CJC wary of CIJA plan

ANDY LEVY-AJZENKOPF CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

A change is about to occur in the way Canadian Jewish community advocacy is conducted on the regional and national level.

According to Canadian Jewish Congress, the change is being led by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), which is seeking to centralize control of the host of Jewish advocacy agencies it administers.

Recently, CJC posted its views on the impending shift, which will involve the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC), Quebec-Israel Committee, National Jewish Campus Life and the University Outreach Committee (UOC), all of which fall under the CIJA umbrella.

CJC decided to “put a push on” CIJA by posting its documents now, CJC vice-president Barbara Bank said, because “we’re not really getting a clear idea of what their plan is.”

CJC said earlier this year that the council had advised all its advocacy organizations of plans to eliminate the current divisions of community representation and create a “single Jewish public affairs organization encompassing the national and regional level.” The new entity would also work “in close co-operation with” and “operate under” the UIA Federations Canada system, CJC documents said.

In response to the CIJA restructuring committee’s request for proposals on the reorganization, CJC delivered a 13-page document to the council in June. In the brief, CJC suggests that the new communal entity should retain the title “Canadian Jewish Congress” for name recognition in the community, and proposed that a single, small board of governors be set up without an executive committee “so that lay oversight is most effective.”

CIJA chair Stephen Cummings could not be reached for comment by deadline.

CJC-Pacific Region chair David Schwartz said the restructuring committee members include Larry Tannenbaum of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, David Engel and David Koschitzky of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, Mark Freiman of CJC, Marc Gold of CIC, Stanley Plotnick of CIJA, Moshe Ronen of CIC and Cummings.

In a letter sent to Louise Davey – an outside consultant retained by CIJA – Schwartz concurs that, while the national Jewish community would be “well served” by a single advocacy organization, his board “strongly disagrees” with suggestions set out in a CIJA brief (the Newco Document) that allegedly proposes turning CJC board members into “committee members of Newco.” Efforts of the Canadian Jewish News to obtain the Newco Document were unsuccessful.

“Committees will lack the glue and succession planning that a regional board has…. Simply put, if [CJC’s Pacific Region] board is disbanded, Newco should assume the loss of many, if not most, of the current board members,” Schwartz wrote. “Not only will valuable and committed volunteers not rush to join committees, but the long-term relationships of trust and confidence, the key to effective advocacy, will be lost.”

Schwartz also wrote that CIJA’s propositions in the Newco Document are not clear on future funding for his region, and he seeks assurances from CIJA that “core funding” for Pacific Region staff will continue.

In an interview, Schwartz said he had just received “Draft 2” of the Newco Document from Davey. He said he intended to read through the new brief to determine whether CJC’s concerns had been addressed, but said he felt that CIJA’s ideas about the restructuring were “amenable to change.”

When asked if he could forward a copy of the second draft of the Newco Document for review, Schwartz said that “it’s only being sent on a confidential basis to the different organizations for their feedback via Ms. Davey.”

Bank said that she, too, was looking over the second Newco draft but, as far as she could tell at the time, there seemed to be little difference in this iteration.

“None of us are privy to what’s happening,” Bank said. “We get these reports [from CIJA], but they’re not that detailed.”

She said CJC has been told the restructuring would happen soon, though deadlines have come and gone without any implementation or follow up from CIJA.

“We were told a new CEO was going to be put into place three weeks ago, and that hasn’t happened yet. But I know they’re trying hard to do this as quickly as possible.”

Bank said CIJA’s new national advocacy structure appears to be “pared down, with a single board of directors, as opposed to what is currently in place – a CIJA board of directors, a CJC board, a CIC board, a UOC board, etc. So it’s really a plan that would tie us into the local federations more. It’s a different approach to advocacy, it’s more a real public affairs [structure] rather than an advocacy one.”

She said CJC’s main concern is that its 90-year history and resonance with the community would be lost in this reorganization.

For more national news, visit cjnews.com.

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