Bigger is Better and Smaller is Not More Beautiful

Excerpts from an interview by KEN BRESLER

“What will merging your groups allow you to do that you couldn’t do before?” That’s what SocialAction.com asked Simon Greer, Executive Director of the Jewish Fund for Justice, and Jeffrey Dekro, President of the Shefa Fund. The two groups announced their plans to merge in September 2005. The interview was conducted in October 2005, before the two groups had formally merged.

Greer: More than one million Americans dropped into poverty in the last year. That’s 36 million Americans or one in eight. We must examine how in the world did this happen and what we can do about it. A combined organization with more staff and resources is better positioned and equipped to tackle the problem.

Dekro: In the current context, of Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita, half a million jobs have been lost because of Katrina, and it has gotten worse because of Wilma. In Florida and on the Gulf Coast, poor people, overwhelmingly African-Americans and people of color, are losing what little they had. It should be a clarion call to attend to issues about race and class and the relationship between them.

Greer: The merger is intriguing and exciting. I sense excitement that a Jewish organization in America is a platform to tackle these issues head-on. Catholic charities are a voice on poverty. As of late, we Jews have not taken our seat at the table to discuss poverty. The new organization will provide a bird’s-eye view of grass-roots action, what rabbis are doing, the projects in synagogues. We’ll see, not random acts, but the threads of a movement, a Jewish movement for social and economic justice.

Greer: Shefa and the Jewish Fund for Justice have different and complementary backgrounds. Jeffrey and the Shefa Fund have a background in community outreach and organization. The Jewish Fund for Justice and I have experience working with the less affiliated, the next generation of Jews, Jews in their 20s and 30s. They’re thrilled to find us; an authentic Jewish justice organization is the home they’re looking for. In addition to working with these Jews, the merged organization will work with affiliated Jews, those in the prophetic tradition, those with halakhic values, the full spectrum.

Dekro: The merger negotiations entailed envisioning. We envisioned bringing one tuchis to two seats, one at the table of social activists and one at the Jewish table.

Greer: What’s exciting is to see the interactions among the 20 staff members of the new organization. We’re finding synergies, and quickly operating as a team.

One of the challenges is to work against the boutiquing of Jewish life and American life. People want to belong on their own terms. But in social change movements, bigger is better and smaller is not more beautiful. In the alphabet soup of Jewish life, we need to put aside the form of an organization and its boundaries to change the direction of the Jewish community.

Dekro: We’re pursuing what I call “burn the candle at both ends” strategies. The Jewish Fund for Justice has two decades of giving out grass-roots grants for serious economic justice. Shefa’s strength has been in community investment loans. Before the merger, we wouldn’t have responded to Katrina the way we’re doing now, with both grants and loans.

Dekro: In terms of money, the merged organization raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. The total for the two groups individually would have been less. We expect to raise millions of dollars for grants and loans. It’s not only for hurricane relief; it’s for reconstruction.

Greer: At JFJ, we would have done something, but not as much as the combined organizations have been able to do, to take a major initiative. I took on the administrative work of running the organization, while Jeffrey [Dekro] got busy on Katrina efforts.

We want social change to be the linchpin of what makes synagogues and the Jewish community. Too many educated, informed, and skilled people in synagogues are not given the opportunity to take on social change work. In five years, we want the normative to be different from what it is now. We’re not talking about tinkering with or tweaking social action committees in synagogues. They can be powerful forces for transformation if we set our minds to this.

Dekro: We can make social justice a core to synagogue life. We have a holistic vision of social justice in Jewish life, holiday after holiday, format after mode, and mode after format.

Greer: What is exceptional for this merger is that both partners are operating from positions of strength. A weak partner is not merging with a strong one.

Dekro: I think of the Havdalah candle, with wicks bound together. The Jewish wicks are enwrapped with the rest of the world. And two wicks are JFJ and Shefa.

The new group will be called Jewish FundS for Justice (JFSJ). It will have offices in New York City, which will be the lead office, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.