Tag Archives: Israel

FUNDAMENTAL DISHONESTY AT THE JCA INSTEAD OF HELPING ISRAEL

12 Saturday Jul 2014

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It is rare that we follow up one post right away with another.  The primary reason is that we are understaffed, and in view of the tidal wave of propaganda that emanates from the JCA without any transparency, it is more than enough to keep everyone here very busy, so we must pick and choose our spots.  Furthermore, since we all have full time jobs, this is both a labor of love and of necessity.  That being said, we can not help but wonder whether the JCA is exploiting the horrible situation in Israel to raise money for their own purposes.  This is a horrific question to be asking, but there are lives in Israel in the balance, and it is the fault of the JCA and their lack of transparency that these questions have even come to the fore.

When you look at the plea sent out by the JCA to help Israel in her hour of need, you are asked to donate to a fund and told 100% of the money will go to help Israel, which I take to mean that the JCA will forgo their 46% cut that they take out of every dollar raised.  However, they do not specify this and the vagaries of this statement raise the eyebrows of everyone here.

How will the JCA accomplish segregating this money?  Their longtime CFO, Debbie Siebels has vanished and they have said nothing about who is replacing her.  Who will be handling these funds? Examine their plea for funds.  The plea says that 100% of every dollar donated will go to help Israel.  It does not say that 100% of every dollar will go to Israel.  The JCA has done away with targeted giving, so how are they now able to account for and accomplish targeted giving?  I donated $25.00 to the fund this morning and got nothing more than a reply to my donation, thanking me for my shekels.  They are somehow asking me to believe that they have the integrity and rectitude after they have my funds to withdraw my $25.00 (without subtracting their $12.00 for the Health Club Overhead) and send the whole $25.00 to Israel?  A non-profit organization with the track record of the JCA, who has not made their 2013 IRS 990’s public yet, who takes 46% of every dollar raised for overhead, who did away with targeted giving, now wants us to believe that at the snap of a finger they can make that happen.  I think what is more akin to the truth is that the JCA is simply exploiting this horrible tragedy to tug at the heartstrings of the uninformed and asking us all, again, to give blindly.  The sudden dismissal or resignation of the longtime CFO of an organization, coupled with the absence of publicly available financial statements and IRS 990s is not a badge of distinction nor does it provide comfort to the donor community.  It is not lost on us that the Interim CFO for the JCA,  Ms. Diana Feldman, is the spouse of a Board Member of the JCA.  How does one spell “conflict-of-interest”?  This is so embarrassing to the JCA it simply defies our imagination.

I also donated $25.00 to the Jewish National Fund this morning.  When you donate to the JNF, you donate by project you want to support.  You can access this link to the JNF by clicking here.  Their technology is not atom-splitting, it is just common for organizations who operate targeted giving campaigns.  You receive a receipt and a tracking number so that they know where to credit your money.

The JCA’s emergency plea centers on three organizations, and if one wants to donate to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to help Israel in this time of crisis, all one has to do is to donate directly to them, and they have a great site located here at www.jdc.org, and if one wants to support the Jewish Agency for Israel and donate, all one has to do is visit their website by going to http://www.jewishagency.org/.   And if you want to give to the Jewish Federations of North America, all one has to do is go to their website, which is located here http://www.jewishfederations.org/.  Not surprisingly, the front of the Jewish Federations Website has the same “Stop the Sirens” Campaign as what was set out by the JCA.  However, the payment gateway is different.  By the way, all three of these agencies have their audited financial statements and IRS 990s available on their websites, so one does not even have to ask how these agencies account for their donations.  That is not atom-splitting technology either, it is just the mark of transparency and integrity.

I think that if the JCA were truthful and they were actually going to send 100% of the money they are raising to Israel, they would have simply sent the campaign notice to everyone and the link would have sent them to the Jewish Federations of North America’s main site.  The JFNA Stop the Sirens site allows for the donor to designate which Federation should get the credit.   In the absence of any transparency one is left with the unseemly conclusion that the only logical reason for our JCA to handle these funds is to make sure they get to extract their 46 percent for their overhead.

We urge everyone to help Israel, but please make sure you donate to an agency that is reputable, that will send 100% of every dollar donated to Israel, agencies that will not skim off the top like our JCA for simply sending out an email. To see the contrast between the approach of two local organizations seeking support for Israel continue to scroll down and read the previous post TWO LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS APPEAL FOR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL – THE CHOICE SHOULD BE CLEAR.  

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TWO LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS APPEAL FOR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL – THE CHOICE SHOULD BE CLEAR

11 Friday Jul 2014

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It is hard not to be moved by the images coming from Israel and Gaza.  The nearly 1,000 recent Hamas rocket attacks on Israel have terrorized the Jewish state and caused nearly 5 million Israelis to live in constant fear of violent Hamas attacks.  Whether we know anyone in Israel or not our collective hearts go out to everyone whose survival depends on being 15 – 60 seconds from a bomb shelter when the almost constant blare of Red Alert Sirens start to wail.

Understandably, we Americans want to do what we can to help.  And help usually takes the form of Tzedakah and Tefilah – charitable contributions and prayer.  We should be generous with both.

So it should not be surprising to see organizations with an historical mission of supporting Israel directly or otherwise, all or in part, turn to the community for support.  Organizations like Jewish National Fund (JNF), Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) and Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) are among those who are asking for a few shekels to help.

I am struck by the different ways in which two local organizations have reached out to their support base.  Here are the explanations of why emergency donations to Israel are urgently needed now by Deb Mobell-Rochford, the Arizona Regional Executive Director of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and by Stuart Wachs, the absolutely ineffective CEO of the ineffective Jewish Community Association (JCA).

Here are excerpts of the clear and passionate explanation from Ms. Mobell-Rochford of JNF which she posted on Facebook to explain how emergency donations to JNF can be put to immediate use to help save Israeli lives and what JNF is doing:

Help us purchase mobile bomb shelters. We need 50 more.

This is the recreational center/bomb shelter that I posted yesterday. We are keeping the center open 24/7 at a cost of $20,000 per day.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/07/10/israel-gaza-rockets-sderot/12486413

The Jewish National Fund is taking swift & decisive action on the ground in Israel. No other organization is equipped to act as quickly. We are resupplying firefighters, our first responders to rocket attacks. We have opened the 21,000 sf Sderot Indoor Recreation Center http://www.jnf.org/work-we-do/our-projects/security/sderot-indoor-playground.html  24/7 to house seniors & children who cannot move to shelters within 15 seconds. We are moving large numbers of children from the south to the north and we are assisting with Israeli’s disabled in Aleh Negev, http://www.jnf.org/work-we-do/blueprint-negev/aleh-negev.html  which is under rocket fire. In Halutzah, http://www.jnf.org/work-we-do/our-projects/community-building/a-new-chapter-for-gaza.html we are shipping and installing temporary bomb shelters where there are none.

It costs $20,000 per day to keep Sderot open 24/7 to feed and house.  It costs $30,000 per temporary bomb shelter to purchase, ship and install

If you have already contributed to our campaign please note monies raised CANNOT go to the emergency fund. They are already designated to other projects. Are you able to contribute to the emergency campaign? If you have not contributed and are waiting until the end of the year, we need these funds today. We are not waiting to see what we will raise. We are taking action today. Our community will be judged on what we do to help when Israel is in need. I ask you to consider an emergency gift. Please call me at 480.447.8100 x980. Please share this message. Am Israel Chai.

Who could ask for a more cogent and compelling appeal?  And who would not want to help the JNF in their important work to keep Israelis safe from rockets and missiles.

And then there is the 1,200 word message from Mr. Wachs titled:  Day 3: Update on Operation Protective Edge & Federation Response which is hardly a journalistic tour de force and way too long and self-serving to be published in its entirety here.  If you would like to read it click this link https://tinyurl.com/m47momd.  And midway through Mr. Wachs’ message and seemingly totally out of context is this nonspecific reference to a further communication yet to be distributed which apparently will tell us how our donations to the JCA will help Israel:

Due to the physical infrastructure damage, economic impact and incredible emotional toll these constant attacks are having, there is a need for an emergency campaign to assist Israel. It is our time to step up for Israel. We will be sending out information tomorrow about how you can help.

Apparently the billion dollar Jewish Federations of North America organization is on the ground in Israel but incapable of helping the JCA explain to its donors exactly why their contributions are needed and, if made, how their donations will be used.  I guess we’ll have to stay tuned for more urgent communication from Mr. Wachs and then see exactly how he frames the need for support.

And let’s also remember that it was the JCA, (in its last incarnation as the Jewish Federation) which told its donors that part of their annual campaign donations would support Israel but then failed to make good on its own commitment to Israel for a couple of years.  A fraudulent raising of money from donors whose gifts never made it to the State of Israel for several years and then the local Federation sent only cents on the dollar.

And lastly, let’s remember that the JCA’s cost of fundraising and its extraordinarily high overhead raises the question about how much of each dollar contributed to their Israel Emergency Campaign will ever see the light of day in Eretz Yisroel.

I don’t know about you, but no matter what message comes next from the JCA it won’t take a team of analysts from Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, Guidestar or any other charity watchdog organization to convince me that when it comes to supporting Israel the smart money is best put in the hands of the Jewish National Fund and kept far away from the JCA.

We sincerely want to know what you think.  Scroll to the top of this page or the top of any page in this Blog and click LEAVE A COMMENT to share your thoughts.  Comments will be published either using the contributor’s actual name OR, if they prefer, they may use a pseudonym to maintain their privacy.

To view the BEST OF THE BLOG, a selection of our most widely read articles go to http://jewishnewsphoenix.com/2014/07/02/best-of-the-blog/  and feel free to share this Blog with others.