American Jewish Leaders Rake In Big Bucks Despite Failing Brands – OpEd

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Just as many CEOs of major corporations manage to increase their compensation despite miserable profits and stock performance, so it is with the leaders of the largest and most influential American Jewish organizations. The Forward, earlier this month, reported the salaries of many of the most prominent among them. Here are some of them (latest salary information is for 2010):

Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman
$621,000

American Jewish Committee’s David Harris
$736,000

Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Marvin Hier
$721,000

Aipac’s Howard Kohr
$472,000

Republican Jewish Coalition’s Matt Brooks
$461,000

Conference of Presidents’ Malcolm Hoenlein
$400,000

Jewish National Fund
$380,000

Zionist Organization of America’s Mort Klein
$363,000

Birthright Israel
$353,000

The Israel Project’s Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
$200,000

Most of the salaries listed above are borderline obscene. They place their recipients squarely among the Jewish 1% and distance themselves from the rest of us. This is yet another reason most of the organizations listed above have long passed their Jewish “sell-by” date.

One measure of this (though not the sole one by any means) is their fundraising. The two of the three highest paid executives on my list, Harris and Foxman, run organizations whose fundraising has dropped dramatically over the past several years.  The ADL’s has declined by over 30% between 2006-2010.  AJC’s funding levels dropped by a similar amount in the same period.  Their executives’ salaries, of course, have not. While we shouldn’t make the mistake of judging a non-profit’s ongoing relevance solely by it’s fundraising prowess, it is one indication of how much excitement there is for the group’s mission among donors and other funders.

I would maintain that these groups have lost their way and their relevance to all but the oldest members of the community. While times have changed, they have not. They continue to attempt to be all things to all Jews, which actually means being nothing to anyone but the alter-kockers.

The groups that have thrived in this environment have been the single issue, largely pro-Israel ones like Aipac (+30% over past five years), The Israel Project (+30% from 2008-2010), Stand With Us (+40% between 2007-2010), and J Street (its funding increased by 300% from 2007-2008, the J Street Education Fund increased 400% from 2009-2010, and the J Street PAC increased by 200% from 2008 to 2010). These statistics are an expression of the increasing fragmentation of the Jewish community and its realignment largely around a single issue: Israel. There seems little that holds much of the organized community together except the state formally-known as the Homeland of the Jewish People.

Partially, this reflects a certain impoverishment in Jewish identity. Partially, it represents a major error made by American Jews and their leaders of putting all their eggs in Israel’s basket. When Israel crushes these eggs, then what is left for Jews to believe in?

We need an identity that includes Israel, but is not limited to it. We need to jettison the single issue Jewish identity hawked by fat cat ideologues like Michael Steinhardt and Sheldon Adelson. Their Jewishness is a dead-end. Those who are fooled into following these Pied Pipers will discover in the long run that they’ve made a fool’s bargain. They may have fat coffers, but they will stand for nothing, or at least nothing that will nurture the next generation and offer it something substantial and value-based as sustenance.

This article appeared at Tikun Olam

Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein is an author, journalist and blogger, with articles appearing in Haaretz, the Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free, Al Jazeera English, and Alternet. His work has also been in the Seattle Times, American Conservative Magazine, Beliefnet and Tikkun Magazine, where he is on the advisory board. Check out Silverstein's blog at Tikun Olam, one of the earliest liberal Jewish blogs, which he has maintained since February, 2003.

2 thoughts on “American Jewish Leaders Rake In Big Bucks Despite Failing Brands – OpEd

  • December 31, 2011 at 5:35 pm
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    “NEVER AGAIN” is an Israeli mantra of determination to disrupt the Jew’s long history of persecution. Yet behavior of the supremacis­t theocracy/ethnocracy the Jewish State has made of itself guarantees repetition unless it is able to conquer the whole planet. A basic change in character is really all that is needed, but nothing in Jewish history even remotely suggests such a possibility.

    Reply
  • December 31, 2011 at 5:36 pm
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    All our Mideast wars have been against our interests, yet successfully advocated by Israel and its AIPAC minions. Again against our interests, Israel has involved us in increasingly overt operations against Iran. Spies and American military drones in Iranian airspace are the most recent revelations. Since before 9/11, American soldiers have been dying for Israel’s “right to defend itself.” We are at war. Those that did this to us are the lobbyists, organizers, columnists, financiers, and other traitorous manipulators acting for a foreign government (Israel). Justice and the future of America demand that they be prosecuted and jailed.

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