New communal entity chooses name, appoints temporary head

WASHINGTON, April 12 (JTA) — Leaders of the Jewish community’s central fund-raising bodies have turned to a veteran Jewish professional to temporarily head the new national entity formed from the merger of the Council of Jewish Federations, the United Jewish Appeal and the United Israel Appeal. Stephen Solender, the executive vice president of the UJA-Federation of New York, will serve as the acting president of the new organization, which this week was given an official name — United Jewish Communities. Delegates attending the new entity’s “Founders Forum” in Washington this week favored that name over an alternative by a vote of 73-59 after a passionate debate Monday afternoon. The decision must be ratified by a not-yet-elected board of trustees of the new entity, but officials say the organization, known until now as “Newco,” will begin using the new name immediately. Charles Bronfman, the entity’s chairman of the board, announced Monday at a meeting of federation leaders in Washington that Solender was “on loan” to the new body, effective immediately. Solender will continue in his role as executive vice president of the UJA-Federation of New York while working as the chief professional officer of the United Jewish Communities for up to six months. Solender is assuming day-to-day management of the organization, including organizing staff and overseeing the operating budget, which totals some $37 million. Solender said that one of his main objectives will be to make the new structure “as lean and cost-effective an operation as we can in the shortest time possible.” Meanwhile, the search for a permanent president continues. Solender said that while he is not interested in filling the position on a long-term basis, he agreed to step in to the role because “I felt we were at the most sensitive stage” in the creation of the new entity. “If a chief did not come forward quickly, I felt our potential would be seriously jeopardized,” Solender said in an interview shortly after the announcement was met with rousing applause in the ballroom of the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. This week’s three-day Washington meeting marked the end of nearly six years of planning for the merger. Under the new system, local federation leaders will play a larger role in the governance of the Jewish community’s most broad-based fund-raising and service organization. But significant features of the new entity have yet to be resolved, including the appointment of all permanent governing bodies and the appointment of a long- term president. Indeed, the search committee, chaired by Richard Pearlstone of Aspen, Colo., and Baltimore and Daniel Shapiro of New York, has been at work for six months in the delicate process of identifying federation professionals and other leaders qualified for the top professional post. But until now, no one has agreed to take the reins of the organization-in-formation. The search process has been closely guarded in the past. But one prospective president, Steven Nasatir, president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, formally declared last month that he would not take the national post. Robert Aronson, executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, was another serious contender who declined the move to national headquarters in New York. Pearlstone said Solender’s interim appointment “gives us more time to continue the search” for potential candidates. “The fact that we have an organization and top volunteer officers should make the search easier,” said Pearlstone, a past president of UJA. In February, Seagram’s company executive Charles Bronfman agreed to come on board as the organization’s top lay leader and Detroit businessman Joel Tauber agreed to serve as its executive committee chair. Solender, who became executive vice president of New York’s federation in 1986, helped oversee the merger 13 years ago of that city’s UJA and federation. Today, the New York UJA-Federation is one of the country’s largest private philanthropies, raising some $250 million annually. Solender’s career includes terms as executive vice president of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the coordinator for Muslim and Middle Eastern affairs for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He has also taken a leading role in helping the Jewish Agency for Israel, UJA-Federation’s overseas partner, develop a strategic plan. “My professional experience over the past 30 years,” Solender said in an interview, “will be very relevant in helping me bring together both the federations and our sister, international organizations” — the Jewish Agency for Israel and the JDC. A “change of culture” was needed to “get people focused on the fact that we have become one community,” Solender said. One of the first orders of business for the next 60 days, he said, will be the formation of teams to develop practical plans for the four mission platforms undergirding the new entity: Jewish Renaissance and Renewal, Human Services and Social Policy, Israel and Overseas, and Campaign/Financial Resource Development. Diana Aviv, director of the entity’s Washington Action Office and one of the authors of its Human Services and Social Policy platform statement, was one of the first of Solender’s many well-wishers to congratulate him. She said there was “palpable excitement” about the appointment of a man “who has undertaken and been a leader in historic changes.” Aviv remarked on Solender’s reputation of giving respect to his colleagues, both lay and professional, and his record of having forged alliances with a variety of Jewish and general organizations in the realm of health and human services. But he has shown “commitment to all four arenas that are the hallmarks of our new enterprise,” she said, referring to the mission platforms.