U.S. Jewish Groups Ponder How Much Money to Send to Israel

As top officials at North America’s 155 Jewish federations gathered for the annual United Jewish Communities meeting

in Cleveland last week, the death of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and what it might mean for the potential of a Middle East peace agreement was a frequent topic of discussion.

As uncertainty grows about the security challenges facing Israel because of Mr. Arafat’s death, Jewish leaders are grappling with a perennial question: How much of the money that Jewish federations raise should go to domestic causes and how much to Israel and to needy Jews outside North America?

A quarter-century ago, the average large-city Jewish federation sent more than 50 percent of the money it raised to support overseas needs, according to Steven B. Nasatir, head of Chicago’s Jewish federation. Today, he says, on average, about one-third of the money collected by large Jewish federations goes abroad.

Each Jewish federation makes its own decision about how much goes overseas and how much stays at home. Some allocate single-digit percentages of the amount they raise for overseas needs while others give a far bigger share.

“It’s kind of annoying to be allocating in the 40-percent range and see some allocate in the single digits,” says Mr. Nasatir. “I don’t think their own donors realize just how low it is.”

Mr. Nasatir says he believes Jewish federations will do better in their fund raising if they emphasize giving to Israel.

“Israel is the primary galvanizing force that keeps Jews together,” he says. “The one issue that continues to be paramount on people’s agenda, be they young adults or older, is the safety, security, and existential well-being of Israel.”

Turning to Domestic Needs

Nevertheless, many Jewish-federation leaders grew increasingly interested in supporting domestic causes after a 1990 study found that American Jews were abandoning their ties to Jewish practices and institutions and were marrying non-Jews at record rates.

The situation was soon dubbed the Jewish “continuity crisis,” and federations began to devote more of their money to endeavors aimed at strengthening Jewish idenity, such as youth and adult education in synagogues, Jewish community centers, camps, and day schools.

The goal was to make sure that Jews would have a strong and cohesive presence in cities and towns across the United States a generation or two from now.

Part of the subtext has been a perceived need to help younger Jews develop a strong sense of identity so that they become loyal donors to Jewish causes.

Studies of Jewish Americans conducted in 1990 and 2000-1, known as the National Jewish Population Survey, both showed that Jews who made religious observance a key part of their lives and those who had strong social ties to other Jews were more likely to make charitable gifts to Jewish causes than were other Jews.

But the wave of terrorist bombings by Palestinians that began in 2000 has altered the focus on domestic efforts as social-service needs in Israel have ballooned and the country’s economy has faltered.

In its biggest recent effort to help Israel, United Jewish Communities raised $362-million in its Israel Emergency Campaign, which was conducted from 2001 to 2003.

Despite that success, some leaders in the Jewish federation world believe the push to give more to help Israel deal with security crises is a sign that the federations have yet to come up with compelling ways to persuade people to give for other reasons. Critics say that federations and United Jewish Communities continue to rely too heavily on such crises to spark giving.

“The greatest motivators for charitable giving to Jewish nonprofits are threats,” says Donald Kent, vice president of Bernstein Investment Research and Management, in New York, who spent 13 years helping Jewish federations build endowments while he worked at United Jewish Communities and at one of its predecessor organizations, the Council of Jewish Federations.

“The only way the federation world has understood and taken advantage of people’s desire to target their giving for real purposes has been to come up with emergency campaigns for Israel,” says Mr. Kent.

Howard Rieger, who took over as chief executive of United Jewish Communities in September, agrees that donors are more likely to respond to appeals that are for emergency purposes or those that have a particularly ambitious goal, and they tend to be less motivated by requests to give to annual funds.

Mr. Rieger also believes that United Jewish Communities should develop drives focusing on a variety of issues, from helping Jews in Ethiopia as they wait to immigrate to Israel, to domestic issues like Jewish education.

He says that he hopes to put the same kind of urgency into campaigns designed to help needy Jews in the United States and elsewhere.

“We have a continuing need to support overseas issues,” says Mr. Rieger, “but we have a need here as well.”