Michal Kohane was let go last week from her position as director of the Israel Center, a program of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
The June 19 firing came hours after eJewishPhilanthropy.com posted an opinion piece she wrote criticizing the Jewish communal world’s focus on young Jewish adults, which she wrote comes at the expense of programming for older adults.
The federation’s main objection seems to be that Kohane affixed her professional title to the piece without clearing it first with her superiors.
Kohane’s piece and her termination produced a flurry of online reaction on eJewishPhilanthropy.com. Stephen Donshik, a lecturer at Hebrew University, posted a piece opining that the Jewish community “should not be afraid of articulating different perspectives,” and there were many comments, including some urging people to withhold judgment on what should be considered an internal personnel matter.
In a press statement that also was posted on eJewish
Philanthropy.com, S.F.-based federation CEO Jennifer Gorovitz wrote that while she “wholeheartedly support[s] robust and meaningful debate about the many important questions facing the Jewish community,” Kohane’s piece “does not represent the views of the Federation,” and moreover, “public communications from within the organization require review and approval prior to publication.”
Kohane, a native of Haifa, was hired in late 2010 as the director of the Israel Center, a 16-year-old initiative that fosters closer ties to the Jewish state through various programs, such as Israel in the Gardens. Before that, Kohane, 52, was the executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region for five years. — j. staff