mortgage is public, so what we know for certain is there is a 4.8 milliion dollar mortgage on Pardes’ current campus. I think that sending a board member of Pardes, who is my friend, on a fool’s errand to tell me in the morning that the statements are available to anyone who asks, only to have that same board member come to me in the afternoon to inform me that religious institutions do not make their financial information public, does not make Pardes more transparent, and the board position on this is both misguided and reflective of the back of their hand that they show to the parents and supporters of Pardes. Pardes is not a house of worship, and certainly now, with their new and improved Pluralism, they are not attached to a Synagogue. This semantic obfuscation just increases the specter of doubt on the whole merger mystery even more and makes everyone wonder what is Pardes hiding?. Markets do not like uncertainty, and either do parents who are thinking about spending $12,000 a year on tuition. My wife asked me the following question today: If Pardes was an Orthodox or Conservative School with 270 kids and merging with a school of 40 Reform Jewish Kids, would the school become Pluralistic to accommodate the 40?

The guessing game: Since we know nothing of the details of the merger other than a vague statement that the school was thinking about strengthening their t’fillah, I am left guessing. So my first push on the buzzer has me guessing that Mitchell Ginsberg offered the JSA Campus to the Pardes Board with the sole condition being that the school drop its Reform Affliation to accommodate the 40 conservative students. I guess that Pardes’ board is so enamored with the prospects of a new campus, that they are going to increase their mortgage load to almost $7,000,000 dollars to move to a school, turning their back on a perfectly good campus, with the vague idea in mind that the mortgage holder will just eat their losses, to be publicly made fools of, jilted for a newer model. I will now select Renaissance painting for a hundred.

No room for debate: I received emails from friends who were teachers, or spouses of teachers, and the refrain was the same; “your writing is on point, but I can not post a comment on your blog because my spouse needs a reference from Pardes.” I know that when I attended the curriculum meeting at Pardes, I was told by a senior Pardes Administrator that I should be kind, shut up, and not say anything against the merger because Pardes had done a lot to help my youngest son. It is precisely because Pardes helped my son so much that I began the blog in the first place.

The myth of hundreds: I have been told that hundreds of people support this merger. I have been told that the Reform Rabbis support this merger. I have not seen one public show of support for the merger. I would love for the Reform Rabbis to step forward, in their position of leadership and from their position of scholarship and advise us as to whether a Pluralistic school is something that is supported by the Reform Movement and whether or not they believe this will be successful here. There is a short article here at this link from Hillel at Ohio University that is a pretty fast read.

Have a great Shabbat.

Last week I attended a seminar of college directors and Jim Ward, the Interim President of the Phoenix Symphony and John Graham, the president of Sunbelt Holdings, and a board member of the Phoenix Symphony, the ASU Foundation, and dozens of other boards, spoke on the topic of development, fundraising, and the importance of transparency in the financial dealings of the organization that one is trying to raise funds for.

The basic recipe for success in fundraising is based upon building trust with donors by showing them a detailed picture of the financial status of the organization one is trying to raise funds for, making everyone understand the needs of the organization, and explaining why the organization is important, vital, to the well being of the community.

Pardes’ failure to be transparent in their financial dealings, their failure to make their IRS 990’s available to donors, means that the donor has no idea what is going on and it is possible that the donor may be donating to an organization that may well be on its way out of business.  Now in practicality, I am sure that Pardes makes this information available to a major donor who would want to see this information.  But the fact of the matter is, the giving matrix is a pyramid, with very large donors (usually one or two) near the top of the pyramid, and then the base is made up of many mid-level  and smaller donors.  By not being forthright about their financial status, the smaller and mid level donors are disconnected from the process, and generally, the apathy about giving is accompanied by the thought that if one does not know what is going on, the the one or two larger donors will step forward and therefore, my money is not needed.

Four years ago, when I served on the Pardes development committee (before I stepped down over the corruption at the JTO and Pardes’ continual membership in the JTO), I, and several other members of that group brought up the need to initiate an endowment campaign, but this was not a priority at that point in time, and it was a mistake made then and really sad that no progress has been made on that front.  The FAQ that came home last week is the first time that I have ever even seen the concept of an endowment mentioned publicly.  My guess is that Pardes probably lives hand to mouth, hanging by a thread financially, and the reason that they do not disclose their financial status is that they are fearful of what people would think if they knew the truth.  Unfortunately, all private schools are having a difficult time, and I think that if Pardes would be more transparent about their finances, they would have an opportunity for everyone to understand their needs and for everyone who loves Pardes to step forward and contribute.  Otherwise, aside from that warm fuzzy feeling you get from giving to a Jewish School, donating to a school that hides its financial status is like giving money to a marginalized individual who is panhandling and tells you he won’t spend the money on drugs.

As a note, JSA and the Federation disclosed their IRS 900 forms, and they should be commended.

The issue of transparency extends to other areas as well.  How many parents of the 40+% of the students who are Reform Jews are in favor of Pardes becoming Pluralistic?  How many Rabbis in the Reform movement here in Phoenix think this a good idea?  Where is the public display of support for this?  Why does debate, which essential for the success of Pluralism to succeed (as identified on the Ravsak site), find a deaf ear at Pardes?Why does Pardes, which has, with their JSA merger, done everything to stifle debate?  Is debate only healthy when the debate goes your way?  I continue to urge all parents who want more information about this, or members of the donor community who have question, to vote with your pocketbooks, withhold donations, tuition payments, and re-enrollments (and evaluate the many fine public school alternatives) until the community gets a better picture of what will go on at the new, improved Pardes.

I think it is fair to say that it is very easy to point out the mistakes that our Federation, JTO, Pardes, and the JSA have made.  They are a mile wide and pretty tall, so it is like shooting fish in a barrel.  I have been asked, and I think it is only equitable to offer an alternative vision of what might be a better plan for our community.

1) It is safe to say that unloading the Federation Health Club, campus et al. would be step in the right direction.  I know this would be a crushing blow to our leaders who have donated money to this “Golden Calf” of “VOS Judaism”, but it would be better to cut our losses and plow whatever money we can get back into the Federation.  This would allow them to fund their programs and get back to the core mission of being a Federation and not a health club.  To assuage the egos of those whose vision fell so valiantly short, and who parted with so much cash to fund this structure, I would propose a dramatic statue, like the one at the Marine Corp. Memorial depicting the raising of the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima.  You could have all principles involved in this fiasco depicted doing very noble things, or on horses, or putting cream cheese on a bagel for a small child, or whatever, but at least these leaders and donors would be memorialized.  Each synagogue could give a child on the occasion of their Bar/Bat Mitzvah a small copy of the statue, so that the efforts of our ancestors will never be forgotten.  This might cut into the mini Torahs handed out, but I think it will promote healing.

2) Dismiss the board of the Federation in its entirety.  Have the Presidents of the Jewish congregations in town (all congregations welcome, voting rights to be apportioned to the size of the congregation’s membership) form an interim board of directors of the Federation. It seems to me that if a successful congregation has 1,000 members, their President might just know a thing or two about how to engage Phoenix Jews and he should therefore have voting power that is greater than a a congregation that has ten members.  Have this new board hire professional management to run the Federation in keeping with the best practices as established by the Nonprofit Board Best Practices, a document from the 2007 National Directors Institute put together by the Chicago law firm Foley & Lardner LLP.

3) Sell the JSA Campus.  Take the money from the sale and retire the debt from the current Pardes Campus. It is embarrassing to sign contracts, mortgages, etc., and then approach donors and ask them to write off our obligations.  It detracts form the willingness of people to treat the community seriously and work with us in the future. It is a blemish on the whole community, tarring us as deadbeats.  Pardes’ strategic vision of growth is great, but unproven, and if JSA and King David could not operate from that building, I seriously doubt that changing the character of the school to become Pluralistic, is going to make matters easier.

4) Utilize the infrastructure that the Jewish Community has at its finger tips.  The Congregation I belong to seems to have a ton of space.  I know many of the other Synagogues also have quite a bit of capacity to host events. They also have vacant fields that could be lined for sporting events, outdoor events, etc.  I do not think they have swimming pools, but I know that the Village Sports Clubs have swimming pools, basketball courts, etc., so I am guessing that there is a way to pick up the fitness slack. And, for those events that can not be held at a Synagogue because the crowds would exceed the Synagogue’s capacity, I think it is possible to rent facilities to host these events.

Relieving the financial pressure that our Golden Calf has created, while enhancing our sense of responsibility and survivability, might get the community thinking about things other than solar panels at the JCC.