Gary Wexler http://jta.org/user/profile/53018 en-us rcsillag@jta.org Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 The link to this story is certainly making the rounds. I have now received it from about ten different people. The problem here is not the TV spot or its concept. The actual spot and its concept is pretty interesting. The problem is the strategy. If MASA believes that Israelis are one of the strategies to recruit Diaspora Jews to commit to an Israel program, then the TV spot is a total waste of money and time. Does anyone really think that by seeing this TV spot, Israelis are going to run to their computers, bring up the MASA website and start sending out links to their relatives???This type of strategy, in order to have a prayer of success, requires among Israelis a deep and strategic community organizing effort, hands on education, identifying Israeli influencers who can tap into their Israeli networks and a host of other labor intensive initiatives. It is naive and wasteful of hard raised dollars to use them in such an non-strategic manner. 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 The bigger issue is that a mother in their community was abusing and starving her child. Rather than deal with this reality and the steps that any responsible society's lawmakers must take to protect its children, this community refused to accept what one of its mothers is doing because it shakes their foundations as to who they want to believe they are. So they are willing to sacrifice the well being of this defenseless child for the sake of their inability to accept that abuse happens in their community. The Haredim are human like everyone else and everything human happens. Instead of taking the appropriate action, I witnessed them taking to the streets to throwing their garbage, burning and having their youth run around on a Motzei Shabbat with the excitement of being at the circus. They need to stop wearing blinders and then blaming the consequences on Israeli justifiable protectors of the country's laws. 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 Gary's death is a great loss to intellectual, contemporary Jewish thought. I often depended upon his research for my own professional actions. He brought a fresh and unexpected perspective to analyzing the Jewish community, forcing us to think in ways that were not always comfortable, but consistently critical to our communal objectives. Gary Wexler 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 1. Tel Aviv University, a wonderful institution is experiencing severe financial problems. 2. Israelis are experiencing extreme financial problems. 3. Students badly need scholarships. 4. Departments are severely underfunded and closing. 5. There is a brain drain because professors don't have jobs. 6. The American economy is spiraling out of control. 7. Madoff 8. Funders don't have the money they used to. 9. And Tel Aviv University is awarding a $1million prize to Tony Blair 10. Someone should have spoken with the Dan David committee and asked if maybe this year they could either give their prize money to scholarship or hold it back. 11. This is a public relations disaster in the making for the University 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 The Jewish community should have been strategically planning for years how to merge its organizations, making us a smarter, leaner and a more targeted enterprise. The amount of duplicated efforts that exist in our community, with a tweek here, a slight difference there, a big board ego here, a glorious history there, have made us at times seem foolish and look like we are hiding our heads in the sand. But only when there is a money crisis, do organizations take steps that they should have taken before. The questions is what do we as a community learn from this? What lessons are emerging that are universal, that apply even when times are good? There is a big discussion for our community that sits inside this topic. Gary Wexler 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00 Rabbi Mickey Rosen will always have a deep place in my heart. I will never forget the first time I walked into Yakar, in Jerusalem, about ten years ago on an Erev Shabbat. I had not heard about Yakar and someone took me without without explaining what I was about to experience. As the congregation finished the first prayers, the room began to fill up with hundreds of people. Every seat was taken and all that remained was standing room. People began to fill in along the walls and outside on the patio, congregating around the open windows. Suddenly, the entire place quieted. There was a few seconds of absolute silence and then hundreds of people in one voice began to sway and sing, offering up a Yedid Nefesh prayer unlike any I had ever heard. My soul, my heart, my Jewish identity was swept up into its rhythm and movement unlike anything I had every experienced. I thought I had finally come to Jerusalem and reached the l'malah heaven we have all been promised. The Kabbalat Service continued at the same raptured pace and level to the Lecha Dodi, where on the final verses of the prayer the melody changed, again with hundreds as one voice, sweeping me up even higher, until tears came to my eyes. As the years went on, I returned to Yakar many times, and came to know Mickey Rosen, I realized the singing at Yakar was a manifestation of Mickey's soul. His soul gave forth to much of the movement today that has brought soulful, ecstatic singing and moments to Jewish prayer. His soul will be present wherever anyone is swept up into t'fila that brings you to reach the angels. May his memory be for a blessing. Gary Wexler gwexler@passionmarketing.com 2009-11-20T;16:30:00-05:00