Two months after an e-mail lambasting the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation for “wasting our money on Arabs” rather than aiding victims of Palestinian terror flooded the inboxes of Bay Area Jews, the letter-writers sat down with members of the JCF for a meeting.
JCF executives — in addition to volunteers and professionals from its Israel office — met with members of the letter-writing Committee for Jewish Concerns and Maoz emigre groups. And while the two sides couldn’t see eye to eye on the validity of funding programs in the Israeli Arab communities, they did agree on one issue.
“I feel their points on terrorism relief are right on the mark,” said Sam Salkin, the federation’s chief executive officer.
While pointing out that a portion of the JCF’s $3.2 million donation to the Jewish Agency for Israel did go to terror victims last year, he agrees with the Russian speakers that the federation could solicit such funds much more publicly.
“The point they made is they want to make this more visible and more accessible to donors who have a very specific concern, just like members of our community responded so generously to the 9-11 attacks,” Salkin said. “They feel this is something the federation should do. We agree, and we’re going to do it.”
Salkin also proposed a federation-led trip to Israel for members of the Russian-speaking community, in which they would visit JCF-funded programs within the Israeli Arab community.
While the mid-January meeting was described as “cordial” and “respectful” by those on both sides, the JCF and Russian speakers did not alter each others’ positions on funding Israeli Arab programs.
After expending around $350,000 on such programs last year, the JCF has added more than $100,000 in additional funding this year with an increased emphasis on early-childhood education. Members of the Russian-speaking contingent saw this move as “throwing good tzedakah after bad.”
“Since these programs are not new, I asked whether they have seen any concrete results regarding increased friendship or even decreased hostility from the Israeli Arab side, but they could not come up with any concrete examples,” said Greg Kosinovsky, a spokesman for the Committee for Jewish Concerns.
The Russian speakers also highlighted articles culled from the Jerusalem Report and Jerusalem Post doubting the progress of coexistence programs and highlighting Israeli Arabs’ growing hostility to the state of Israel.
“Our major objection to spending the money is there are more needs within the Jewish community locally,” said David Katsapov, the committee’s leader and co-founder. “I’d like to even see the same programs helping the Ethiopian community or even non-Jewish Israelis that are loyal to the state of Israel like Bedouins or the Druze.”
After the meeting, a synopsis written by the Committee for Jewish Concerns again flooded the e-mail inboxes of many in the Jewish community. Since the e-mail was sent to a number of Jewish community mailing lists, some people received several copies.
While lacking the hard, statistical evidence many in the Russian-speaking contingent clamored for, Gila Noam said a number of federation-sponsored projects within the Israeli Arab community have been highly successful.
A program in which Jewish and Arab elementary school-age children studied advanced science together resulted in “not only the kids becoming friends, but the parents became friends. A whole new social network was established because of this program, and that’s not so easy to measure,” said Noam, the director of the JCF’s Israel office.
And considering the bilingual school, she said: “We started out with one; now there are two, and eventually it’ll be a network. Even the Ministry of Education acknowledges it’s a success.”
Noam presented the Russian speakers with two major reasons for funding such programs:
Ethically, Jews are obligated to reach out to a repressed minority group, and pragmatically it makes sense for Jews to better the condition of a growing population of Israel’s residents.
Most of the Russian speakers aren’t buying those assessments.
“I think the state of Israel is not discriminating against Arabs,” said Katsapov.
Added Kosinovsky: “If someone thinks you’re living on his land and have no right to it, you can’t buy him with money. If you pay that money to the person, you confirm his perception of your illegitimacy is correct.”
Jake Berzon — the creator of the emigre community Web site www.Baraban.com — came away from the meeting supporting the Israeli Arab funding, but not wholeheartedly. “We all have the common goal of Israel surviving as a Jewish state. And here the federation is proposing one way to do it.
The JCF “doesn’t’ have statistics, so they don’t know if these programs are working. But I would rather be doing something than nothing.”