Brian Lurie Offered Position As the Top Professional at UJA

Rabbi Brian Lurie, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation in San Francisco, has been offered the position of chief executive officer of the United Jewish Appeal, UJA officials confirmed Friday.

Although exact details of the offer still have to be worked out by UJA’s executive committee, Lurie is expected to accept the offer and begin work Sept. 1, said Gerald Nagel, UJA spokesman.

Lurie was in New York last week to meet with UJA officials but could not be reached for comment over the weekend. He would replace Stanley Horowitz, whose resignation becomes effective June 30.

“We are confident that Brian Lurie would be an outstanding chief executive officer and will work well with the lay leadership to help lead the campaign in these times of extraordinary challenge and opportunity,” Nagel said.

A member of the search committee, Robert Loup, said the panel had met with a number of candidates from both inside and outside the Jewish organizational structure, and that Lurie’s nomination was unanimously supported by the committee members.

“Brian came across as the outstanding candidate for the position,” said Loup, a former UJA national chairman and past president of the Allied Jewish Federation of Denver.

The offer ends weeks of searching for a new executive of UJA, the major fund-raising arm of American Jewry. Working in conjunction with the 179 local U.S. federations, UJA raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually for Israel and overseas Jewish needs.

CHARTING IDENTITY FOR UJA

As the executive officer of UJA, Lurie, who will turn 49 in August, would have the challenge of charting a path and identity for UJA amid the increasingly crowded world of Jewish philanthropic organizations.

Lurie also would face the daunting task of maneuvering between UJA, which at one time organized most local fund-raising campaigns, and local federations, which now raise most of the money for UJA’s national campaigns.

Last year, the annual UJA general campaign raised $765 million, in addition to over $420 million in the successful Operation Exodus drive to aid the absorption of Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israel.

But UJA, which has 200 employees and an operating budget of some $28 million, has come under criticism from some Jewish federation leaders, who say the organization is top-heavy and doing work done by other Jewish agencies.

Over the past few years, local federations have taken on a more important role in the fund-raising process, not only in setting the goals, but in deciding how they will raise the money and what portion will stay in the community for local needs.

“What does UJA have to offer for most federations that they don’t have themselves?” one American Jewish fund-raising official asked in March, shortly after Horowitz’s resignation was announced.

But Lurie, who gained a reputation as a maverick thinker during his 17-year tenure at the San Francisco federation, is considered by many Jewish officials to be the one person who can revitalize UJA’s image and operations.

As executive director of the San Francisco federation, Lurie has pioneered a program in which the federation donated a portion of its general campaign proceeds directly to Israel, rather than channeling the money through UJA.

Although the amount of money, about $100,000 annually, was a tiny percentage of the federation’s overall campaign, it was initially viewed with suspicion by some Jewish officials.

ONCE A CRITIC OF JEWISH AGENCY

Some officials feared direct donations might undermine UJA’s position and threaten UJA’s ability to raise funds for Israel.

But the program had the opposite effect, supporters say, because by strengthening the ties between a local community and Israel, people were encouraged to give more money.

Since San Francisco initiated the program in the mid-1980s, New York and other federations have embarked on similar undertakings.

Similarly, Lurie was at one time an outspoken critic of the Jewish Agency for Israel. The Jewish Agency, which is the largest beneficiary of funds raised by UJA, had been criticized by Lurie and others for its large bureaucracy.

“At a particular moment in time, he was somewhat outside the establishment,” said Loup. “But frankly, a lot of what he has attacked has been changed in the Jewish Agency.”

“People might question his choice” in how he phrased his attack, said Loup, “but everyone endorses his feelings.”

Under Lurie, UJA would likely be quite a different place than it was during the seven-year tenure of Stanley Horowitz, who was considered a technocrat more at ease cutting costs than in developing warm relationships with people.

Although Horowitz has been praised for cutting UJA’s staff by 25 percent and paring down operating costs, some UJA officials were rumored to be unhappy with his dry, bureaucratic style.

Lurie is considered by many to be a charismatic leader with a compelling vision of the need for a strong Diaspora role in aiding Israel and strong background in fund raising.

BELIEF IN DIASPORA RESPONSIBILITY

In a telephone interview a few months ago, Lurie said that while American Jewish fund raising for Israel is a “spectacular achievement,” the American Jewish community could still do a lot more for Israel.

“I would like to believe that Jews in the Diaspora are as duty bound as those in Israel, but somehow that hasn’t worked,” he said.

He called resettlement of Soviet Jews in Israel “the largest single need” facing the Jewish community and said Israel is bearing a “disproportionate share” of the financial responsibility.

Jewish fund-raising leaders said Lurie had been UJA’s top candidate for months, but one of the major sticking points was whether he and his family were interested in relocating to New York.

Besides Loup, other members of the search committee included Morton Kornreich, chairman of UJA’s board of trustees; Marvin Lender, UJA national chairman; Martin Stein and Alex Grass, both former UJA national chairman; Charles Goodman, president of the Council of Jewish Federations; and Norman Lipoff, chairman of United Israel Appeal.