Community evaluates Israel projects
By Paul Haist
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The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland has—for now, at least—ended its relationship with the Partnership 2000 program that linked Jews here with Jews in underdeveloped areas of Israel.
However, the federation has not ended its close relationship with the communities with whom it partnered under the program. That relationship is alive and thriving under the auspices of a new federation group called the Overseas Special Projects Committee that recently recommended the allocation of nearly $150,000 on five projects in Israel.
The JFGP Board of Governors approved the recommendations in September.
First under Partnership 2000 and now under the OSPC, federation supporters here have taken a special interest in the welfare of Israelis living in the dusty development town of Kiryat Malachi and the neighboring Hof Ashkelon region. Kiryat Malachi is home to a concentration of immigrants from Ethiopia.
Funds allocated from each federation Annual Campaign in recent years have been set aside for programs especially targeting the Ethiopian immigrant community in Kiryat Malachi and other programs in the adjoining region.
The goal was and remains enhanced regional development in Israel, improved quality of life for residents of the targeted regions and closer ties between Jews here and Jews there through people-to-people programs.
The JFGP withdrew from Partnership 2000 last year after four larger Western U.S. federations severed ties with the consortium. That move by federations in Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., Palm Springs, Calif., and Seattle left Portland the largest member of the consortium and the primary funder of the combined effort.
JFGP Community Relations Director Robert Horenstein is the federation's staff representative on the OSPC, which comprises 16 volunteer members.
Horenstein said of the JFGP decision to leave the consortium, "We felt because the financial burden fell on us and yet the decision-making process did not reflect that burden, it was more beneficial to the federation to strike out on its own with projects more beneficial to our community." He held out the prospect that ties with Partnership 2000 could be renewed in the future.
He stressed, however, "We did not want to sever ties with Kiryat Malachi and the Hof Ashekelon area where we have longstanding relationships."
The OSPC, which is charged with allocating funds set aside by federation for this project, is co-chaired by Gayle Romain of Portland and Ann Bardacke of Vancouver.
Romain is a past federation president who has in-depth experience in the federation allocations process including having chaired the Allocations Committee that decides how each Campaign's allocable revenue will be distributed.
Bardacke has close relations with many people in Kiryat Malachi.
Both women have visited Israel extensively and the Kiryat Malachi/Hof Ashkelon area many times.
Romain said the OSPC reviewed and revised the federation's focus on Kiryat Malachi and the Hof Ashekelon region in light of changing circumstances, including the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
She said the new committee agreed early on two top priorities.
"Our No. 1 priority was children and families at risk," she said. "Second, we wanted to fund fewer projects with more money to have more impact."
The committee had to decide how to distribute $150,000. That included the $50,000 allocation from the 2004-05 budget cycle, which, Horenstein explained, was not distributed at the time owing to the federation's then pending decision to withdraw from the Partnership 2000 Western Consortium. The $100,000 was the 2005-06 allocation.
Bardacke, who first visited Kiryat Malachi in 2003 when she worked there as an English tutor in the AMIT religious school there, and has since returned three times (most recently last month), said the OSPC first surveyed its membership on their preferences for the allocation of funds.
The survey asked first whether the funding should focus on a particular target or theme and, if so, which target(s) or theme(s) from a list of eight previously selected options: children at risk, the elderly, Ethiopian Israelis, Arab-Jewish coexistence, victims of terrorism, Gaza evacuees, Renewal of Jewish life in the FSU and other.
An overwhelming majority wanted a focus or priorities to guide their deliberations. It was that poll that set the two top priorities mentioned by Romain.
Then, according to both Romain and Bardacke, various members of the committee were assigned the task to research funding options and then report their findings to the whole committee.
There were nine prospective projects. The five projects for which the committee recommended funding are as follows, preceded by the recommended amounts:
* $47,550 for the Kiryat Malachi soccer field contingent on a written contractual commitment from the Kiryat Malachi municipality to pay for the stadium upgrades and perpetual maintenance of the field. (Note: Because this money already was approved for Kiryat Malachi out of the 2004-05 budget, the request need not go before the Federation board.)
* $32,750 for expansion of the Emergency Medicine Department at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petak Tikvah. The funds will be earmarked for specific medical equipment or a new room named for the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. The committee will decide later after receiving more information. Schneider Children's Medical Center is the only hospital in the Middle East dedicated to serving only children. The facility's capacity was tested during the recent Hezbollah war.
* $45,000 for Neve Michael: $25,000 for the petting zoo; $20,000 to help cover needs arising from the current crisis in Israel. The Portland federation has had a long relationship with Neve Michael, which provided housing for children and families who fled the fighting in Israel's north during the Hezbollah war.
* $19,800 for the kitchen renovation/expansion at the senior day centers in Kiryat Malachi ($10,500) and Hof Ashkelon ($9,300).
* $2,450 for continuation of support for Ethiopian high school students at the Amal (government-run non-religious) school in Kiryat Malachi.
The approved allocations total of $147,550 is $2,450 less than the $150,000 that was available. That $2,450 was set aside as the final third of Portland's three-year commitment to the Ethiopian students at the Amal school.