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Jewish World Review June 17, 2002 / 7 Tamuz, 5762
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http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
After 35 years of confining its
Israel-designated funds to within the
Green Line, the primary fund-raising
arm for the American Jewish
community has changed its policy.
In
an historic move, the board of
trustees of the United Jewish
Communities, meeting last week in Chicago, unanimously "adopted a
broad interpretation of the UJC charter to permit the organization to
provide assistance to Jews around the world, irrespective of where
they live," according to an official statement.
"We are changing the process," said
UJC president and CEO Steve
Hoffman in an interview Tuesday,
though the group is not changing the
wording of its charter, which dates
back to 1960.
Acknowledging "the environment has
changed" since the outbreak of the
Palestinian violence in September
2000, with the need for human
services growing in the Jewish
communities of the West Bank and
Gaza, Hoffman said his group felt the
need to "re-examine our charter and
our practice."
He said he consulted with attorneys recently who concluded "it would
be within our charter to provide relief and rehabilitative services to
Jews anywhere."
The board action came in response to increasing criticism from some
quarters that UJC was providing social services and humanitarian relief
for Jews all over the world - except for those 200,000 or so living in
Jewish settlements beyond the 1967 borders in the Holy Land.
The disapproval has increased over the last 20 months as more than
100 Jews living in those areas have been killed by Palestinian
terrorists and hundreds more wounded. Critics charged that some of
the Jews most in need of relief services were not being provided for
because of the politics of the situation.
UJC launched an Israel Emergency Campaign in October that has
raised more than $265 million, the largest campaign for Israel since the
Yom Kippur War in 1973. But the fact that the emergency campaign did
not provide armored buses, bulletproof vests or medical or
psychological services directly to communities in the disputed
territories, though many have been under attack, raised troubling
questions within the Jewish communal world.
There was also uncertainty because some individual Jewish
federations provide funding beyond the Green Line and others do not.
Adding to the confusion, UJC maintained that even though its services
did not cross the Green Line, it was open to all, as long as people
came into Israel proper to avail themselves of the help offered.
All that should change now, according to Hoffman.
"I don't want people to have to think who is worthy [of receiving social
services] and who isn't, depending on where they live," he said. "And I
don't want our campaign used for political purposes. What we want is
for services to be determined by need."
Until now many felt that UJC was hostage to liberal politics for several
decades, and some major donors opposed to the settlements had
threatened to withdraw or decrease their donations if funds were
distributed, through the United Israel Appeal, beyond the Green Line.
But a UJC official noted Tuesday that the mood of the American Jewish
community has shifted rightward as a result of the terror attacks on
Israel and the U.S.
"The Jewish community is less liberal now, particularly after Sept. 11,
and we don't think there will be a significant backlash to our decision,"
the official said, adding: "We are going to deliver services where they
are needed. We simply feel it's the right thing to do."
UJA-Federation of New York, long resistant to funding or sending
missions across the Green Line, played a key role in the UJC shift this
week.
John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the local charity, said
that in recent months "there was increasing recognition" that
regardless of where terror incidents took place, "we wanted to reach
out to those Jews and their families and provide support, wherever
they live."
Toby Klein Greenwald, a journalist living in Efrat, a settlement south of
Jerusalem, wrote an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post last week
highly critical of the UJC's longstanding policy. The article recounted her
"disturbing" conversation with Hoffman in which she questioned him
closely about not giving money directly to communities in need.
Hoffman countered with several arguments, including one about
concern for the organization's IRS tax status, though that was proven
to be a red herring 14 years ago.
Contacted after hearing of the UJC statement this week, Greenwald
welcomed it as "wonderful," though she cautioned "the proof will be in
the tachlis [practicality]" in whether there is "a positive response to
requests for services in a timely and forthcoming way."
Greenwald said "the whole country is traumatized" and there is a
great need for psychological counseling. Just last Friday night a
substitute teacher in her 12-year-old son's school was murdered, she
said, and when she spoke with the youngster about his feelings, he
said, "it's not the first time."
The original funding policy came when UJC's predecessor, the United
Jewish Appeal, interpreted its mandate of providing dollars for Israel to
mean within internationally recognized, pre-1967 Israel. That is how
the matter remained until now. Over the years there were times the
policy was questioned internally, but there were concerns about
angering the State Department, which is opposed to settlements, and
perhaps prompting a challenge to the organization's tax status.
In hindsight, officials acknowledge that the ideal time to have made a
change would have been when the UJA was reconstituted as UJC
several years ago and the charter could have substituted the phrase
"the Jewish people" instead of "Israel" as the beneficiary of funds.
"That would have solved the problem quietly," a UJC official noted,
"and avoided all this controversy." New York Jewish Week staff writer Stewart Ain contributed to this article.
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By Gary Rosenblatt
JWR contributor Gary Rosenblatt is Editor and Publisher of the New York Jewish Week. Comment by clicking here.
