Memorandum from Richard Pearlstone (United Jewish Appeal, Inc.) to the UJA Family, September 23, 1994

UNITED JEWISH APPEAL, INC DATE: September 23, 1994 TO: The UJA Family FROM: Richard Pearistone SUBJECT: WALL STREET JOURNAL Several people have brought to our attention a recent article in The Waii Street loumai. "American Jews Grapple with an Identity Crisis". They felt, as we do, that the article contains factual inaccuracies and half-truths, as well as a somewhat myopic view of the relationship between the American Jewish community and the people of Israel. We have responded with a letter to the editor, which the Journal may or may not print; however we wanted you to have a more fully developed response, for your own information and in case your donors or others want to discuss the article with you. That response is below. 1. The article claims that United Jewish Appeal contributions to Israel are down 25 percent since 1990, to $782-miIIion, but only part of the total for 1993 is stated (we raised $821 million) and the paragraph is out of context. On Jan. 15, 1990, as the gates to freedom were beginning to open for Soviet Jews, UJA announced a campaign called Operation Exodus, to seek $420-miIIion that year to aid in the immigration to Israel of a projected 210,000 Jews by 1992. However, over 200,000 Soviet Jews went to Israel in 1990 alone, causing us to increase our goal substantially and to continue our fundraising. Also in 1990, during the Gulf War, Israel's civilian population was attacked repeatedly by Scud missiles from Iraq* These two events, the potential of Israel as a haven for Jews, and Israel in a one-way war in which she was attacked but had agreed to the U.S. demand that she not respond, dramatically fueled the 1990 Annual and Operation Exodus Campaigns that we conducted, of course, in partnership with Jewish federations, independent community campaigns, and our sister national agencies. Giving to UJA was a way American Jews felt they could participate in a dramatic movement in Jewish history, and in the same year help the Israelis save their country from disaster. So it is true that together we raised $1.1 billion in 1990, and we're proud of it. But to say, four years later, after Iraq was defeated, 500,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Israel, 31,000 Ethiopian Jews were saved by a miracle airlift, the entire 300- family Jewish community in Albania which hadn't been known to exist until 1991 was airlifted to Israel, and other extraordinary needs were funded, that our campaigns dropped since 1990 is, to say the least, unfair. As we see it, together we raised $3.86 billion in these four years, by far the highest four-year total in our history. The Journal's article was right is that an increasing percentage of our funds, which are raised to help Jews in over 50 countries, is being retained by Jewish federations, which raise funds in partnership with us, to meet their local needs. And we believe this trend needs to be reversed. However, the decline in allocations to UJA was not as precipitous as indicated and was instead from 50 percent in the mld-1980's to 43.7 percent last year. This occurred as dollar totals increased. 2. The Journal's ardcle states that cash donations to Israel amount to only one percent of Israel's $65-biIIion gross domestic product. But that is a substantial amount of philanthropy. Furthermore, the figure in the U.S. is comparable, six percent ($398.6 billion in 1993 IRS estimates for 501(c) (3) organizations, not for profits whose donors may receive deductibility, out of a U.S. GDP of $6,343 trillion). 3. The Journal's statement that officials in the Rabin government "have told American Jewish leaders that Israel no longer needs their charity" fails to mention that this view has been articulated mainly by one official, a deputy minister, and that Prime Minister Rabin, on several occasions in the past year ? including in a meeting just last month with members of UJA's Prime Minister's Mission, which raised a record sum ? has emphatically repudiated this view. Rabin, instead, has stressed the crucial importance of the UJA campaign. This endorsement was also made by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in public and in several meetings with UJA leaders in New York and Jerusalem. 4. The article implies that American Jews respond to Israel only when that nation is threatened. This assertion fails to recognize that the American Jewish community strongly supported Operation Exodus which contained no threat to Israel. Operation Exodus generated $854.4 million as a 1990-93 total, with 89.1 percent earmarked for the emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel and the rescue of Ethiopian Jews. In fact, they are still giving: Operation Exodus raised an additional $27.6 million in 1994. 5. The article suggested that there is an either/or attitude concerning the development of American Jewish life and the upbuilding of the State of Israel. There is now, but there has always been, a creative tension between UJA and overseas needs on the one hand; and federations and local needs on the other. Federations recognize the needs of Israel; and UJA and the Israelis recognize the legitimacy of local needs. The pendulum of needs swings always between local and overseas needs. Even Prime Minister Rabin has stressed the need to meet Jewish needs here in the U.S. Together we try to raise maximum dollars for both. 6. The Journal quotes only one young American Jewish teenager on her apparently negative experience in Israel; hardly a reliable sample. Our experience is that the overwhelmine number of American Jewish teenagers who visit Israel on UJA and other trips come away with a renewed sense of Jewish identity, a heightened commitment to Israel, and a desire to strengthen their ties to the Jewish community. Even the youngster it quotes indicates she is in the minority when she says her friends all told her she will "feel an instant connection" with Israel. This is precisely why UJA's Executive Vice President, Rabbi Brian L. Lurie, recently called for the establishment of a $30-miIIion fund to send 50,000 American Jewish teenagers to Israel. We aim in coming years to enable every American Jewish teenager, regardless of his or her family's ability to pay, to have the experience of visiting Israel - and meeting with Israeli teenagers, one-to-one, group-to-group in the Israeli teenagers' home environment. We encourage reciprocal visits as well. 7. The Journal implies that American Jews who visit Israel only wish to tour military installations. This is simply not true. Every UJA mission itinerary includes meetings with new immigrants and visits to UJA-funded facilities such as absorption centers for new immigrants, agricultural settlements and inner-city neighborhood projects; few still include military bases, however worthy of visits. 8. The article addresses what has been, but not what is. UJA, for example, has been changing to keep pace with the changes in the American-Jewish community and Israel. We long ago abandoned the theme of raising funds for a poor, weak Israel, in favor of the idea of helping build Israel. Since 1990, for example, in the Operation Exodus campaign we have mainly spoken about how the immigrants can help build a strong Israel at peace. This year we instituted Partnership 2000, a people-to-people program that is pairing American Jewish communities with neighborhoods in Israel. Through Partnership 2000, businesspeople and others will exchange information and ideas with their counterparts in Israel. This builds on the inherent characteristic of all our relationships with Israel: direct contacts between Israelis and American Jews. Of course, Partnership 2000 is based on Project Renewal's successful model of bringing Israeli and American Jews into direct, ongoing contact. We at UJA, and those at other American Jewish organizations, are aware of the different experiences of American Jews and Israeli Jews and how both American Jewry and Israel are rapidly changing. The fact is that UJA, in partnership with you, has completely restructured its approach to fiindraising to address this new reality. It is important to know that bringing teenagers to Israel, building personal relationships between Israelis and American Jews, and aiding immigration to an Israel in a dramatic quest for peace are not only long-term plans, but are the basis for our current fundraising. At UJA, we believe we know the problems, and are trying to respond with viable solutions. RLP/nrm (RLP-1-GSN) jffe THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 14,1994 VOL. CCXXIV NO. 52 burden of Peace American Jews Grapple With an Identity Crisis As Peril to Israel Ebbs They Used to Rally Together To Protect Holy Land; : What Unites Them Now? Soup Kitchens and 'Seinfeld' By AMY DOTKSER MARCUS Sta/f Reporter of T I I K W A U . STHRKT JOURNAL For Jews In Israel, peace is dawning at long last. But for Jews in the U.S.. the turmoil is just beginning. America's Jews have spent decades focused on Israel and its survival. Israel has been at the center of Jewish identity, and fund-raising campaigns to support it have been an important yardstick for measuring American Jewish vitality. Now that Israel's surviyal crisis appears to have been averted, some American Jews are finding themselves left curiously adrift-and grappling with an identity crisis. "We now have to answer what does it mean to be a Jew in the modern world. We need to create an identity" that isn't based primarily on Israel, says Banry Shrage, head of Boston's Combined Jewish Philan-thropies. an umbrella group for Jewish charities. By focusing so single-mindedly on Israel. American Jews have neglected to build a strong, unified religion and culture at home, Mr. Shrage contends: "We have met the enemy, and it is us." At the same time, the unprecedented prospect of peace in Israel is prompting that nation to turn inward, pulling further away from the U.S. Israel's population already Is primarily of Middle Eastern origin. The biggest pop-music stars are Middle Eastern singers, while one of the most popular vacation spots is Turkey. "We are not a tiny version of America. We have more in common with the Druse living here than we do with American, Jews," says Yuval Rotem, an Israeli native who returned home last year after spend-ing four years working in New York. No Common Agenda And so, the peace process has divided the Israeli and American Jewish communi-ties In a way neither anticipated: by making them realize that, once Israel's survival is assured, the two sides no longer share a common agenda. Certainly, there will always be a special bond between the two. and if Israel is threatened, there is no doubt that U.S. Jews will rally again. But for now, Ameri-can Jewish leaders are casting about for a new way for the U.S. Jewish community to define itself, apart from Israel. Some are focusing on involvement in social causes at home, like inner-city poverty. Others are trying to forge a new Jewish identity with a more American flavor, revising Hebrew school classes to emphasize American' Jews In U.S. history, rather than Israeli j peeling Guilty * ' The transformation is proving painful, foul Mirowitz, a 66-year-old mortgage banker in SL Louis, still remembers listen-ing. spellbound, to radio reports of the founding of Israel In 1948. For decades, he nas been a tireless Israel booster and fund-raiser. But this year, he found him-self questioning whether the pro-Israel lobbying group to which he belongs is still necessary. He refused to make an annual contribution to the local Jewish federation until It agreed to hold a debate about ^pending more funds at home, in Mis-souri. ' "The last 50 years or so it's all been about Israel and its struggle to survive." M r . Mirowitz says. 'Then you begin to wonder if we need to start worrying about ourselves more." Still, he adds, "there's some guilt feeling about talking this way. You feeHlke you're a traitor." Similar sentiments are voiced by Jews in interviews around the country. Many say problems at home are just too pressing to divert as much attention and money to Israel. Since taking power in 1992, officials in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's govern-ment have told American Jewish leaders that Israel no longer needs their charity; cash donations from around the world now amount to less than 1% of the gross domes-tic product of S65 billion. The United Jewish Appeal; an umbrella fund-raising organization for U.S. Jews' contributions to Israel, collected $782 million in 1993- down 25% from its 1990 high. Of that amount, it sent on only 40% to Israel, down from 50% during the mid-1980s. 'It Resonates Less' "It used to be that Israel was the issue that clutched at the hearts of people." says Bennett Yanowltz. president of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, which cut more than S700.000 for Israel from Its 1994-1995 budget, though it re-mained a large donor. "It resonates less now." ' American Jews who do donate money often demand that it be used to further Jewish causes in the U.S. "There is a heightened sense of awareness that local Jewish education and continuity is at a crisis point in American Jewish life," says Milton Wolf, head of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a humani-tarian organization. Seated in the living room of his sprawl-ing Shaker Heights. Ohio, home. Mr. Wolf recalls the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when "I would have sold this house if Israel needed It. All of my friends would have." But "the feelings we have [toward Israel) can't last forever. You're lucky If it lasts one genera-tion." he concedes. "I suppose two genera-tions was more than anyone had the right to hope for." In many communities - including the Cleveland area, home to about 60.000 Jews and more than two dozen synagogues - Jewish leaders are seizing on other hot-button issues that they hope will replace Israel as a galvanizing force. At the Fairmount Temple in the afflu-ent suburb of Beachwood. for example, task forces address abortion rights, the homeless, the hungry, and the environ-ment. One thousand people turned out for a day devoted to community service, picking up tires from landfills, working in soup kitchens, and serving hot meals to the elderly. Friday night speakers have in-cluded a U.S. Supreme Court justice and Ooretta Scott King. "We support Israel, but we are not consumed with 1L We are a congregation that Is cultivating and celebrating its ??$?dcan identity." says Rabbi Billy TOSkln, who runs the religious services for young people. At nearby Temple-Tlfereth Israel, one of the'largest congregations in Cleve-land. a wrenching debate is going on over whether to emphasize the American Jew-ish experience, rather than Israeli history, in the religious school curriculum. Among the parents, many of whom are intermar-ried. support has emerged for focusing more on the history of diaspora communi-ties: teaching about the American Jews who marched with Martin Luther King during the civil-rights protests of the 1960s, for example. "We can't survive merely by living in the reflected glory and drama of Israeli life." says Roger C. Klein, one of three ? rabbis affiliated with the synagogue. "We must recognize the uniqueness of our situ-ation in America." ?Why Remain Jewish?* Those changing attitudes are reflected in the pages of the Cleveland Jewish News, a 15,000-plus circulation weekly newspa-per. Israel rarely makes the front page these days, says editor Cynthia Dettel-bach. Recent cover issues have dealt in-stead with living with multiple sclerosis, infertility, and Jews who work with the Cleveland Indians baseball team. None of the social issues the Jewish community is embracing, though,'are unique to Judaism the way the Israel cause was. And none have had quite the unifying power of Israel, which so long served as a . rallying cry for Jews in disparate commu- , nities throughout the country. "Israel was I t the heart of our communal agenda. As a community, we were dependent on giving Israel money and political support." says Bernard Steinberg, executive director of Harvard-Radcllffe Hlllel, a college group for Jewish students. "Without that, noth-ing about our lives was Jewish, collec-tively. Now the issue is. what compels an American .low lo remain a Jew?" Certainty, some Jewish leaders are trying to keep the torch lit for Israel, but theirs is an increasingly difficult ? and. often fruitless - mission. Rabbi Alan Let? tofsky, executive director of the Cleveland Burden of Peace: American Jews Face Identity Crisis As Peril to Israel Ebbs; Soup Kitchens and 'Seinfeld' Hlilel Foundation based at Case Western Reserve University, says when he first began working with college students in 1972, they were passionate about Israel. / The massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics that year, and the Arab- j Israeli war the following year, brought j waves of students to Hillel eager to organ-ize rallies and raise money for Israel. Now he tries to entice students by sponsoring an : evening watching the television sitcom "Seinfeld." 1 "I used to be able to guarantee that 40 students at least would show up if I brought an Israeli speaker, no matter who it was." says Rabbi Lettofsky. "If I have an Israeli speaker today, I can't guarantee anyone will show up." 'Just Like Florida' The youngest generation of Jews seems to share a particular malaise toward Is-rael. Only 5,500 American Jewish teen-agers visited Israel last year, down from 12.000 annually before the start of the Palestinian intifada in 1987. "When I got off the plane in Israel. I felt Just like I do when I go to Florida," says Erica Greenstein, a 17-year-old from Cleveland who took the trip with her .Jewish youth group. Twisting a lock of her .'long, sandy hair around her finger, she adds. "Everyone told me I would feel an instant connection, but even when I visited the Wailing Wall. I still didn't feel any-thing special." JeWs in both the U.S. and Israel are trying to redefine the relationship between the two countries. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful, advocacy organization in Washington, for example, hired a lobbyist whose primary job is promoting business partnerships between Israeli and American companies. And in Israel. Menachem Revlvl is trying to develop a Hebrew television series called "Families" - "something be-tween 'Roots' and 'Dynasty,'" be says-chronldlng the saga of one Israeli family and Its branches In the U.S. and Argen-tina. The Idea, he says, Is to bolster Israelis' fading sense of connection with the diaspora. But Mr. Revlvl, who runs the Jerusalem office of United Israel, an um-brella organization for U.S. fund-raising groups, knows he faces an uphill battle, since many Israelis just aren't Interested In the diaspora. "What do we have in common" with Americans, Mr. Revlvl says his grown son's army friends ask. "Maybe we had a common past," they tell him, "but we have no common present, and, for sure, no common future." 'Show Us Soldiers!' To try to create a future with Ameri-cans. the United Israel office also Is at-tempting to immerse visiting American Jewish donors in Israeli life as It really Is, rather than Indulge them In the old stereo-types of settlers and soldiers. Tour guides place more emphasis on the beauty of the land and on Israeli domestic issues, and less on "embattled Israel." says Andrea Katz. who helps organize the tours. But Ms. Katz isn't certain how inter-ested American Jews really are in getting a more realistic view. The few times she has tried to forgo the usual trip to an army base, the tour groups have complained. "They want to see heroic Israel. Israel facing the odds." says Ms. Katz. as a group . of American Jews standing on the Golan Heights are told about the battle that took , place there with the Syrians. "If I told them we're hard-working Joes, my biggest problem is fighting the city to get a permit to build a p o r c h . . . I can almost guarantee that no one would want to come." A tent on the lawn of Israeli President Ezer Weizman's Jerusalem home is filled with Israeli, American and other Jewish leaders gathered to discuss Israel's rela-tions with the diaspora in an era of peace. Ostensibly, this summer gathering brings together those most committed to Israel, and yet, as the two-day conference wears 1 on. it is clear how far apart the two sides truly have grown. Mr. Weizman gives his opening address in English, acknowledg-ing that virtually none of those present can speak Hebrew. Yet almost all the current generation of Israeli diplomats - who are likely to be the next generation of Israeli leaders - are Israeli-born or raised, and have little in common with the outsiders. "They know little about the diaspora, because Israeli society knows little." says Ya'akov Levy, head of the Foreign Minis-try's training department Forty-Five Years of Resentment Throughout the day, each side erupts in-bursts of resentment over the roles they have played for so long. "We're tired of being treated like the younger brother with a runny nose," says conference attendee Mr. Revivi. At 49, Mr. Kevlvi still can recall receiving care packages of food from U.S. Jewish groups as a child. "We come with 45 years of resentment at being considered a charity case," he says. The American Jews, for their part, are no longer willing to view Jewish history as a theatrical production where the Israelis "are the stars, and we are the ushers, the ticket takers and the audience," Leonard Fein, a Boston Jewish activist, says in a conference speech. As the American speakers launch into a discussion of American Jewish life, de-scribing Jewish day schools and Jewish studies courses offered by U.S. universi-ties, Mr. Weizman impatieAtly begins tap-ping his foot. "If there's no problem, then why am I here?" he finally growls. It is a public recognition of a current running below the surface of the entire event: Without trouble, what is there left to talk about?