In 1992, the San Francisco Giants filled a hole in left field by signing a man named Barry Bonds. In 2005, the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation filled a hole in its chief executive’s office by signing a man named Tom Dine.
An ill-fitting comparison, you say? Perhaps. After all, when Bonds came to San Francisco, no one in his right mind was anticipating a 73-home run season. But federation executives, lay leaders and myriad members of the Jewish community are fully expecting huge, even historic, achievements from Dine.
And so is he.
“If you don’t raise the bar and it’s too easy to jump over, you’re not living up to your potential,” said Dine, 65, best known as the executive who — largely during the Reagan era — built AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, into a powerhouse.
Dine, who has lived in Prague for the last eight years as the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and who through the years earned a reputation for sporadic controversial candor, will officially take over the federation in November.
Without the benefit of serious financial analysis, Dine confidently told members of the federation’s search committee he could augment the JCF’s fund-raising numbers by 10 percent in each of his first three years at the helm, and 15 percent in years four and five.
Those numbers, he said, are “intuitive” and “sound right.”
When it comes to fund-raising, “this community has fallen behind. It has not kept pace with itself and with its potential.”
While the federation’s annual fund-raising haul has hovered in the millions between the high teens and low 20s for the past 15 years, the number of donors has slid from a high of roughly 18,000 to fewer than 12,000.
With that in mind, Dine believes he and the federation have “our work cut out for us to get back to ‘Go.'” Simply put, if Boston’s federation can raise $32 million, why can’t the Bay Area? Why not more?
Dine’s comments are on par with the reputation he has picked up over the past quarter century of being an energetic, aggressive and change-oriented executive. And, while he is not yet prepared to go into specifics, it is obvious he has no plans to be a steward of the status quo at the S.F.-based JCF but rather an architect of “big changes.”
“I think strong leadership is what any good organization wants. And I think the stronger your constituency, the more able you are to tolerate a strong leader,” said Phyllis Cook, director of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and the acting CEO of the federation since Sam Salkin’s departure in February of last year.
“Organizations that don’t want a strong leader, there’s probably some weakness in that organization.”
Dick Rosenberg, the chairman of the federation’s search committee and a former CEO of Bank America, predicts Dine “will have a national impact on the federation movement. This is a federation that can institute change … We told him we’re very supportive of change. But it’d be presumptuous of me to tie his hands and say this is the kind of change we want to see.”
Dine said he must “familiarize himself” with the inner workings of the S.F.-based JCF before drawing up a game plan on how he’d like to make over the organization.
The bespectacled Dine — whose brother is pop artist Jim Dine — is a trim, active and gray-haired man who runs every day (“well, nearly every day”). A married father of two grown daughters, he describes himself as “results-oriented” and “cost-effective.”
“I want to ensure that where our money is going is productive. Don’t tell me you’re just going to a conference — what are you going to do afterwards with your new information? I want to measure cost-effectiveness. I know there are three JCCs in the territory of federation, and how well are they running? How about all the social services? How about all the Jewish education stuff?” he asked.
Organizations receiving federation funds “should anticipate meeting me, because I want to meet them. I’ll get to know individual by individual in the main office and the two satellite offices and we’ll see” what changes are made.
If his track record holds, there’ll be plenty.
When Dine took the reigns of AIPAC in 1980, the organization had 24 employees, 8,000 members and a budget of $1.7 million. When he departed 13 years later, after numerous Oval Office meetings with several U.S. presidents, those numbers had swelled to 158 employees, 55,000 members and a budget of $15 million.
At Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty since 1997, Dine has expanded broadcasts into 28 languages, and made a major effort to bring a Western-style free press into predominantly Muslim nations in Europe and the Middle East. RFE/RL, a U.S.-funded news service promoting democracy and freedom of the press, broadcasts in 18 languages spoken in predominantly Muslim countries in the Balkans, Mideast or elsewhere. Its Afghan broadcasts are in both Dhari and Pashto and a jaw-dropping 62 percent of the nation tunes in daily.
Incidentally, Dine also lobbied Congress in 1999 to eliminate the sunshine clause that would have cut off the radio service’s funding; RFE/RL will now be funded in perpetuity.
Dine has met with scores of European and Middle Eastern leaders, but his efforts to push for a free and aggressive press in European and Middle Eastern dictatorships has led to some serious confrontational moments with European autocrats.
He, for example, accused Russian agents of kidnapping one of his reporters in Chechnya for five weeks before hurling the writer out of an automobile trunk in Dagestan.
And in a hard-hitting May 2004 speech, Dine:
n Referred to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as a “psychopath.”
n Described the government of Ukraine as “an embarrassment.”
n Portrayed the governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as “a post-Soviet version of ‘The Sopranos'” and “Mafia States.”
Perhaps the darkest moment in Dine’s public life came with departure from AIPAC in 1993.
In that year, Dine was quoted in a book penned by the Israeli journalist David Landau as saying “I don’t think mainstream Jews feel very comfortable with the ultra-Orthodox. It’s a class thing, I suppose. Their image is — smelly.”
Shortly thereafter, AIPAC’s board forced Dine to resign.
At the time, AIPAC President Steven Grossman said Dine’s comments were “so divisive and polarizing that they undercut his ability to lead.”
Still, many chalked up the move as an internal AIPAC power-grab, with Dine, the popular public face of the pro-Israel lobby, being pushed aside by influential lay leaders envious of his standing.
“Dine fell victim to the intrusive micromanagement of a group of wealthy senior AIPAC officers who resented his public following and independence,” wrote Peter Beinart and Hanna Rosin in a September 1993 article in The New Republic. “In the words of another former AIPAC staffer, ‘It was a power play by wealthy people who are used to getting their way to get rid of a charismatic, strong leader.'”
Orthodox leaders were stunned at the time, with many stating that they never asked for nor expected Dine’s resignation. Dine said the comments were meant to describe perceptions in the Jewish community, and were not his personal beliefs.
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and an Orthodox Jew said Dine’s comments are old news. “He apologized for the comments,” Hoenlein told j. “And even if he did say it, people say things. Everyone makes mistakes. He corrected it.”
In fact, if Dine does have any major detractors, none would come forward publicly.
Dine refused to discuss his controversial exit from AIPAC. “To tell you the truth, my 13 years there were terrific. I’m not going to get into that. Things occur, that’s the way it is,” he said.
But why would Dine give up the good fight against dictators and religious fanatics?
“I’ve done that. I’ve done it for eight years. And it’s a grind,” he admitted.
“Look, I know it’s a big world. But I want to have a smaller one. I want to blow on the small end of the shofar and make sure the outcome is loud and well-heard.”
Dine’s ties to the Bay Area go back several decades. With the encouragement of old friend Rabbi Brian Lurie, the S.F.-based JCF’s longtime former director, Dine tapped San Francisco as the home for AIPAC’s first regional office in 1983 under Naomi Lauter. AIPAC now operates 10 regional offices.
“At this time in my life, I want to return to the United States. And San Francisco is the city I always wanted to live in. The closest I got to living in Northern California was three months as a Peace Corps trainee at San Jose State,” said Dine, who taught in the Philippines from 1962 to ’64. Prior to his work at AIPAC, he was employed by both Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Frank Church (D-Id.).
And, despite being at an age when most people are thinking about retirement, Dine describes himself as being “at the top of my game.”
David Stierman, the federation’s president, said he hopes to have Dine on the payroll through 2010, or even later. He (and others in the federation) would not disclose Dine’s salary, except to say it was “competitive” for the position. Dine’s predecessor, Salkin, earned $265,000 in 2003, while Cook earned $176,537.
Lurie, meanwhile, is happy to have his friend back on the continent.
“He’s a very fine fund-raiser. And he’s a good organizational man. He understands teamwork, how to support your staff, and how to inspire people to do their jobs,” he said.
“If you ask me, there are four major ingredients for choosing a federation executive: You need a mensch, you need a leader, you need a quality fund-raiser and you need someone who works extraordinarily well with the staff. And he displays them all.”
After departing AIPAC, Dine was confirmed by the Senate and served as an assistant administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development, overseeing Europe and Eurasia. It was a natural transition into his Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty post; his job with the federation will be his first foray back into the organized Jewish community in a dozen years.
“I’m setting my goals quite high,” he said. “I hope I succeed.”
Many here are counting on it.
“I’m convinced that if you look back five or 10 years from this time, you’ll say this is a turning point,” said Lurie.