Useful UJA Event Next week

Whlle we have major concerns with the UJA's existing structure that keep it,
and our community, far from their respective potential, it is incumbent upon
us to acknowledge and appreciate worthwhile and important initiatives by the
UJA.

From time to time, the UJA runs some really productive events. One of them
is coming up next week on marketing.

Click here to check it out.

The Jewish Community is extremely resourceful - there's all sorts of talent.
Running events that connects this talent with those who can benefit from it,
along with hosting events that connects Jews with fellow Jews generally,
does enormous good at strengthening each of us individually and all of us as
a community.

Yasher Koach.

We hope the UJA will invite suggestions from the community for ideas on
other such events.

And do seriously consider attending the event on Tuesday.


Wayne Levin & Yossi Adler

Why Transparency & Public Forums

Hello Everyone:

We will be back to you shortly with some important perspectives on the whole UJA education initiative - perhaps by later next week. Also, we want to share with you our very own initiative that we would like to launch.

In the meantime, we would like to ask you to consider the question of transparency and corporate governance at the UJA. In our view, our respect for people in leadership positions, even with those we disagree with, would be elevated if our leaders would:

1. Govern transparently.
2. Receive constructive criticism without reacting defensively.
3. Defend their views publicly and in a forum where ideas circulate and percolate.

Do you agree with our views? Do you think that the UJA is sufficiently transparent?

Even the UN welcomes public submissions (click here for an interesting example).

It is our position that the UJA should establish a forum for community members to share and discuss matters of interest to them and which impact our lives as members of the Jewish community. We're conducting one here, on this forum.

Please register and comment and please invite everyone you know to join and participate.

Mismanagement at UJA over Jewish Education

First, we would like to thank you all for your emails of support for our new blog. Yossi and I appreciate your kind words of encouragement.

Now, to our next post.

The UJA is superbly positioned to strengthen the community by making Jewish education of higher quality and accessible and affordable to all. Instead, we are sad to say that the UJA has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Despite the good efforts of many competent teachers and good-intentioned schools, we continue to face higher costs and moribund standards, and distant, largely non-transparent and unaccountable governance.

Recently you may have heard about the "important changes" at the Mercaz. It's easy to understand if you have not or do not know what the "Mercaz" is or was. In short, it's the short-lived, re-labeling of the former Board of Jewish Education (the fact that it was called a "board" generated expectations of proper governance, but this too was not to be).

Highlights of a recent open letter to the community from the UJA Chair, David Koschitsky went as follows:
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“We are writing to tell you about an important change in services provided by UJA Federation to our funded Jewish schools. It is an approach that will substantially reduce overhead and increase our financial support. It is also an initiative that is unrelated to currently poor economic conditions, for which discussions began before the current economic downturn.

Here are the key changes:

Enhancing Financial Support for Jewish Education — UJA Federation will be increasing tuition subsidies by $500,000 over the next year and a half in addition to an extra $2 million in direct assistance for Jewish schools already provided last year, through the Julia & Henry Koschitzky Fund and matching allocations. That will bring our total formal education commitment to nearly $15 million. We will also maintain or enhance existing funding for special needs and supplementary education and set aside a substantial sum of money in reserve for Jewish education, depending on campaign revenue.

Reducing Education Overhead Costs — The Mercaz, UJA Federation’s education department, will be restructured with a streamlined professional staff, supplemented by other UJA Federation professionals when required. All staff members who will no longer be part of the new Mercaz are being treated generously and sensitively. By reducing overhead costs, we can enhance financial support for Jewish education to which we are deeply committed.

Strengthening Our Day Schools — We will be strengthening the capacity of our affiliated day schools to provide direct education services, rather than receiving services supplied by the Mercaz. This philosophy, known as capacity building, meets the needs of contemporary, dynamic day school administrators and educators, who no longer require a central agency to supply services for them.

Encouraging Innovative Educational Programs — We are going to work with all our affiliated schools in a spirit of true partnership to develop a list of required educational services and programs for the community, including current programs, and then determine the best way to provide them. The process will be creative, collaborative, responsible and flexible, with the community's needs taking precedence.

These changes represent an exciting, innovative development. It will solidify Toronto's reputation as a world leader in Jewish education and expand our profound commitment to this critical cause, thanks to the support and generosity of our community. We welcome your questions and suggestions. Please e-mail info@jewishtoronto.com.”
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Here are some questions that Yossi posed to the UJA, as invited in the last lines of the above letter. The above questions were posed by Yossi to the email on March 4th and a follow up email from him was sent again this week, yet no response appears forthcoming. We'd like you to consider these questions as well.
· What do you mean by “We will also maintain or enhance existing funding for special needs and supplementary education”? Are you suggesting that you will be reallocating existing funds to “special needs and supplementary education” and if so, is this a new policy or the perpetuation of an old one?
· Also, what do you mean by “set aside a substantial sum of money in reserve for Jewish education, depending on campaign revenue.” Set aside in reserve for what purpose precisely? How much campaign revenue is required to be collected or pledged before you will so set aside such revenue?
· Further, I am curious to learn more about what will be precisely happening with Mercaz. Could you kindly elaborate? Will Dr. Epstein continue to lead this department? What precisely will this department’s role now be?
· Finally, given the significant impact that these new policies will have on the Jewish community, will community members have a forum in which to discuss these issues and to pose questions and make comments as you have so graciously invited us to do?

We'd like to add some additional thoughts.

First, the focus on "special needs" students appears to be hypocritical. We believe that many would agree that the UJA's failure to govern effectively contributed largely to the loss of Shearim, a vital resource for students who required additional direction and support.

Second, we'd like to know just how the change came about. What committee recommended this change? Over what period of time was a review done? Who was appointed to this committee? What material did they consider? Were parents, whose tuition collectively raises about twice what the UJA raises annually, invited to participate (both of us are Day School parents and we certainly did not receive an invitation).

Finally, we subscribe to the old saying that you do not solve money problems with money and believe that this surely applies here. More and more money is thrown at Jewish education - in large part through hyper-inflating tuition fees - with practically no improvement whatsoever. Even Dr. Epstein, the former Director of the Mercaz and a Senior VP of the UJA as well as Ted Sokolsky, President of the UJA did not argue otherwise.

This has all the hallmarks of another UJA-style decision-making process where a few, without consultation, foist their will on the masses.

We don't however want the UJA decision to dismantle the Mercaz wholly reversed. We plan on sharing more about what we know about the BJE so that you can decide as we have if it was a waste of resources and was poorly led.

Instead of dismantling it completely as the UJA has proposed, however, we would like to see it restructured to address the needs and interests of the parent body since parents currently underwrite practically all of the costs of education. There is huge potential here - probably the biggest potential - for invigorating and strengthening the Jewish Community here and abroad.

We'd like you to write the UJA at info@jewishtoronto.com and demand transparency and public forums on this and all matters related to our community. Their email address is info@Jewishtoronto.org. We suggest that you let us know that you have contacted the UJA and that you copy (not blind copy) as many fellow community members as you can. Keep writing them - don't let them ignore you. After all, YOU are the "community"!

Chag Sameach to all!
Wayne Levin & Yossi Adler