Israel After Rabin
Oslo II: Where Will it Lead?
Yitzhak Rabin and the Israeli Polity: A Cultural Memorial
Transcending the Progressive Solution
The generation that inherited the results of World War II ? Jews included ? was the first of the postmodern epoch, and as such it faced a new set of problems peculiar to its circumstances. These problems, to be sure, had their roots in the era just ended, but they stemmed most immediately from the needs and concerns of a generation that grew up in a society strikingly different from its predecessors.
The Impact of Changing Issues on Federations and Their Structures
On the occasion of the century of the federation movement, let us look at the primary focus of the federation system twenty years ago when its power was at its peak, and
compare the issues that preoccupied the federation movement then with those confronting federations today. This will provide a context to identify some of the more subtle issues at work in federations which guide or limit the governance process. It is my premise that federations have been excellent at responding to crises which have confronted Jews that were generated from outside of Jewish life. This crisis-oriented philosophy has permeated much of Jewish life and Jews’ psyches.
The American Jewish Polity
At present, four great organizations dominate the communal-welfare and Israel-overseas spheres countrywide ? The Council of Jewish Federations, the United Jewish Appeal, the United Israel Appeal, which serves as the conduit and overseer of UJA funds allocated to the Jewish Agency, and the Joint Distribution Committee, one of the most respected organizations in the Jewish community.1
The CJF and the Jewish Agency: An Historical Overview by Ernest Stock
The Council of Jewish Federations (CJF)1 today forms an integral part of the complex of American Jewish organizations which play an active role in the governance of the Jewish Agency. Its role, indeed, is so pivotal that it is difficult to imagine an earlier time when the Council was perceived by the Jewish Agency to be not merely an outsider but even an adversary, as was the case throughout the 1940s and well into the 1950s.
The Federations Step Forward
Although its history as a Jewish community extends back to 1654, Jewish America was to all intents and purposes a colony of European Jewry until the nineteenth century, and was a dependency even longer. The combination of events and self-organization transformed it to be the dominant Jewish community for much of the twentieth century and the dominant diaspora community still. The federation movement became the keystone to that self-organization early, before it was recognized as such.
The Federation Movement in Three Contexts: American Jewry, the Jewish Political Tradition, and Modernity
The American Jewish community, the first fully emancipated Jewish community, is entirely a product of the modern epoch. As such it is in most respects a model of what Jewish
life has become or is becoming for all but a handful of Jews in the world: based on the voluntary commitment, through a variety of paths, of those individuals who care to be Jewish, few of whom feel obligated or compelled.
