The cancellation last week of a major Jewish educational conference is the latest sign that the Jewish nonprofit world will shrink in coming months as some organizations move closer to extinction and others seek mergers.
Over the past year, the faltering economy and tight fund-raising dollars have forced several Jewish institutions to cede their independence and fold into larger organizations. Recent months have seen an open push for Jewish institutions to consider how they can work together to streamline an organizational world that apparently has become too robust to fund.
But the announcement last week that the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education was canceling its annual conference and seeking ways to fold its programming into another existing Jewish organization could serve as a wake-up call that more such moves are on the way.
“In some ways, the CAJE closure is a big flashing red light of warning to other Jewish not-for-profits who should be looking for combination because if you wait too long, there may be nothing left to combine,” Jeffrey Solomon, the president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation, told JTA.
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