The overseas arms of the North American Jewish federation system – the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee – are clearly hurting by the dollar’s fall. Both face significant budget crunches, having lost an estimated 25 to 35 percent of their buying power overseas.
Here’s a roundup of our recent coverage of the issue:
JTA’s Dina Kraft has some insight from the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors meeting in Jerusalem this week into how the Jewish Agency is dealing with its budget crunch. The agency is asking for more partnership with Israel’s government, and the prime minister told the organization that he is on board.
In case you missed it, JTA’s Grant Slater filed a story last week out of the former Soviet Union about how the Joint’s budget crunch is affecting programing on the ground. This is as the Joint just laid off 60 people, as we reported from New York.
Meanwhile, while both organizations deal with budget crisis, they are also haggling over who should fund World ORT. A deal between the two organizations over how they should split the pool of money that the Jewish federations allocate for their core budgets fell through last week.
