Behind the Headlines: for Many Federations, Exodus Drive is No Longer a Formidable Challenge

To professional staff and lay leaders of Jewish federations across the country, November seems like a lifetime ago.

It was then that they first learned they would be asked by the United Jewish Appeal to raise an unprecedented $420 million for Operation Exodus, a special campaign for Soviet Jewish resettlement in Israel, over and above their regular fund-raising obligations.

At the quarterly meeting of the Council of Jewish Federations here last week, it became apparent that in a few lucky communities, Operation Exodus is not only a concrete reality, but practically a mission accomplished.

The Baltimore federation, for instance, has already topped its Operation Exodus goal of $11 million. San Francisco has raised more than $13 million of its overall $25 million goal.

Other federations, many of whom are not blessed with million-dollar donors, have chosen to put off launching Operation Exodus and are hastily trying to wrap up their 1990 campaigns before they begin soliciting again.

The initial success stories, and the $130 million that has been pledged nationwide to Operation Exodus so far, can be credited largely to multimillion-dollar gifts.

But UJA officials are predicting that the special campaign will soon reach beyond the ultra-rich and hit its halfway mark by June.

CONSTANTLY IN THE HEADLINES

In many ways, the federations have had much of the publicity work for the mass appeal done for them. Barely a week now goes by when the upsurge of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and the Israeli struggle to secure transit routes for Soviet emigres is not in the headlines of major newspapers.

The wide exposure leaves them confident that Operation Exodus will have continued success, as federations move from appealing to the highly affluent toward reaching the general public through large-scale advertising.

Excitement about the exodus of Soviet Jews and concern about conditions for Jews inside the USSR has produced a phenomenon federation leaders have not seen in years: potential contributors coming to offer help, without being solicited.

“Other than during wars, this is the first time I’ve seen people come forward like this,” said Miriam Schneirov, president of the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia.

A $15 million contribution to Operation Exodus by publisher Walter Annenberg led Schneirov’s federation to increase its Exodus goal.

Schneirov spoke incredulously of donors who gave $5,000 to the federation general campaign coming up with as much as $100,000 for Operation Exodus. And people who did not give a cent to the general campaign have come forward with contributions of $15,000.

Brian Lurie, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and its surrounding areas, called soliciting for Operation Exodus “exhilarating” — a word rarely used to describe the process of soliciting UJA pledges.

“If you ask, you’re going to get what you are asking for,” Lurie told his counterparts in Baltimore enthusiastically. “You can raise your goal. You can double your goal. You can triple your goal.”

San Francisco has voluntarily doubled its assigned UJA goal for Operation Exodus.

“We felt the $420 million figure was based on a low estimate” of Soviet immigrants coming to Israel, said Annette Dobbs, president of the San Francisco federation.

LONG-TERM IMPACT UNCLEAR

Amid all this enthusiasm, however, is the unanswered question of what the Operation Exodus campaign will mean in the long run. Will it spark a renaissance in giving among American Jews or is it a one-shot phenomenon that could actually hurt future fund raising if givers feel they have been tapped out?

“We’ve had a couple of bad experiences with emergency campaigns,” said Philip Cohen, who is on the board of trustees of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. He recalled that in 1968, a year after the emergency campaign for the Six-Day War, fund raising in his community suffered.

About a third of American Jewish communities have been able to wrap up their 1990 campaigns, so they can devote full-time attention to Operation Exodus.

But the remaining two-thirds of federations felt they could not plunge into the Exodus drive without falling short of their 1990 general campaign goals.

Of those federations, about half have begun soliciting major gifts, but will not fully launch the Exodus campaign until well into the spring. Another half are postponing Operation Exodus altogether until late summer or fall.

As they listened to the Baltimore and San Francisco success stories, some federation leaders wondered if they were missing the moment to raise funds while the issue was in the headlines.

“I wonder if we may not have missed the spontaneity that these people grabbed a hold of,” said Dr. Richard Ament of the Jewish Federation of Greater Buffalo. “But it’s too late, we can’t go back.”

‘WAY TO SOLIDIFY THE COMMUNITY’

Richard Friedman, executive director of the Birmingham Jewish Federation, said getting the campaign off to an early start in his community was vital. Birmingham is now two-thirds of the way toward its $2.4 million goal for Exodus.

“I think that taking advantage of the moment was critical to our success so far,” he said.

The electricity surrounding discussion of Operation Exodus at the CJF meeting stemmed from a sense that the campaign will be a two-way street. Americans are giving money to Soviet Jews, but the Soviet Jewish aliyah is giving something back to the psyche of those American Jews who devote their time and energy to raising money for Israel.

The aliyah is boosting Israel’s image, which has been battered badly in recent years, and reminding American Jews that the Jewish state was created as a haven for Jews in distress.

That is an idea that, according to the fundraisers, appeals directly to the hearts –and the pocketbooks — of even Israel’s harshest critics.

“The issue has not only urgency but authenticity,” said Friedman of Birmingham. “It is a marvelous way to solidify the community and bring together the fractious parts. We have to remind them that this is not just another UJA campaign. This is a moment in Jewish history.”