Dancing and Heckling at the Dueling Jewish Fundraiser Mega-Meetings

At the same time that the Chabad Hasidic rabbinic leadership met Brooklyn, the Federation of Jewish charities mainly lay leadership met in New Orleans. Amazingly this caused a conflict and quandary for not a single person. There is not the slightest overlap between these two organizations of Jews who were meeting simultaneously to plot their next moves in seeking domination of the Jewish non-profit world.

Reports varied widely of these instances of the great organized Jewish conspiracy. People with a sense of humor wondered about all sorts of superficial things, like where do you check 4500 identical black hats and coats? How do you dance in a circle around chairs and tables crammed in to seat so many rabbis in Brooklyn?

And they pondered such immensities as for instance Jacob Berkman at the JTA at the GA opening wondering who would stumble bourbon-inebriated down Bourbon Street during that competing meeting in New Orleans.

We trust these get togethers accomplished something more than partying in different styles. We hope the collectives came up with strategies for Jewish organizational solvency in tight times.

The political side of the news out of New Orleans was not inspiring. Hecklers interrupted the Bibi speech and had to be dragged out of the auditorium. Not a very nice Nazi-like pose of the PM accompanying the CBS story. Has the GA gotten too political for its own good?

We wonder if JTA was covering the Chabad event with enough interest.

And a final thought. Wouldn't it be great if perhaps at either one of these meetings they even got a brief chance to discuss Judaism. Yes indeed, I am an irrepressible dreamer.