EIGHTH ANNUAL WCJCS SEMINAR

JUNE 24, 2002

"Responding to Crises:

Strategies for Community Action and Inter-Community Cooperation"

JACK HABIB: I bring the greetings of Howard Charish, the President of the World Conference who, regretfully, could not be with us. Howard will shortly be visiting with us in Jerusalem. I want to thank all those who participated in organizing this seminar. The co-Chairman, Max Kleinman, Director of the Metro West Federation, and Jeff Kaye, head of The Financial Resource Development of the Jewish Agency. Special thanks to Dorit and Ted Comet, who worked so hard, as well as to Maayan who made sure everything came together. Now it is my pleasure to present Max Kleinman.

MAX KLEINMAN: Thank you Jack. B'ruchim haba'im to all. This past year has been the worst year for the Jewish people in a generation. The World Trade Center disaster on 9/11 was a horrible disaster for the American people. It had particular negative repercussions for the Jewish community. A disproportionate number those killed and injured in the World Trade Center disaster, were Jews! (of course, as you know, half the Arab world was encouraged to think that the Jews were responsible for the World Trade Center Disaster). We all know about the horrible anti-Semitism in Europe. The Argentinean economy imploded causing a significant crisis for Argentinean Jewry. In North America, and certainly in Europe, there is a crisis on the college campus where there are demonstrations of tremendous anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In addition, there pressures in the United States to have colleges and universities divest their endowment programs from Israeli businesses and organizations. Many of our Jewish young people are not well equipped to be able to address many of these issues.

Yes! This has been a terrible terrible year for the Jewish people. Despite this, I believe we have responded magnificently to meet some of the challenges we have confronted.

This evening we have a wonderful panel of Israelis and Americans who will begin addressing some of the issues arising from the crises we face.

I will introduce our colleagues from North America and then Jeff will introduce our colleagues from Israel. After the introductions I will present some questions for my American colleagues to address and then Jeff will ask some questions to which our Israeli colleagues will respond.

Steve Hoffman, who is on my left, is the President of the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella for the North American Jewish Federations. Under Steve's leadership I believe that the North American Jewish community has responded quite well. He was for many years the Executive Director of the Cleveland Jewish Federation, which is one of the most successful Jewish Federations in North America.

At my immediate left is John Ruskay, President of the UJA Federation of New York, which is the world's largest Federation, representing the largest Jewish community in the world. You can understand that this has been a terrible year for the New York Jewish community. Previously, John was the vice Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, following an earlier academic career. We are delighted that Steve and John are both here.

Jeff, why don't you introduce the rest of the panel?

JEFF KAYE: I would like to concur with Max in terms of the difficulties this last year. I found that the year has been an extreme test for the world Jewish community in general and particularly for Jewish professionals in Israel and in the diaspora.

Sitting here, I was suddenly reminiscing about 9/11 and about being at the King David Hotel, in a very tense room, part of a large delegation from the European Federation and from the UJC, with our Israeli friends and family. We banded together as brothers, and experienced this year as a tremendous test for all of us. Today, thanks to a tremendous amount of work by Jewish professionals who were themselves being tested, we have managed to come here almost a year later, to be together and to feel stronger as a result of our common experiences.

I would like to present Dr. Michael Ganor (at my far right), who is a senior management consultant, with twenty years of practical experience of organizational human resources development. Dr. Ganor serves as a senior consultant for the Jerusalem Association of Community Councils, where he is in charge of training, organizational development, and research. He has been a leading consultant for major innovative initiatives in urban community development, making significant contributions to the design of coping and community resilience models.

In the center is Dr. Yitzhak Brick, a research philosopher, who has been for ten years the Director General of Eshel, the JDC-Israel Association for the planning and development of service to the aged. Dr. Brick is also a former associate President of the WCJCS.

Mr. Damon Rose, to my immediate right, serves the Hadera-Eiron region for the Jewish Agency of Israel. Mr. Rose has been working for the "seam line" area for the last three years. He will talk about JAFI and the Jewish Agency field operation activities in this area in view of the current security crisis.

MAX KLEINMAN: Thank you Jeff, you are my favorite Scottish friend. I am going to present some questions to Steve Hoffman;

I shall be asking the same questions of John.

How has the North American Jewish community responded to these crises, focusing on Israel and Argentina ? What have been its strategies? What are the obstacles that have to be overcome and how can we professionals play a definitive role? Additionally, we have all intellectualized these problems and issues; would you comment on how these have affected you personally and emotionally as a member of the Jewish people?

STEVE HOFFMAN: I feel like I am at a press conference but I am going to give you the answer I want to give you. The first thing that occurred to me is that I had the pleasure of talking to this group a year ago. I hadn't yet taken on the responsibilities at UJC, but I was asked to explain all we were going to do for Israel and the matsav, as we knew it then. We talked about our advocacy efforts and how we were going to have a rally in the streets of New York, in September, and how we were going to educate ourselves and work on university campuses and work to bring people to Israel on missions. I remember using the analogy: What does a family do when a family member is in trouble? You do not just feel bad for him, you go to see what you can do to help!

I want to tell you that it is one thing to be among the "helpers" and to be thinking about all the things you can or want to do to help people in distress. It is quite another thing to be on the receiving end – to need help! On September 11 th, I was actually at an Israeli absorption center in Arad, when I got the news of the attack on New York my first thought was, "Oh my goodness, we have got all these New Yorkers scattered around Israel and we are going to re-assemble in Jerusalem and we may need to deal with our delegation members who will be in distress."

I immediately left Arad to be in Jerusalem to prepare for John who was out on a field trip at the time. The overwhelming memory I have, aside from John's steadfastness at this very difficult time, was the outpouring of help from our Israeli professional colleagues. John had brought people over to do counseling training with Israelis, to know how to deal with the matsav ; within hours, the Israeli professionals were helping us learn how to deal with the trauma that we were certain some of our people would experience.

Nonetheless, I was actually surprised at the reaction of some of our leadership who just lost it, just lost it. People who I rely on as the "Rocks of Gibraltar" in the normal give and take, just became irrational about security. I think it was most manifest when we were sitting at Ben Gurion Airport for twelve hours trying to get out, because the American airports kept closing and opening. My friends in New York were all thinking about how they could get our plane off the ground; how they could get the New York airports to open for our airplane. They called every US senator that they knew; it was impressive that half of the members of the United States Senate called back to keep us informed.

At the end of the day, El Al got us home, we were on the first airplane to land from a foreign carrier in New York at JFK Airport because El Al had stressed to the U.S. Authorities, that "if you don't trust our security then you are never going to open up JFK again." I went through this experience personally with John. So when the experience becomes personal, as professionals it felt difficult because we had to keep our own heads focused on the people we were working with and serving. You had to figure out what you were going to do at 1 a.m. in the morning, when everybody had gone to bed and you were left. I then understood again the personal nature of the experience, highlighting the concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

When I was here in Israel in March, I was here for the Mandel Foundation meeting and there was a terrorist incident on King George Street in Jerusalem. I am in Jerusalem, I am at the Mandel headquarters at Rehov Graetz, for me it is way over on the other side of town. My cell phone goes on, it is my wife. I understood then what the people here are going through, and worse than that, for me personally Max, it reminded me and again, it brought back to the tragedy of September 11 th. Again I wasn't on the scene and yet here I was somehow part of the context.

Now, in terms of the response on a communal basis, I think the fundamentals are these: We still believe that the outline I shared with you a year ago was the way to go in reaching out to the people of Israel in difficult situations. I feel that our two peoples have become closer, because after September 11 th, "we got the message". If you lived in the greater New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area, where Max was also with us on the trip (he had the leadership to deal with), you understood clearly what it is like to suddenly have people you know, gone.

I personally didn't lose anyone in the catastrophe. I was sitting with people from New York and New Jersey who had lost people and when I spoke to my sister at home, she told me of neighbors who died because they were among those who commute from New Jersey. So it began to happen in America, this firsthand experience of losses due to terrorism. It gave us better understanding of what you need to do to help people and how we can help the people of Israel.

In the deepest darkest moments, which I would say ran from September 11 th until about the General Assembly in early November, the American Jewish community was gripped in fear. Fear about "They're coming for us". Every Jewish Agency thought "al-Qaeda is out there and they are coming for us." Every Federation building, every JCC, every Synagogue. I thought it was irrational until the end of the GA in Washington ; then at the UJA and UJC we closed down our mailroom because it was our postbox and our security people were convinced that we were on the terrorist list. So this is the way that it came to us in the United States.

We had leadership that wouldn't go to local meetings, or to national meetings, and wouldn't get on airplanes. We had people who told us there weren't willing to come to the GA. We had leadership who said they weren't going to come to Israel for the Board of Governors in October. It wasn't that they were afraid to go to Israel, they were afraid to get on the airplane and I was amazed at who it was that had these fears!

The bottom line is we began to have trouble in the United States with how to function, how to go on, and also how to deal with our specific trauma of New York City. I remember writing to our colleagues and then to our leadership that we had to take the example from our family in Israel and how they deal with this kind of matzav.

So, anything I had told you in June that we were going to do for you was still relevant and you had to start doing it for us. I think it is a unique period, at least in our mutual Jewish history. The help has usually been one- way. This year, in the eyes of the diaspora, we experienced the demonstration of Israel as a strong and full partner of the Jewish people!

The partnership played itself out again in our cooperation in the tasks in Argentina. When we went down to Argentina to see how we could help, we were accompanied by Israeli experts or Israeli staff, from the Jewish Agency and the JDC. You know Alan Hoffman from the Jewish Agency was there, Burda was there. When we work with the ORT organization in Argentina, when we worked with AMIA, those are the organizations in Argentina that we contacted.

We worked with the JDC on the welfare needs, on the need to organize the community. We worked with the Jewish Agency to understand the education picture in the community; then we mobilized our own local communities to raise money and we comprised a large mission. We developed an analysis of the Argentinian situation based upon the reports developed by the JDC and JAFI. In this way, we decided on a dollar-level system and then we organized our local communities nationally to come through with the needed assistance, to allow the others to do the work.

We were now repeating that experience after the September 11 th catastrophe. So, without going on too much, Max, it has been an unbelievable year, in terms of the depth of pain I think we have suffered on both sides of the ocean. Yet at the same time, we probably brought out the best mutual support at the national level, which replicated everything that happens at the local level that we have ever experienced. I think that when the histories are written and we look at all the great things we have accomplished together from the time of the founding of the State of Israel, and the roles that our Jewish communities played at that time, from getting through the wars, to the ingathering of tremendous numbers of people, this year, in a different way, will stand out as one of the finest, if not the finest year in our mutual experience.

JOHN RUSKAY: I just want to say first that the professional sitting my left is an amazing professional who has done an extraordinary job this year and we don't have enough opportunities to say that about one another, but we are very fortunate to have him in the chair, but particularly in this past year. There is so much to say, but even the questions you asked, Max, along with Steve's reactions, evoke a kind of openness.

I for one am exhausted physically, emotionally and I would say spiritually and thus looking forward to chofesh. But inspired by your question and by Steve's response, I wish to say how good it feels to be with professionals!

I suppose if we had more time together we could reassure and help each other at a time like this. Regretfully, we don't have enough opportunities at this time.

This has been an exhausting year for what I believe continues to be a treacherous period for both Israel and the Jewish people. All of us have worked at 110%, and we made it possible for other people to have healing for the caregivers, but I am not sure we do too well for ourselves.

There is a funny piece about this. As you heard, Steve and I worked here together on September 11 th. We had, what I think was an extraordinary meeting that night for the many delegations at the King David Hotel. It was very moving, very powerful and we talked about a lot of things, focusing on the way in which the Israelis were coping. We were visiting people, whom we had given emergency grants for Israel 's trauma center. That same night, as you heard, these professionals were in our hotel with us and were there helping us for twenty-four hours a day. Some of our people didn't know if their family members or others had been hurt in the Towers and it was days before they heard. At the end of it, people sang, "G-d bless America." We were both at the microphone and we were standing up and realized that neither of us knew the words, so we started humming.

STEVE HOFFMAN: Let me tell the real story John. The real story is that we decided to sing "G-d bless America." One of John's community members actually suggested it. John agreed. We had just sung Hatikvah, and we were about to sing "G-d bless America". John knows the first words, which are "G - d bless America", and at this point he pulled me in front of the microphone. (laughter)

JOHN RUSKAY: Just a few comments. Obviously, when we returned to New York City, which was in trauma for weeks and weeks and weeks. I spent some time earlier with Dan Meridor, and in a few minutes he spoke about the fact that one his children's classmates was killed, colleagues of the family and that he had been at four funerals. It actually reminded me, when you talked about the impact of these things during the weeks after 9/11 in New York, I understood just what has happened in Jerusalem in the past week, a city which has suffered so much also over the past two years. It resonated right back to me.

On September 11 th, I think every institution in our community, every part of the City Government did everything it could to stretch and serve in miraculous ways. Our agencies have a great deal to say about the way they worked diligently and overtime, and the way our Federations coordinated the local agencies. That is a subject for another day.

I want to share the conclusions we drew, from what we learned from our September 11 th experience.

•  Our system was so incredibly effective on 9/11 because it was in place on 9/10!

•  We also learned about the impact synagogues can make. We learned again the importance of synagogues. We conducted a poll asking New York Jews to which institution they had turned for community service input. More than 40% cited their synagogue, more than all of other the institutions together.

•  There was the enormous desire of Jews and others to volunteer. As you know the exact number needed could not be reached, but it led us to create a center for voluntarism. We hope to give this a full opportunity and become a huge "switchboard" for channeling the desire of people of all ages to give.

•  Obviously the input of the community. There is a lot to be said about that.

•  Who was there on 9/11? Mayor Guilliani to be sure, but there were also the firemen, the policemen and case workers. It has not been usual for us – be we should - make a concerted effort to find opportunities to honor on our Boards and in our ideas, the frontline teachers, case workers, rabbis and others who are so often under-compensated and under-acknowledged. We all need to continue to honor our great philanthropists and others. But we don't do enough to honor, relatively speaking, the people out there in the classroom and in the clinic.

I wish to make one comment about our experience in Argentina. Steve and I, and fifteen other professionals were invited by the Argentinian Prime Minister to dinner and he asked us, the American Jewish community, to take responsibility for the Argentine Jewish community. What was incredible was the fact that, in response, the leadership of the American Jewish community immediately rose and said, "It is our collective responsibility." The Prime Minister said, "We don't know there will be five thousand people coming, or fifty thousand or a hundred thousand," and with one voice, there was a deep recognition of collective responsibility.

Many people have seen, through our commitments in Israel and Argentina, the earlier incredible results. If we did not have our collective responsibility system, there would not now be what is going on now with the aliyah from Buenos Aires today. This is apparent to all.

I would like to say two things about Israel. One on the one hand, we have provided a range of channels, rallies, whether it is be April 15 th in Washington, where over 200,000 people participated, in the Salute to Israel Parade on May 7 th in New York City, a parade we had thought to cancel three years ago. A parade, into which we are now putting five times as much money. Meanwhile, between missions, rallies, ads, education there was the raising of money.

We have tried with our remarks to provide a feeling of the depth and resolve of the American Jewish community to stand with the people of Israel and we try to do it in a way, which has the broadest intent. The language, "standing with Israel ", did not just come from the air. There were people standing with the people of Israel and the Government of Israel. It was thought-out language and it added so much. People may have different views, but this resolve was about standing with the people of Israel. I give ourselves a "B plus" maybe even "A minus" grade, on finally providing an effective multi-dimensional channel to express the resolve that we "stand with the Jewish People".

This is a professional seminar, so I would like to be a little self-critical as well. Within the inner circles of American Jewry there is both solidarity and dread There is the incredible desire of American Jewry and world Jewry to stand with the people of Israel as they resist theviolence and terror which is ending their pursuit of peace. There is also a profound recognition that these are treacherous and difficult days both for Israel and the Jewish people.

I think we have done less well as professionals who also understand our role as community educators in enabling people to grapple with the enormous set of challenges that face both Israel and the Jewish people right now. Someone spoke with me this last week about the "Green Line". Now I happen to believe that there is no case to be made any longer against offering aid to a victim of terror in Netanya and not to a victim of terror in Efrat or Ariel or anywhere else. I have asked many people of varied political dimensions to come up with any basis to oppose such a stand. They said that is the desire of the American community! But the American Jewish community also has trouble and difficulty about settlements, and is overwhelmingly desirous to support an effort to get peace; that believes the security of Israel requires peace.

So I ask the question, have we provided any kind of context for us to grapple with the enormous challenges both on the fact of peace, and on the Israeli Arabs that also faces us; here I think we have done less well. Some of you know I believe actually engagement is deepening, the commitment is deepening when they get into these issues. Even if they develop different perspectives on how to pursue them and I think this lack is evident.

My last comment. I think we have multiple feelings at the moment. I have enormous anger about the Palestinians and Arafat. I go back to Barak's offer. I am terrible disappointed, what is so heavy about this war is that we are fighting after we thought we had achieved the peace. I think there is incredible sadness for some, that we had to return to an agenda of Israel -at- risk that many of us thought we had left.

The President of my Federation, Larry Zicklin, said to me just two weeks ago, "I didn't sign up for this! I signed up for this: to build a caring community with you, to put new life into the Jewish continuity agenda, to connect human service agencies with our synagogue members, and here we are back to September 11 th, with Argentina and Israel." Of course I replied, "None of us signed up for this result, but we have the responsibility of giving everything we can to be with our people."

I want to be clear: I think we need to do everything we can! Steve was a critical factor in fully mobilizing the community. But there are numerous feelings that we feel, collectively I think, not only personally, but beyond that I think we have done less well.

In conclusion, even if it took us a while, we are doing very well here on our goal of solidarity. Under it is the question, can we examine and understand our own roles as professionals more broadly, and ought stretch these prfoessional values to be thinking about how to take our communities more deeply into these issues out of the conviction that they challenge us and require us to do that as Jews and as professionals? In asking the question I obviously indicate that my inclination is, Yes. We somehow have to get into these issues and this is the opportunity.

Thank you.

JEFF KAYE: I would like to continue the tradition of Steve complimenting John, and John - Steve and then Max to both of them. When I look at UJC, the New York Federation, and the Federation of MetroWest, I think we have here three wonderful examples agencies with professionals who can serve the Jewish world, to mobilize itself in a time of crisis.

I am not sure that it is necessarily easier coping with crisis when one has geographical distance. I remember a number of years ago when I was in the Jewish Federation of Detroit as a community shaliach; it was the morning after Rabin's assassination. I couldn't understand how the world could function normally the day after a Prime Minister was assassinated!

So, I do believe that it is a challenging aspect for a person to deal with a crisis that you are not part of every minute. I felt this when I was with my colleagues from abroad on the phone immediately after a bomb exploded here in Israel. I was thousands of miles away from them, on the other side of the ocean. I am not sure whether I felt more sorry for myself in Jerusalem or for those in New York or wherever, not being able to feel what we were feeling here, even though I knew their hearts were here. So thank you for being who you are.

Now I will turn to my three Israeli colleagues and we are going to focus upon how organizations cope with crises that they are experiencing. I will pose three questions:

Firstly, how does an organization mobilize in order to provide effective and quick intervention? The second question, how does an organization maintain a correct balance between its ongoing mission and at the same time react effectively and appropriately to the crisis situation, and therefore remain relevant? I think that for the organizations here it has been no small challenge over the last year or two. The third question is, how have each of you as professionals maintained the balance between your professional duties and your personal duties as fathers, sons, husbands and friends? When the sirens go off, what are your first thoughts and what are your first reactions? None of us in Israel have been able to be divorced from the crisis as it has developed. In the same way that Steve and John were unable to divorce themselves from the crisis of 9/11 as it was happening.

I will ask Dr. Michael Ganor to address them first.

DR. MICHAEL GANOR: I thank you. I will try to give you the perspective of the Jerusalem community centers and the community councils on the issue of "community resilience", which is a concept that unfortunately we have had to develop as we are going through the crisis; basically we are looking for the definition of what resilience means. It means the ability of individuals and communities to deal with the state of continuous and repeated experiences of stress, which causes gaps between the reality of the environment and the function of the coping behavior of both individuals and groups in the community.

What this definition means is that resilience is the ability to deal with long- term stress, not just to withstand pressure, but to use it as a springboard, so to speak, for development, for strengthening ourselves both as individuals and as a community. The resilience in communication, is the ability of members in the community to establish links between themselves to communicate and pass on information at all times. This calls for the fellowship of groups and of a communication infrastructure within the community and with others. The amount of such cooperation is an important aspect of resilience. Cooperation is the ability to deal together with others. Our work within the Jewish Community has taught us how difficult it is to bring realization and aspiration together.

I think of cooperation as a must and it comes along with other responsibilities. It is not enough with the cooperation that we usually have; we have to assume additional responsibilities, and that is part of the answer to the first question that you asked.

Cohesion is important. Cohesion within the community has to do with the anticipation that you are needed, with the sense of belonging, with the assurance that you have someone to count on and that there is some kind of leadership that will take us out of the mess.

Coping means measures to stay passive but to actually do things in an active way and take some action. In our ability where the senses are high - usually there are scars, but there is an ability of transparency in the decision making process in this case, and in different times of leadership. Use the political leadership necessarily.

The next thing at times is vision, I would say, hope. If someone asked for the opposite of resilience, I would say hopelessness and helplessness. So you need a vision, that tells you that there is something in the future, that there is something to look forward to in the future. The definition of a "vision" can be developed with the help of professionals such as Dr. Jacinto Inbar. We have jointly developed a program for development with "vision".

As the community is developing resilience, we are trying to start with helping the helpers and training the trainers. We are developing leadership to help the rest of the community. We have developed a set of mechanisms by which students are helping us. These are the kind of innovative programs that necessity in developing models and inventions for different communities.

Where are the nations who will then do that and how do you tackle this?

I was sitting at a professional meeting in the neighborhood of Gilo and suddenly shooting started. "Yes, of course there are shootings in Gilo. Any bullets?" "Of course. Yes, in HaAnafa street." "Aha! is all of Gilo dangerous?" "No, no, no, just the HaAnafa street. " "Where in the HaAnafa street did the bullet hit? "In the first building in Neve Bashanali." " Aha, so not all the HaAnafa street is dangerous, just near Neve Bashanali." "No, in Neve Bashanali they are bullet-proof." So it is not that dangerous, I guess.

We have a lesson that we learn from Gilo – "preparation and perspiration", the ability to work together. It is very easy for me standing here to declare the need for the Jewish Agency to know how difficult the laws of cooperation are. When we develop it, it is not rare to recognize resilience in people. You are then ready to cope, but you have to be prepared to maintain the resilience.

The building of resilience is a process. You cannot rely on creating community resilience unless you have the infrastructure of leadership, the infrastructure of community identity, the infrastructure of community networking and the infrastructure of community cohesiveness. These must be maintained and nurtured all the time.

The message that I bring here is the need, both in Israel and in America, to be active and pro-active. Thank you.

JEFF KAYE: Thank you Michael. Dr. Yitzhak Brick please.

DR. YITZHAK BRICK: I think that we are living in one of the most difficult times in the history of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael.

I was a child at the time of the War of Independence, and since then, like many other people here, we went through all kinds of different and difficult wars. But this kind of war is hard for me to explain to you.

We know that there is the danger of being involved in this war anywhere and everywhere, at every moment. In fact, you can say that everyone is at risk everywhere, all the time.

I am here to speak on behalf of the JDC and I want to tell you what the response of the JDC to this kind of situation was. According to the principles of the JDC, the JDC was mainly concerned with vulnerable populations; that relates to children at risk, the disabled, the elderly and the olim. These populations are even more at risk than any other people in the country. Consider, who are riding the buses? Who uses the buses? it is mainly the olim, the elderly and the poor people. Who is going to the shuk to buy its products? Again, those are the elderly, the olim and the poor people. So this part of the population is much more at risk and we felt that we have to respond and to mobilize our resources right away.

The Intifada started about two years ago and after the first shootings in Gilo, we immediately adapted the existing program to the new situation. It is a project, whose goals are in place, which provides a basket of services, brought to the elderly people who continue to live at home. Good. There is a community structure, so that when they have an emergency, there are call systems, medical services and social activities. So we took this program where the infrastructure already exists and we added professionals, community workers, helpers who speak the language of the Russian olim and special equipment so that people will continue to remain at home and be able to cope with the new situation. Help was needed, because they were afraid to go out to the supermarket or to buy medicine.

We have expanded this program to other communities in different parts of the country in cooperation with and under the direction that we received from the home front command, who gave us a list of communities at risk - and these are the communities in which we developed the programs.

The same model also served to support disabled people. Again, the model started in Gilo and was then adopted in other communities. It is very interesting that right away the first Federation to move in and to help in Gilo was the New York Federation, and then other Federations joined the program and supported other parts of the country.

Another program which was very helpful and which developed early in these communities at risk was a "Warm Home" program, in which a volunteer family invites other people to come and join them for social activities. This is mainly for the olim from the FSU. That gave them the feeling of togetherness and the feeling that they can help and support each other at a time when there is a lot of fear and danger in the streets.

During Passover 2002, there were tremendous terrorist attacks resulting in the mobilization of the army. During Passover, children were out of school. We realized that when children are out of school, they are in the streets and there is a serious danger when they are out, without the framework of protection which they have in school. So we developed a new program, with the UJC and the Federations, to keep the children safe in the coming summer. This program is going to assure the safety of thousands of children in the summer, who will attend summer camps. Additional programs are ready for the fall, when children go back to school, to provide their afternoons with safe additional activities. There are other activities organized in several regions and localities around the country, especially in the North, along the seamline, and in major cities like Jerusalem, Netanya and Afula, which are the major cities at risk.

There are also other programs in which we train the social workers and other staff in the social service departments how to deal with situations, with trauma, with people who went through traumatic events and school terrorist attacks. We are also preparing for a different kind of war that may happen in the future; preparing the institutions, the staff in the institutions on how to deal with this new situation should it happen, to help the olim, the Ethiopians, the Russians, the elderly people and the disabled.

I am not going to go into details of the programs, but I want to conclude in relating more specifically to your questions, Jeff. I will take one of them: "How do you separate or not separate between your personal feelings and your behavior as a professional?"

I think that everyone will share the same feelings with me. When something happens, when there is a terrorist attack, when there is a bomb on a bus or in the street or in a coffee shop or in a restaurant, you put aside everything and you think about your family. You immediately call everybody. It goes in ever-widening circles from your close family, to friends, to relatives, colleagues, etc. and that is how you do it.

When you find everyone is safe you then continue your life almost as normal, dealing with the everyday responsibility that you have as a professional. The first year of Passover two of my sons-in-law were drafted. As the mobilization began with the Tzav shemoneh, two of them were drafted and both of them were on the front line. So, it was very hard for me as a professional with my responsibilities not to think about it. You can't avoid it! You keep thinking: where are they, what are they doing? You even continue making telephone calls to find out what is going on. You cannot detach, you are involved. We are a small country and a small nation. Everybody knows everybody. It is a feeling that we are all together now.

I have a wonderful feeling sitting together with other professionals on this platform. I feel the togetherness, and I feel that we share the same values and the same interests. I do believe in Am Yisrael chai and I believe that anachnu areivim ze la ze. So thank you for being together. Let us hope that we will soon have some kind of peace here in Eretz Yisrael.

JEFF KAYE: Thank you, Dr. Brick. Dr. Ganor, the vital principle that you mentioned was cooperation, I think that is true! There has been a remarkable cooperation between the JDC and the Jewish Agency over the last year, in particular, because of the crisis.

We would now like to the JAFI perspective, from Mr. Damon Rose.

DAMON ROSE: Thank you Jeff. John, you said you were in Mei Ami. It so happens that Mei Ami is in the region that I handle as a regional director, one of twenty-five regional directors in the Jewish Agency. For those of you who don't know, Mei Ami is right on top of Um al Fahm on the former Green Line, or the seamline.

When I arrived at the region three years ago I don't think anybody actually knew about the thirty-one or thirty-two families living in Mei Ami. When we talk today about a community mobilization approach by an organization to the region, to the present issues, to the present situation, when I came three years ago no one believed that these would be the issues. At that point we were still talking about Jewish continuity.

How do you relate good neighborhood relations between Mei Ami and Um al Fahm to Jewish continuity? It didn't really work. So we had to devise a different way of looking at things. It so happened that the system that we devised for operating in the region was very well fitted for the new situation.

First of all, the approach included several levels. One is the individual approach, trying to get to the individuals in the region. Obviously, we are not a Government Ministry, we don't have portfolios, we don't have to address the security issues, we don't have to provide welfare to individuals, that is not our task. We are in the business of building a Jewish community and building relationships between Jews. But still, by touching upon individuals we are able to create an answer for the connection, generally speaking and also specifically for the situation that arose. For example, if we have, as part of the infrastructure, an absorption center in Hadera, that absorption center was available after we experienced the terrible scenes of the lynchings of Israeli IDF soldiers in Ramallah. We were able, through this absorption facility, to provide a place for the family of one of those victims who as a new immigrant from the Ukraine. His family came and they were housed. They are still housed at the absorption center.

The fact that we now have a fund for giving assistance to victims of terrorism provides us with the possibility to give individual care to those people who have been afflicted by the terrorists.

For example, among the latest victims at the Megiddo junction, there was a soldier who was actually the sole supporter of his one-parent family. In fact it is a one-parent family. His mother and sisters were then without a provider. They were about to buy an apartment. Only through the help that we are now providing, are they able to purchase that apartment. Otherwise it would be have been a complete disaster for them.

Of course, we are able to provide for each of these victims an immediate response, which gives them the possibility of dealing financially with the immediate problems arising from their situation. So that is the individual approach, this wasn't planned to be our approach in terms of the situation, but when we checked what we have available in our infrastructure for helping with individuals, we were able to convert facilities we have in the region, to be used in view of this situation.

In view of the fact that we are not a government agency, we have flexibility, we are able to innovate new ideas, new approaches, unlike other agencies, or government agencies, which are required to be more strict and more inflexible. For example, we promote through strategic planning a possibility of changing the number of people in the settlement. This is more of a regional or municipal level of approach because we are able to provide proper planning, and possibly facilitate people to learn new professions.

We work with one of the local colleges in order to provide a second chance for persons to study for a B.A. or other degrees, when they find themselves out of work or unable to find work in the vicinity of their neighborhood. In that way we are able to combine the individual approach with the regional approach.

These are the services that we provide in the area, in an attempt to answer the individual, the local and the regional needs. In a sense we are providing in that way a sort of a liaison, first with the individual, then the community and then the last level, of course, to the general community, the Jewish community on the border, this is where the partnership comes in. This is how our connection to the Southeast and this particular region, through the Southeast consortium we have been able to provide a view of the condition of individuals in the region. You probably met Gidon Eldar in Mei Ami who spoke to you. The people of the Southeast are not familiar with Gidon Eldar. When a terrorist attack was targeted at his office in Mei Ami it gave a completely different dimension to that partnership, a feeling of collegiality, that feeling of Jewishness and that feeling of family.

Through the partnership, we were able to provide a glimpse of the individual life of a person. I mean in that way we were giving them a glimpse of life in the region as a whole.

Obviously the moment we move in, the whole community, we bring the partnership with the Jewish world by the fact that we were able to provide solidarity missions. We were able to provide projects directing the giving of specific contributions, for example for purchasing an ambulance, or purchasing a protected bus. The recipients don't know the people who have donated that money, but the donors know where and how it will be used, and the people who are going to be using it. They know because they have seen the school, and because they have seen the children. So this is giving them a glimpse of who exactly are the people that are going to be helped. It increases the feeling of Jewishness, of a nation.

So at these three levels, the individual level, the community and regional levels, and at the region itself, and if you wish, at the Jewish national level, we are able to serve each person who is with us.

On a personal note, How do you respond to a situation that we have never come across before? I don't know. How do I answer my younger daughter when she says, "I don't want you to go on reserve duty," when I am called up. I have no answers. We are all in debt, we owe each other, and I can't explain the complexity of the situation.

I don't think we have an easy answer and I don't think we are going to have easy answers. We can hope for them but if there is one consolation it is the fact that three years ago our situation was completely different. Then probably we can look forward and see that it all not going down. Perhaps in the future there is going to be another leap, hopefully, for the better. Thank you.

JEFF KAYE: Thank you Mr. Rose. We have about twenty minutes for questions and comments. It can be to any of the panelists, all of the panelists, please raise your hands and step up to the microphone.

JOHNNY LEMBERGER: I work for the Maccabi Health Care Services here in Israel. I wanted to start in the self-critical mode that John spoke about, perhaps not self-critical but critical, to share the feelings of one Jewish professional, myself, over the past two years and mostly over the past year before Septtember 11 th. Many of us who come from the old country and are aware and in touch with the Federations and the Jewish community know the strength of the Jewish people and of the leadership. I think for a long time we have been asking ourselves, "what happened, where are you? We don't hear, we don't feel the kind of solidarity that we felt before?" Then we heard there was something planned, then, of course September 11 th happened and the plan was postponed.

I think in frustration, perhaps even in anger, that we should have tried to do something to encourage a mission of professionals from the States to come to Israel, both for solidarity and for mutual sharing experiences and the professional "get together". Basically it never happened and our colleagues didn't come. I think myself and some of my colleagues were somewhat disappointed and perhaps frustrated.

On the other hand I think it is unusual the kind of responses we have today both from the communities abroad and what is happening here in Israel 's responses. I think one thing was forgotten, I hope in the future when we consider what is happening we shouldn't forget it. I think Damon alluded to it a little bit, but there are in Israel statutory services that are in serious, serious trouble. They are not projects, not emergencies and not terror victims, who are all very important. I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. But there are statutory services that are in serious trouble.

If you look at the City of Jerusalem and at the social work system, you can see the strain that the social workers are under because they have to deal with the kind of crises we had last week. You can see that in the functioning of the normal at-risk population, the normal situations is not impossible but it is almost impossible.

If you look at the health services you see what they have to do, which they didn't have to do a few months ago. If they deliver services over the Green Line they have to have protected vehicles, and protective clothing. They have to deal with all kinds of security issues that they never had to deal with and the Government and the regular services are not able to do it.

I think when we think of the response of the community, one of the things that I was considering when I read about the tremendous outpouring of solidarity and of the campaign, I was happy when I heard it was going to be given out through Federations who were interested in a People to People dimension and interested in the personal approach. I was pleased, not necessarily because everything would be answered or that all the needs would be met, but I thought this was a continuation of the partnership.

When I hear it may be that our combined funds are going to the Israeli Government, which I certainly respect and love, but I have some concerns about what may happen to some of those monies. The JAFI which has done a wonderful job for many years as has the Joint, for which I have more love and have worked for – even with these agencies, I ask myself, "Are we forgetting other things?" We should consider how to engage ongoing health services, social services and educational services to make sure that we give them some of these funds, and engage their professionals to continue our partnership in a more meaningful way?

JENNY COHEN-KHALLAS: I am a volunteer at the Pitchon Lev Association. I came here in the hope of putting my hand up very quickly and saying, "Poverty should be on your agenda. Poverty is one of the most enormous and massive outcomes of the security crisis." I think Dr. Brick indirectly mentioned the subject when he said that a large percentage of victims are poor. I would like to invite members of the Federations and other members of organizations, to come and see how a People-to-People organization mobilizes tens of thousands of volunteers from all sections of the Israeli public, Arabs, Jews, old, young, immigrants, vatikim and even very small children to help the poor who are also part of the volunteer team themselves. They mobilize hundreds of commercial bodies, mobilize whole schools, student unions, kindergartens and community centers in order to help meet the basic needs of the masses. There are over a million people below the poverty line, including 600,000 children!

I think all the key words that you used today, such as empowerment, pro-activism, areivim ze le ze, the feeling of finding meaning to your life from being part of a community, these are goals achieved by Pitchon Lev on a massive level, without seeking funds; only people giving to other people.

I think there are fascinating grass root social organizations, yet I would like to place poverty on all of your agendas, whether you are Israelis or Americans. I sincerely invite you, to see how this extraordinary organization works. It is a fantastically effective People-to-People organization that really doesn't just fill people's stomachs; it empowers the poor to get out of the cycle of poverty and maybe remove themselves from the list of victims that we are talking about today. Thank you.

BARUCH SUGARMAN: I work for the community organization of the Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs. We have 265 communities in Israel ; we don't pick the communities, they pick us, and we deal with all of them. I want to ask a question. I am not sure that the experience of September 11 th for Americans is the same as the ongoing experience of these thirteen or fourteen years of the Intifada. Now, if we go back to Michael's definition what community resilience is, he talks about "ongoing stress". September 11 th was a one time catastrophic event, which caused various worries, ongoing stress, but it is different I think, in the way it is interpreted from what is going on here in Israel.

I am wondering what is really the difference: how is our crisis interpreted by the Jewish community of New York and by our Israeli community? Can we learn from this difference? My second question is part of my wondering about what John said, "when someone is in trouble the impulse is that you want to go and see them. Part of what Israel has been missing most these two years - is the sense of solidarity of the people of Israel with Jews outside of Israel. The question is: where are all of the organizations that should be pushing this solidarity?

I think there are a lot of things to be talked about but have we really dealt with the deep issues?

ANNA KRAKOVICH: I am from the Israel Projects Management Center. My flight was landing in New York sometime in March and I was looking at the night panorama of New York and found myself weeping bitterly and thinking of this great city wounded and crippled by the terrible tragedy on 9/11. I spent the night with this feeling and the next morning, I went to 5 th Avenue and it was dedicated to St. Patrick's Day. I was standing there with the hundreds of thousands of witnesses and marvelling that there were so many Irish people in New York ! It was also the day of the commemoration of the Jews and of the victims of 9/11.

I was saying to myself, "Where is the great American people on the issue of Israel being victimized during many years? Will we ever be able to witness something like this on behalf of Israel ?" Two months later, I was lucky enough to be part of the May 5 th Salute to Israel Parade, on the same 5 th Avenue. Believe me, I was unable to leave at four in the afternoon, because I had the personal feeling that everyone of the participants who were with me.

You know what, it was a tremendous feeling. I thought everyone of those in the crowd came to meet me personally and it was something incredible and dumbfounding, thanks to your people and to your professionals. I was also privileged to see the dedication of people of the Federations, doing their second line campaign, Federations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. The AIPAC conference gave this message to the American Jews, " Israel you are not alone, we are with you."

But in Israel, the people were cut off from the message; there was no message to Israel. When I came here, I felt I had a moral obligation to tell about what the American Jews are doing for Israel, because here we felt alone. The support that American Jews feel, the identification that you feel for us is very important, and the moral support that you are expressing for us is very important. Dr. John Ruskay is the President of the New York Federation, which has been supporting the Israel Projects Management Center for years. We are a delegation who has dealt with the new immigrants who have been not only the victims of terror but of every kind of tragedy that came on top of the crisis of immigration. Thank you on behalf of the Israel Projects Management Center.

I hope you will share our belief that we will still be living here many years from now.

JEFF KAYE: We are going to take two responses from John and Steve before we end.

CHAIM POSNER: From the Ministry of Labor and Welfare. We wish to welcome you and all the Jews who have come here to support all our communities and to tour our beautiful country. We want Jews to visit our country, Jews from all communities should come and visit Israel. It will obviously change the economic situation in Israel and will help us very much.

JOHN RUSKAY: I think this is period of deep mutual vulnerability on the part of American Jews and Israeli Jews. The Israeli Jews thought they did not need us. For ten years we heard, "We don't need your money, we don't need you." Now we are needed in many ways. We hoped to be wanted and needed. We realize that not only are we all deeply vulnerable but America is vulnerable as well; we need to know how to deal with our comparative vulnerabilities.

We are doing what we can! Hundreds of thousands of American Jewish people will be on the streets, people will have missions, people will send money, people will do what they can! Do not underestimate American Jewry, which is consumed with concern for and identity with Israel.

Alternatively we know that you in Israel live with this day in and day out in fearful conditions.

As two communities we are worthy to realize in new ways what we used to say rhetorically: ours is a shared history and a shared destiny. I think we know it now deeply. Let us acknowledge that each of us is doing his best to deal with different feelings of vulnerability. Each of us is reaching out across the oceans, and will strengthen our ties. That is a challenge for us as professionals and I urge us to concentrate on that agenda.

STEVE HOFFMAN: A few quick comments. First, initially September 11 th was very much like the feeling of the event that happened here. But I used to tell people that the difference was that in Israel you never knew what was going to happen next year, and so far in the United States it only happened once. However, I would like my Israeli friends to understand that every time you get on an airplane in the United States today, you check out the other passengers out of quiet fears. I am on a plane every week, sometimes two, three or four times; though you can compartmentalize this fear in your mind, it can flood out in a moment in another part of you.

I expect it is like getting on a bus in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or on a commuter bus.

My daughter decides to go to Seattle, Washington and now my wife is hysterical. She doesn't know whether they are going to get me in New York or my daughter in Washington. It may be irrational, but it is there, it is there. As John, said, we have to recognize these meshugases that we all are facing.

Finally, on the Israel Emergency Campaign Fund, I would like to give you the facts very quickly: about $289 million that are now on our books, some $100 million have been designated for a variety of projects, mostly through the communities, giving money to things they know about, Partnership 2000 communities and the like.

However, at the same time, I don't happen to love the Government of Israel the way you do, I resent the VAT tax and other things like that. But in all candor the reason we are trying to put the money together into a centralized fund is because we don't know every need that has to be met. We don't want to go through the "squeaky wheel" principle, which exists. Those organizations that are able to stand up and make an articulate pitch, they get funding. The people who are living in Hadera or Afula they get nothing, because there is nobody there to be their "squeaky wheel". We are certainly not going to do that.

We said, right or wrong, we are going to work with the Jewish Agency and the JDC, who have a pretty good feel for what we think is happening in the country ; consulted with the Government to get their sense of priorities and we assembled, we think, a credible program. Now we are encouraging the Federations to help us meet those commitments.

The way I would sum it up is that we are going to be working with several hospitals. We are going to help develop the emergency rooms in hospitals I didn't even know existed. They don't have a development officer; they don't have a friend's organization. Hadassah, everybody knows Hadassah and Hadassah is on our case. These other places have things that need to be done in the country, that will only happen if we do it. So that is why we are doing it this way.

The only thing I can assure you is not a penny is staying in the hands of the Jewish Agency. Every single dollar is being taken out to some other entity in this country, not a penny in their budget and not a penny in the JDC's budget. It will end up costing them money to administer these programs.

So I think we can feel pretty good about the way we have planned, and about the way it will be implemented.

YITZHAK BRICK: I would like to respond as well. The issue was the hope that if American Jews come en masse this would change the economics of Israel. I happen to agree with my colleague over here. One cannot ignore the fact that people have their own emotional feelings and the fact that things that are happening here seem more dangerous when you are looking at them from there.

Those Jews who are willing to come we receive them with love and give them the best we can. For example, we had a program in which kids were sent from one of our communities, they came, they enjoyed themselves, they went back.

Unfortunately, even though we had a conference call with the families not all were prepared to send their children. This is the reality; one has to deal with it. So when we have the chance we bring people and we are happy about it. When there is the opposite, then we might bring Israel to them by sending more people from here to there and that is a worthy cause too.

I think that the proper response is getting us together as ONE Jewish people.

JEFF KAYE: I want to end by thanking our panelists Steve, John, Damon, Yitzhak and Michael for being with us. I think we should all remind ourselves that being Jewish professionals has meant that our Jewish passion also a profession!

Thank you very much for being here.

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Kindly edited by Prof. Sol Green for WCJCS.

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