Buncher Foundation - 25 years of investing in people

Jewish revival. Thousands of Jews discovered, recovered, or reclaimed their long-buriedJewish roots and openly declared a Jewish identity.Even Experienced Leaders Need GuidanceThe growth in numbers of new Jewish community leaders and their discernible influenceon their communities inevitably led the Buncher staff to modify the Program to matchparticipants’ new situation and experience.While the Program had not yet reached saturation point – there were still more people to berecruited for training and more leadership positions to fill – it had achieved a certain criticalmass. These Buncherians were now facing many questions and dilemmas that grew out oftheir exposure to leadership \"in the trenches,\" and went beyond the leadership basics theProgram had taught them.This was neither a shock nor a problem for Buncher Program staff. After all, one ofthe Program’s underlying messages was that there was always room for further growth,innovation, study, thinking, and deliberation. They understood the dynamics of communitydevelopment, and that the Program had to remain relevant to communities as they grew.Thus, as the new millennium began, graduates and communities were ready for the nextstage. Buncher created new approaches and tools for those already in leadership positions,and expanded and enhanced the core Program for new participants.New Buncher Solutions for New RealitiesAmong the first innovations was a different way of dividing up seminar participantsaccording to emerging community professions, instead of by location. Buncher staffdesigned new Professional Seminars to cater to specific and more advanced needs, ratherthan providing a generic basic leadership training.As described in Chapter 2, from the outset, Buncher sought to support Jewish communityworkers and encourage the recognition of Jewish communal work as a profession with anassociated set of skills and capabilities. This remained true for the subset of communityworkers as well.For example, Buncher has run seminars for JCC directors, offering them key tools suchas branding and methods of outreach and fundraising, to enable them to become self-sufficient communal organizations. This has helped Jewish renewal coordinators across the 51

Chapter 3 FSU to understand community dynamics better and to coach community leaders in how to promote Jewish programming. Buncher held training courses for community journalists, recognizing community journalism as a key tool in community development. And as Hillel: Center for International Jewish Life expanded across the FSU, Buncher provided professional training for its regional staff. Like all professionals, Jewish community workers, especially those working in remote and/ or small communities, need professional networks. In addition to expanding their skill sets, Buncher's professional seminars offered them the opportunity to connect with, and learn from, others facing the same or similar challenges and situations. Alongside these cross-community efforts, the Buncher Program began assisting the more community-specific work of reaching out to unaffiliated sectors and introducing new types of leadership. Romania – and its need to cater for a younger generation of Jews – was a case in point. Throughout the Communist and initial post-Communist period, the Romanian Jewish community was traditionally perceived as an aging community with no potential for the younger generation. This is supported by statistics. Yet, after the first Buncher seminar in 2001, the situation changed dramatically. With new, young, Buncher-trained leadership in place, the younger generation felt welcomed. Buncher, rising to the occasion, held a seminar in 2003 specifically geared to developing programs for the young and \"middle\" generations. Here was a practical application that served as a next step in Jewish communal leadership training in Romania. Israel Sabag, JDC director in Romania, explains what Buncher means in Romania: All of the key people in the Romanian Jewish community today are Buncher graduates. People know that if you want to have a real position in the community, Buncher is like Harvard. You need to learn about Judaism, about your people, about management and leadership. Because even if you know something about leadership, Jewish leadership is something special. In Warsaw, the challenge was different. The revived community knew that they could achieve so much more if they could capture the attention of the city's Jewish social and intellectual elite and involve them in Jewish community life. Thanks to a Buncher Program stretching out more than a year, this is exactly what the community managed to do. How? By speaking to their values and interests. Participants in the Program – a prominent Polish feminist, a professor in Jewish philosophy, a 52

photographer, a movie director and journalists – were all leaders in their fields, accustomedto challenging norms and championing causes. Yet this was the first time they hadbeen called upon to explore the deep meaning of their Jewish identity, to redefine theirrelationship to the Jewish State, and to develop a new understanding of their Jewishresponsibility. Today, many are active in local Jewish community life, where they offervaluable input and act as a bridge between the community and society at large.Alumni and New LeadersWhile many Buncherians were growing in their communities and leadership roles, they werediscovering that identifying and nurturing new leaders was a continual task, which now fellon them. Not surprisingly, alumni turned to Buncher staff for help.This was how, in the early 2000s, the Buncher Program found itself in the YoungLeadership business, working both with large-scale student organizations like HillelInternational, as well as with individual communities such as Slovakia and the Baltic States.Always looking ahead to future needs, Buncher offered training on two levels, for potentialyoung leaders and for alumni. For example, as young leaders were paired with experiencedleaders as mentors, these mentors, many of whom were Buncher alumni, were also trained incoaching, to help them as mentors and to augment their leadership skills.Requests for help with young leadership reflected a need for ongoing support by theProgram’s growing body of alumni. In order to provide this in a more targeted manner,Buncher introduced Alumni Seminars, also known as Master Seminars.Buncher alumni who had found their place in their communities, thanks largely to theiroriginal training, had matured to the point of understanding that their training had reallyonly begun. They needed – and wanted – further professional development. The AlumniSeminars were designed to give participants a more sophisticated level of skills beyondbasic project management. In 2000 alone, some 50 alumni from Kiev, Kishinev, Moldovaand other locations in the FSU came together for four such separate seminars.An excellent example of this important new step took place in Poland in 2003. By then, theBuncher Program had accrued a long history of training community leaders in Poland. ManyBuncher graduates occupied key leadership positions, such as heads of Jewish communities,community social workers, journalists, teachers, pedagogical experts and youth workers.Although a great deal of progress had been made since Buncher began training PolishJews for leadership, as a group they felt that they needed further training and additional 53

strategies for effecting change, particularly within Jewish communal organizations. In response, Buncher held a Master Seminar entitled \"Introducing Organizational Change in Community.\" Based on strong theoretical foundations, the Program used its regular methods of group work, simulation, discussion and emphasizing the Jewish perspective to explore the phenomenon of change, people's natural resistance to it, and how to make change happen anyway. Such a specialized topic and sophisticated level of content would have been lost on the first Polish Buncher participants ten years before. But their previous preparation by Buncher and experience in the field now made it possible for them to recognize their need and benefit from further learning.Chapter 3 It is hard to over-emphasize the positive implications of these Alumni Seminars. Perhaps more than any other single factor, the configuring of these next-step vehicles by JDC professionals and the strong desire of previous participants to join them, prove the viability and robustness both of Buncher programming and Buncher participants in the leadership it produced. Alumni and partners Poland ten years ago came come back for more – and even demand more from specific community – only when they are inspired, motivated and structures. Now community fulfilled by the original product. is a much wider term. So we have people who are not Maintaining close working contact with alumni is necessarily involved in any central to Buncher’s educational policy. It is also particular organizational a natural progression from the trust created by structure, but are informal leaders of the community. participating in the Program and the shared goal There are also many more of strengthening community life. organizations. Community life in Poland is more vibrant. The emerging Professional and Master Seminars There are all kinds of voices, pointed to growing specialization, sophistication age groups, people, who and individuality among Buncher graduates and contribute to the community their Jewish communities. This welcome trend through the work they do. has continued to grow with the years, leading Buncher to develop new training opportunities that have succeeded earlier Alumni Seminars. Karina Sokolowska These efforts, which represent the maturation of Director, JDC Poland a peer group, are detailed below. 54

Cultivating Communities through ConsultancyAs Buncher graduates accrued experience and matured in their roles, their communitieswere becoming more complex and multifaceted. With more organizations and stakeholdersthan ever, they faced specific, sometimes very complex, community needs. For multiplereasons, whether age makeup, financial resources, local history, cultural background, or acombination of these, each community had its own constellation of aspirations and challenges.Thus, having made remarkable progress over the previous two decades, many communitieshad reached a significant milestone. They were at a level of sophistication anddifferentiation for which Buncher needed a way to help the leadership address the individualneeds of individual communities.The consultancy model that emerged as a result – which now constitutes the backbone ofthe Buncher Community Leadership Program – began organically.As demonstrated by the growing stream of requests for help with young leadership, Bunchergraduates and long-time colleagues, such as JDC country directors, were increasinglycontacting Buncher staff for help on specific matters. This attraction was obvious, becauseProgram staff were able to approach issues with a unique blend of outsider objectivity andexpertise and “old friend” familiarity.Although these requests came in individually and were unconnected, they often sharedthemes. As a result, the Buncher Leadership Program's efforts today can be divided intofour broad categories:1. Collective Impact: Projects address a broad spectrum of community issues, with astrong orientation toward building synergy between community organizations and informalgroups. Collective Impact projects target leaders from across the community, many of whomare alumni, who perceive Buncher as a long-term and trustworthy partner.(a) The projects employ two main strategies: first, a group process that aims to buildtrust, improve communication, deal with conflicts and power issues, and define sharedgoals; second, a focus on community development tools, on broadening participants’knowledge, skills and approaches.(b) Most recently (2015–2016) the Warsaw Jewish community forum focused on thecommunity’s future, exploring each organization’s unique contribution, and defining futuredirections. Through these efforts, the forum sought to ascertain if the various groups had 55

Chapter 3 the potential to truly act as one community, offering members a wide range of opportunities for a meaningful Jewish life. 2. Organizational Development: As they grow, Jewish communities become as much about groups of organizations as about groups of people. Thus, Buncher now works with individual organizations – a community center, a social service, a student organization – to help them shape or reshape their vision and strategy, and to be a more responsible partner in the wider community within which they function. 3. Capacity Building: Following years of educating community leaders in professional community work, Buncher continues to run training programs for cohorts of community leaders in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and elsewhere. Programs include a gamut of topics and skills to upgrade their performance as leaders, with an emphasis on engaging and empowering community members. 4. Train the Trainers: Buncher's role in young leadership development has shifted to training the trainers rather than the young leaders themselves. Buncher prepares trainers for a number of Madrichim schools in the Baltics and the FSU. No matter what the program or target audience might be, Buncher remains true to its original values: • Responsible and professional leadership that promotes inclusive and pluralistic Jewish communities. • Empowerment of individuals, organizations and communities to take care of their Jewish future in a more effective and efficient way. • A well-connected community in which individuals and organizations share responsibility and cooperate for the common good. • A connection to Israel as an essential part of being a Jewish leader, and Israel’s role as a laboratory for examining modern social and community issues. Buncher staff, led by long-time Program Director Marina Goutman, carry out this work with a very particular philosophy in mind. She explains: I believe our approach is unique in the world of training programs. We take a boutique approach. We do not start with a program or a “product.” We start with people, with bringing together an affinity group. We extend an open invitation to come together to study and to analyze complex issues. Once there is a group of interested participants, we analyze their needs, their concerns and their fields of interest and we build the program that will 56

serve them in the best possible way. The key success factor is the group itself.And after all these years I can say that the kind of peer network created by the program lastslong after the program is over. It is a great source of support and inspiration for hundreds ofBuncher alumni across the globe. More than that, I believe that this is the optimal model forcommunity development itself. 57

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Chapter 4 Cultivating a Supportive Environment for Jewish Communities When Jack Buncher passed away in 2001, Bernita Buncher, who had become familiar with her father's dedicated work, took on the mantle of the Buncher Community Leadership Program. Even though it had been firmly established as a premier program for Jewish leadership in Europe – and even further afield – Bernita Buncher did not rest on these laurels. Rather, the Program’s success spurred her on to seek more ways to support the renaissance of many Jewish communities that had begun after the Iron Curtain was lifted. Just as the Program's inception had been enriched by Jack's personal experiences and interests, so Bernita expanded it with her unique outlook on life and the Jewish world. The result was a series of enterprises on every level of community life, which today collectively enrich the environment in which Buncher graduates and potential program participants live and function. In true Buncher style, their effect has been felt in many different ways and has impacted a great number of beneficiaries, from potential young leaders to leadership graduates looking to launch their dream project for their communities, to senior community leaders and national program managers. Individuals and Organizations A decade of recruitment for Buncher Community Leadership Program showed that young adults immersed in their university studies are often the most obvious and brightest prospects for future leaders. Yet, while students’ leadership potential is most identifiable at this stage in their lives, their availability to invest in themselves is far less. Many are struggling financially to support 64

their own studies, and those who overcome this do so by working at side jobs and rarelyhave the time for community involvement.When Bernita Buncher met with young Buncher graduate Jenya Mikhaleva, one of the firstregional directors for the Hillel student organization in the FSU, she was inspired to takeaction. She looked for a way to attract young adults into community involvement, as well asguarantee that highly educated people would be in leadership roles.Accordingly, Buncher began awarding financial aid scholarships toward the tuition ofsuitably qualified students. These were normally matching grants between Buncher and thestudents’ local communities. In return, the students had to volunteer for a certain numberof hours per week (about the same amount of time they would have had to work) to serve thecommunity.The Buncher Student Scholarship Program Buncher Gave Me Mythus allowed students to \"get their feet wet\" in Jewish Identitycommunal work while they studied. Not onlydid they gain valuable personal experience, but The Buncher Net scholarshipthe scholarships had a broad impact on their I received was not just acommunities. financial award to help with university. It was a wayBuncher scholars were involved in diverse to be close to the Jewishcommunity projects. Some worked with the community … It put me inelderly, ranging from home visits to excursions touch with other Jewishto educational programming for seniors. Others young adults. We sharedvolunteered to work with youth, from preschool experiences – Jewish activitiesto teenagers, in activities as diverse as holiday and holiday events, andcelebrations and leadership training. training for job interviews. It was much more than justScholarships were complemented by training an allowance. It gave me aseminars in community work, thus equipping part of my Jewish identity.students with basic skills for their communityinvolvement. Kevin Olesker Scholarship Recipient,The Scholarship Program was most active Buenos Airesbetween 2000 and 2005, and began with studentsin the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Ukraine,eventually encompassing students in Russia,65

Chapter 4 Argentina, Moldova, Belarus, the Baltics, Germany, India, and Latin America. In Argentina, whose recovery from economic collapse in 2000 faltered in 2008 with the global financial downturn, the Buncher Net Program as the scholarships were known, proved especially critical, as it helped young Argentinean Jews to cover university-related expenses. Community Scholarships Inspired by the positive outcomes of these student awards, Bernita Buncher then introduced special purpose scholarships in the names of individuals she wished to honor. For example, the Jenya Mikhaleva Scholarship – named for the Hillel director who had impressed Bernita previously – provided training for Hillel activists and/or seed money for their community projects. Two more scholarships, named for good friends of the Buncher family and fellow Jewish philanthropists in Pittsburgh, sought to help individuals and organizations who were already part of the Buncher family. As well as financial support, these scholarships offer well- deserved recognition for new and innovative community projects. Since 2004, the Sylvia Busis Scholarship has been awarded to grass-roots initiatives by Buncher graduates. The Max Bluestone Community Achievement is presented to an organization or program that has benefited from the involvement of Buncher graduates, has demonstrated outstanding creativity and quality programming, and has succeeded in reaching out to new members of the community. The recipients of the scholarships demonstrate Buncher’s far-ranging influence – both geographically and in the wide spectrum of initiatives that Buncher graduates bring to their communities. For instance, the Busis Scholarship helped to introduce a new project for children at risk to the Jewish community in Bryansk, Russia. Created and run by a group of Jewish students, the project was launched by a Buncher graduate, while another Buncherian took charge of volunteer supervision and training. The recognition given by the awarding of scholarships encourages others to pioneer new projects, especially those that highlight flagship community projects created by Program graduates and that are a direct result of Buncher training. One such example is the Gan Eden Jewish kindergarten in Bucharest, Romania, the recipient of the Sylvia Busis award in 2014. Visitors to the city’s Jewish community today can be shown around this thriving facility, attended by 55 children. The kindergarten was launched with just three children, because Dalia, President of the Romanian Jewish 66

community and a Buncherian, felt the need for a kindergarten within this rejuvenatedcommunity and was determined to make it happen.Dalia raised money on her own for the kindergarten and continued running it even whenthe income from student fees was not sufficient to cover even the rent of the building.Believing in its importance, she carried on and, thanks to her Buncher training, which gaveher the tools to approach the community, recruited participants and ultimately raised thenecessary funds. Israel Sabag, JDC Director in Romania, explains the special nature of thisproject:This was the first time that someone did it from The Power oftheir own money. We (JDC) gave her support, Togetherbut she raised the bulk of the money herself. It’san amazing kindergarten, and today no one When I took part in Buncherknows what we would do without it. 15 years ago, I was struck by the diversity of communityThe scholarship programs have supported diverse participants and the powerprojects: a community theater in Bobruisk, of the connections made. ItBelarus; a dance group in Germany; a young definitely contributed toleadership program in Tbilisi; the Belgrade a better understanding ofStudent Club in Serbia; a Judafest street festival community dynamics andin Hungary and a second-hand charity shop; needs.and a journal for community work and a Jewish Now I'm working withpreschool in Sofia, Bulgaria. All of these were Buncher again. We'respearheaded by Buncher graduates. developing a training concept for community activistsAs communities have developed through involved in the HUB. BuncherBuncher training and programming, so has the will help us develop theirsophistication of their programs and initiatives. leadership and managementOne of the more recent scholarship recipients, skills, and cultivate athe Social Entrepreneurship Hub in Hungary, conscious approach to theirillustrates this. work in the community so their efforts can have a greater impact.The Jewish Community Hub in Budapest is a Mircea Cernov Director,platform for capacity building and leadership Jewish Community HUBdevelopment among the city’s Jewish activists.In the course of developing participants’knowledge, skills and competencies in non-67

Chapter 4 profit management, it is also creating a space for interaction and partnership cultivation between diverse Jewish community members participating in the Hub. When Mircea Cernov, Hub Director and a Buncherian, was planning training for Hub members, he knew instinctively that the Buncher Program could help (see sidebar on previous page). Up until this point, the Buncher Program investment had focused primarily on individuals and individual communities, notwithstanding the cumulative regional effect of these activities. What’s News with the Jews In 2005, JDC and Bernita Buncher chose to add a new dimension by founding the JDC- International Centre for Community Development. JDC-ICCD, as it is known, is a research institute devoted to investigating the phenomena of Jewish community and identity. Based originally in Yarnton Manor, Oxford, England, JDC-ICCD contributes to Europe’s Jewish communities by analyzing the transformations taking place in the region's Jewish communal life, and translating the findings into an accurate picture of what is going on among Europe's Jews. This information – whether on pressing communal issues, changing demography, forces behind European Jewish identity, or what makes European Jewish young adults tick – is essential information for helping local Jewish leaders make informed and effective decisions in their communities and continue improving the quality and range of their development endeavors. In short, JDC-ICCD takes the pulse of Jewish life in Europe. For example, the fact that Jewish life and identity in Europe today is quite different from the prescriptive Jewish life of the shtetl will be of little surprise. But JDC-ICCD’s Identity à la Carte research project, perhaps the largest and most ambitious survey ever conducted on East European Jewry, details the full why and how. By interviewing Jews in numerous Eastern European Jewish communities and examining how they understand and experience their Jewish lives, how they feel about core Jewish issues, and how they relate to the realities of the new Europe, researchers were able to compile a fascinating picture of what it means to be Jewish in Europe today. As its name indicates, the à la Carte survey revealed that being Jewish today in Europe is about choice. Professor Barry Kosmin, one of the five main researchers, explains that the term epitomizes the reality of the contemporary Jewish condition. Today, Judaism has 68

been superseded by the broader phenomenon of The Value of AppliedJewishness; Jewish identity is entirely individual. ResearchAt the same time as generating important In the United States, thereinsights for leaders, JDC-ICCD also regularly is a fascinating interactionsurveyed Europe's top Jewish leaders and opinion between social scientists andformers to get a picture of their priorities, Jewish community leaders. Itsensibilities and concerns. JDC-ICCD’s is this ongoing interactionthird such survey in 2015 revealed that mixed that makes research applied,marriage was no longer regarded as the most and thus useful to the Jewishserious threat to communities. According to world.the more than 300 leaders surveyed, the most Thanks to its appliedalarming trends are the alienation of Jews from approach, JDC-ICCD isJewish community life, the weakness of Jewish able to give the Europeanorganizations, and demographic decline. In part of a global picture ofaddition, 85 percent of them felt that events in contemporary Jewish life.Israel sometimes led to an increase in local anti- JDC's strong connectionsSemitism. with Jewish communities in Europe – and the networksWith these projects and similar high quality that the Buncher Leadershipand relevant studies – and of course Bernita Program has formed acrossBuncher’s investment – JDC-ICCD has the continent – make thisestablished itself as fully equal to other centers possible.of contemporary Jewry research in Israel, the USand the UK. It plays an important role working Marcelo Dimentsteinin coordination with these other centers to paint a Director, JDC-ICCDpicture of world Jewry today.Senior Leaders Across the RegionFrom the outset, however, staff knew that research alone would not be sufficient to increasethe understanding and scope of European Jewish life and community (see sidebar).There was no room for an ivory tower; the knowledge had to be applied directly to Jewishcommunities.At the same time, Jewish community leaders in Eastern Europe – many of them trainedthrough the Buncher Community Leadership Program – had by then accumulated a great69

Chapter 4 deal of knowledge and experience. Yet with some irony, now that Jewish communities were free to develop, more complex issues arose and challenges became more daunting. Leaders needed to be able to deal with the difficult and demanding issues of the day. For this reason, JDC-ICCD opened a platform for bringing top community leaders in Europe together to learn about findings and grapple with pertinent issues. This platform is the Senior Buncher Leadership Track. In addition to creating a venue for leaders, the track intentionally expanded the Buncher Program activities beyond the former Soviet bloc. For years, the only Western country Buncher had served was Germany, mainly because of the wave of Russian immigration it was experiencing. The new track created an important and timely encounter between East and West, between established European communities and the newer or renewed post-Communist communities. The process was not unlike the entry of these countries into the European Union, a move that demonstrated their post- Communism progress. In practical terms, the track is comprised of think tanks, high-level conferences, and symposia around current leading research issues. More recently, these activities have dovetailed with those of Leatid, JDC’s European Training Center for Jewish Leadership, which develops various training courses and seminars. For example, in the Center’s series of Coping with Change seminars, participants presented, analyzed, and discussed case studies from their own communities, so as to learn from their own experience while also benefiting from the input of researchers with a more global perspective. In another application of research knowledge to day-to-day community management, the Center’s Future Scenarios Planning Seminar offers community professionals an unprecedented approach to tackling one of the hardest parts of their job – planning for their community’s future. Given the last hundred years of Jewish life, it is fair to say that Jewish communities everywhere need to be prepared for many contingencies. Yet such a task can be overwhelming, and the ability to formulate clear plans almost impossible. This first-of- a-kind seminar offers European Jewish leaders methods of building and exploring scenarios for different situations, thus strengthening their capacity for this critical planning. These are just two examples of how the Center’s research and education arms work together, successfully generating and disseminating knowledge. In fact, this accrued expertise in integrating research with professional debate and education soon paved the way for an extension of Buncher’s influence into the world of interfaith dialogue (see Chapter 6). 70

Now that JDC-ICCD is firmly established as the Center that provides European Jewishleadership with successful models and strategies for dynamic and self-sustainablecommunities, it is hard to imagine the region without this resource.As Marcelo Dimentstein, the Center’s Director, explains:This synergy of research and education is not just a welcome extra, it is essential. 71

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Chapter 5 Ensuring Jewish Futures The Buncher Community Leadership Program helps Jewish communities to develop and evolve, fostering their capacity and orientation to act independently and to determine community directions and priorities based on real needs. Complementing the Leadership Program, the Buncher Foundation supports initiatives that cultivate an environment conducive to acquiring knowledge and skills. These endeavors, set out in Chapter 4, have targeted individuals and organizations, as well as senior leadership across the region. On several occasions, Buncher has recognized the necessity for country-level intervention. The two instances described in this chapter are at once different but similar. Their differences are obvious – in content, in scope, and to a certain extent in urgency. However, they also have a parallel. In both cases, the programs helped to clear an obstacle blocking these countries' positive trajectory to their Jewish future. Battling Economic Crisis in the Baltic States As any community professional would attest, it is always hard to find time for forward planning and strategy amid the daily routine of community life. Juggling new program innovation while maintaining basic but essential services such as community welfare is not an easy task. What happens, however, when these efforts are no longer enough, when crisis hits and individual lives are at risk, and the very foundations of an upwardly mobile community that have been built over the last decade face possible collapse? This is what took place in 2008 in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – known as the Baltic States. They found themselves mired in a deep financial crisis, which would have been difficult at any time, but was particularly demoralizing directly following a period of optimism and tangible economic and social progress. The global economic crisis that sent the world reeling in 2008 had an even stronger impact 80

in the countries that had been experiencing a cautious economic upswing. Overnight,these former Soviet states, which had realized the social and economic dream of joining theEuropean Union in 2004, found themselves facing nothing less than an economic catastrophe.There was no respite as unemployment soared, salaries were cut or withheld, pricesskyrocketed, and government emergency measures slashed social services and benefits.Many of the Jewish populations in these countries were also affected by the crisis. ElderlyHolocaust survivors who constitute 67 percent of Baltic Jewish elderly found that theirpensions could no longer cover necessities. Young families already receiving welfareservices were further hurt. Many families that had been middle class and financiallyindependent – the very people on whom community leaders were counting for thecommunity’s future – now became the “new poor” as the result of declining wages,unemployment, and crippling mortgage and loan payments.This situation presented some stark dilemmas for Jewish community leadership. How werethey to respond to this acute new crisis when they had only just started making headway inrehabilitating the community after Soviet rule? How should they prioritize their resourcesbetween indigent elderly who had become even poorer, the new poor – mostly youngfamilies and professionals – and general Jewish community activities?The most obvious challenge was that of resources. The communities in Estonia, Latvia andLithuania all had well-established welfare departments, but lacked the funds to cover theburgeoning needs. This was where the Buncher Foundation stepped in, extending the scopeof its activities to offer vital financial assistance at a major time of need. The BuncherWelfare Program provided immediate, life-sustaining humanitarian aid to more than6,400 needy Jews across the Baltic region – the elderly and families who suddenly foundthemselves slipping into poverty. Services included food support, medication, and heatingsubsidies.Yet, the crisis affected more than just basic material needs. It influenced many areas, andnot only adversely, as Moni Beniosev, JDC’s representative in the Baltics, explains:Many new people came to the community for programs, because they felt it was a secureplace. We developed a Buncher training seminar to respond to the new needs; the traininghelped us with the process of building new programming for them. It enhanced the skills ofsenior Jewish professionals during the crisis, and provided an excellent opportunity for themto be more creative when tackling issues related to the crisis, as well as general work in thecommunity. 81

Chapter 5 He adds: Bringing participants from all three Baltic countries definitely made it easier for the three countries to work together. This was not, of course, the first time that Buncher had supported a Jewish community suffering from a national financial crisis. The very country where Jack Buncher first had the idea of helping his Jewish brethren – Argentina – had also suffered a severe economic crisis in the early 2000s. Buncher contributed to JDC’s efforts to prevent the Argentinean Jewish community's complete collapse, providing nutritional support for young children and stipends for students trying to build their lives in spite of their parents’ financial devastation. The choice to support welfare care programs is not the only element that connects Buncher's munificence in Europe and Latin America. When JDC realized that young Jewish families affected by the 2008 crisis in the Baltics needed as much help reorienting themselves for the job market as they did for physical sustenance, community leaders together with JDC – and financial support from the Buncher Foundation – brought in a model that had been used with great success in Argentina: The Ariel Job Center. “In all three Baltic states, the Ariel Center became the first point of response for people who had lost their jobs,” recounts Moni Beniosev. “More than 450 people from the Jewish community of 12,000 used the Center in the first three years.” In recent years, as the economic situation has improved, the Center has changed its response within the Jewish community. The only Ariel Center still in operation is in Latvia, providing job support, training and psychological assistance for people who have jobs but want to increase their qualifications. Many of the clients are in the 55–65 age group, who are vulnerable in the workforce because they lack the right skills and few speak Latvian. They come to the Center for skills training and language courses that can help them stay employed and even advance in the workplace. Today, with economic recovery well underway in the Baltics, and the employment situation stable, Jews in these three countries are able to enjoy community life and to plan their Jewish future.  82

Help Where it's Most Needed When Raymond and Ilona Rinkin, parents to three-year-old Igor, lost their jobs in Latvia's economic collapse, they did all they could to stay afloat financially. Ilona worked 20-hour factory shifts which paid just $10. She often traveled up to five hours to locations in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, as there were no more than five shifts per month. Raymond went to England, where he'd been promised a job, but was never paid. He then moved in with his mother in western Latvia, to take part in a government vocational training course. Igor had been previously diagnosed with severe developmental delays. Thus, when his parents needed to move away to earn money, Igor had to stay in a….Connecting Jews Together in GermanyIn a new departure, both practical and future-oriented, the Buncher Foundation’sintervention in Germany involved setting up a range of Jewish literature programs,which had a powerful and sustained effect. Given the dispersion of the country’s Jewishcommunity – scattered across hundreds of locations and with minimal points of Jewishreference between them – a strategy that created an infrastructure for connecting thecountry’s Jews was a high priority in the 2000s, and greatly welcomed.Until recently, many in the Jewish world thought that the Jewish population of Germanywould never grow again. Astonishingly, Germany has become the fastest growing Jewishcommunity in Europe. With some 200,000 Jews – five times the number surviving afterWorld War II – it is now the third largest Jewish population on the Continent.These swelling numbers arose from a steady influx of Soviet immigrants in the 1990s and2000s. All Jews who meet the criteria for receiving state aid through the German welfaresystem are accepted as immigrants. But they are placed in different cities according toGerman government guidelines, intended to distribute the burden of immigrant absorptionthroughout the country and to encourage the newcomers’ adaptation to German society. 83

Chapter 5 As a result, there are now some 80 Jewish communities across Germany, with Jewish communal needs, such as synagogues and rabbis, supported by the government. Muki Jankelowitz, a former Buncher staff member who visited Germany on several occasions with the Program, described the Jewish situation in Germany as he saw it in the early 2000s: Anomalies are inherent in German Jewish life today. Thus, while veteran German Jews largely profess ambivalence about remaining in the country, they have done so for decades, taking on many attributes of their host community while maintaining a strong Jewish identity. There is no easy way for them to absorb a much larger group of Jews from the FSU, with mixed Jewish identity, whose foremost interest is in becoming 'Germans'. The challenge of attracting Jewish immigrants to Jewish communal life in Germany had to be tackled if they were to be brought into the Jewish fold. This goal became central to JDC’s Jewish renewal work in Germany. At that time, in keeping with its core approach of utilizing already available resources whenever possible, JDC decided to use the synagogues built by the German government as a platform for establishing libraries with Jewish content in numerous locations. The rationale: While many immigrants had little synagogue-related experience, the library was familiar territory. Lili Furman, JDC-Germany Country Director explains: Books in Germany and in the Russian emigrant culture are still objects of devotion, bookshops are flourishing, old libraries are modernized, and new ones are created. The love for literature in general is characteristic of the immigrants from FSU in Germany. The Buncher Library Program has developed a direction of relating to them through Jewish literature. At the same time, the Buncher Librarian Circle Seminar convenes three times a year to provide librarians from locations across Germany with essential training on how to use Jewish texts as a starting point for creating new activities in their libraries. Librarian seminars reconnect the librarians with their Jewish heritage, with the aim of enabling them to impart this knowledge effectively to the different generations in their communities. The program has trained some 18 librarians in the Westphalia region, where most of the new immigrants have settled, and six in Berlin. Each year, the Buncher Book Matching Project enables communities to select and acquire 30–50 new books in Russian and German, written by Jewish and non-Jewish authors and related to ecumenical issues and cultural and interfaith dialogue. Each library's needs and its potential reading public are taken into account. The cost is shared by the Buncher 84

Foundation, JDC, and the communities.Lili Furman explains that the librarian training seminars and book-matching programs havedeveloped and expanded naturally to other points of attraction that literature can open upin Jewish communities. These include Jewish book fairs in Frankfurt and Duisburg, anda children’s Jewish book fair in Bielefeld. Lilli says that feedback from participants, andrequests for cooperation from local communities, confirm that Buncher library programsare raising interest in and familiarity with Jewish literature.“People call us from different Jewish communities to ask that we bring our expertisein Jewish literature, and provide coaching and counseling for educational programs incommunities,” she relates. “We have reached the point where we have one staff memberwhose job is to oversee these programs.”Together, these book-related activities are connecting Jewish immigrants to Jewishcommunities throughout Germany and to one another. The Buncher Foundation has helpedto build the connections and shared interests that in turn help to build community. 85

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Chapter 6 A Light Unto The Nations When Bernita took over the helm of the Buncher Foundation, she weaved her own passions into her pursuit of her father's vision. In particular, she sought to encourage Europe's Jewish communities to take on the intrinsic Jewish responsibility of serving as a light unto the nations. She felt that choosing to support non-sectarian programs precisely in these newly emerging communities presented a strong message: By contributing to the greater good so soon after their own renaissance, they would demonstrate that Jewish revitalization is not exclusively inward facing, but that true Jewish revival means caring both for our own and for humanity as a whole. Thus, since 2010, the Buncher vision has been extended to help and enhance a diverse number of humanitarian and social welfare projects in Europe and Israel, as well as driving interfaith dialogue in the region. Beyond the inherent moral value of these endeavors, the ability to diversify in this way has highlighted the synergy at play between JDC and the Buncher family. It is a synergy that has touched the lives of many individuals and changed the trajectory of many Jewish communities since their first connection back in the late 1980s. Non-Sectarian Programs When Bernita and JDC decided to expand the Buncher Community Leadership Program to include the support of non-sectarian programs, they naturally decided to do so in locations where the Program was already active and having an influence. Thus, it was in Hungary – home to some 100 Buncherians – that they began. Besides the non-denominational target population, these projects had all the hallmarks of the Buncher vision: Empowering and fostering community and its leadership. Thus, in 2010 the Buncher Foundation helped to fund the Hungarian pilot of an 90

international Breast Cancer initiative. The Women's Health Empowerment Program– commonly known as WHEP – seeks to improve the experiences of women with breastcancer and to promote early detection.At the time the Hungarian pilot was proposed, WHEP had already achieved considerablesuccess in several countries, including Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.Buncher's investment in Hungary extended these benefits to an even larger number ofpeople.WHEP Hungary began with a particular emphasis on raising awareness. This was not anarbitrary decision, but rather the result of forward planning. When staff carried out aninitial assessment of local needs, they discovered that Hungary had very little infrastructuresupport in the form of organizations dealing with breast cancer and care for cancersurvivors. Thus, WHEP organized health days, arranged mammogram screenings, andcoordinated educational outreach, in order to inform Hungarian women about the diseaseand its management.\"Over the years, this situation has changed slowly.\" As Marianna Jó, JDC ProgramManager, succinctly puts it: \"Early detection and diagnosis can mean the differencebetween life and death.”Buncher also supported another Hungarian initiative, this time targeting women from thecountry's largest and most disadvantaged minority – the Roma community. It helped tolaunch four Roma Mother Empowerment Clubs (MEC) in partnership with Hungary'sOpen Society Foundation. The clubs are built on the premise that Roma women'scentral role in their families makes them potential agents of change in their communities.Accordingly, the clubs set out to empower women through facilitating access to publicservices, focusing on early childhood development, and building their capacity and self-esteem.Reflecting the Buncher Foundation’s intrinsic belief in the value of training, its supportbegan with a series of training seminars for more than 20 Roma women set to lead thesecenters in a peer-support role, thus ensuring empowerment from the very start.Do Good: A True Buncher ProjectWhen Buncher began supporting a different non-sectarian program in 2010, this timechild-focused and in Bulgaria, it held particular significance for Bernita Buncher. 91

This was not just because the Do Good project provided essential eye care for indigent youngsters across Bulgaria, giving them the basic right to be able to read and learn. Nor was it because children’s reading has been close to Bernita’s heart for many years, as her continuing personal involvement in a children’s library program in Pittsburgh shows. Its significance was not even primarily because Do Good originated as a program in the Jewish community of Sofia, one of the many across Europe that owed its revival at least partly to the Buncher family’s support.Chapter 6 The reason why the Do Good project is We [lay leaders] were very noteworthy within the telling of the Buncher story enthusiastic, but lacked the is because its origin and subsequent development skills to be good leaders. The embody the Buncher vision and legacy in every Program gave us experiences way. and showed us models. We learned that being a The initiative was first conceived by Buncher good leader means to be graduate Dr. Alek Oscar during the Buncher responsible, to listen to the training seminar he attended in Israel in 2001. group, to empower other Then a third-year medical student – and already people and to develop self- Youth Director in the Jewish community – Alek confidence. imagined a medical project in which Jewish You have to believe in medical students and doctors would provide eye yourself as a leader. Buncher exams and glasses for children in the community was extremely important in on a volunteer basis. my development as a Jewish communal leader, and also in Fast forward 15 years. Alek, now 38, is National my personal and professional President of the Jewish community of Bulgaria. development as a doctor, due Do Good has become a partnership between this to the leadership skills and community and the Alexandrovska Hospital, confidence. with volunteer doctors from within and outside Many people lack the basic the community providing free medical care for understanding that a leader thousands of children across Bulgaria, including needs to be proactive and refugees from Syria. As Alek explains: not just react to events and circumstances. Do Good has become one of the most important Alek Oscar projects of the community. It is very important to Buncher Graduate 2001 us, because the purpose of the Jewish community Presidents, Sofia Jewish is to make Bulgarian society better. Do Good not Community 92

only reaches the young people who volunteer with us; it shows general society that we areresponsible for everyone, and not just ourselves.What better way to pay tribute to the Buncher vision and commitment than through aproject where a Buncher graduate is boosting his own community by involving them asvolunteers in a charitable endeavor for the broader community.Building Interfaith Bridges A Shared SocietyWhile the Buncher Foundation embodies the The inter-religious contactprinciple of serving as a light unto the nations was fascinating. Participantsthrough action, Bernita Buncher is also keenly had very personalaware of the value of talking and dialogue. discussions with otherRecognizing JDC-ICCD's growing expertise of participants. The atmospherebringing lay leaders, academics and professionals was strengthening andtogether in discussion and debate, she saw it as empowering.the appropriate vehicle for such an endeavor, and As a Druze woman who workschallenged the staff to cultivate conversations for a Jewish organization, Ibetween different faith groups. have always been an outsider. I learned that it is not aboutAs Bernita threw down the gauntlet, JDC- religion or faith. It's aboutICCD professionals, aware that activities in the working where there wasinterfaith arena had proliferated in recent years, a dominant culture and aasked themselves what added value Buncher minority which has to findcould possibly offer in promoting dialogue. How its place within [it]. It wascould it meaningfully contribute to such a heavily good to know that what wepopulated field? thought was so differentWhat kind of dialogue was the Buncher vision in Israel is actually quitebest positioned to initiate? normal. The conference gaveThen it struck them. Why did Jack Buncher me confidence andconnect so naturally with JDC all those years legitimization to carry on.ago, when he outlined his vision about caringfor Jewish communities? It was because of their Rita Fero-Nasreldincommon goal of caring for Jews. JDC is a Jewish Director,organization dedicated to the welfare of Jews Early Childhood Divisionall over the world, and as part of the JDC credo, for Arab-Israelis, JDC-Israel Participant in 2010 Conference93

caring is practically synonymous with being Jewish. Perhaps this intrinsic act of caring for those who share one’s faith (or culture or heritage, or all three) could be the topic to allow us to reach out and talk to \"the other\"? Surely, other faiths and communities could learn from the Jewish experience. And, as is always the case when teaching, we could learn from them in return. Thus, in 2010, JDC-ICCD launched the first Buncher Interfaith and Intercultural Conference for Community Professionals in Social Welfare. It created an unprecedented forum for leaders from a plethora of faith-based organizations across Europe and Asia – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and Hindus – to come together to discuss professional caring practices. JDC-ICCD was able to turn this bold idea into reality by maximizing its professionalism, expertise, and not least the prestige of its Oxford location to attract partners such as the British Government and the Archbishop of Canterbury to co-organize this ground-breaking endeavor. The conference also welcomed a special delegation of three JDC-Israel early childhood professionals – a Muslim, a Druze and a Christian – who contributed the perspective of working with Israel’s Arab citizens, that is, connecting through a common culture rather than a common faith. As participants from these diverse backgrounds There is no difference shared their thoughts, expertise and dilemmas between how we look at about their social welfare work, and as they disaster. explored best practices, pondered the potential There is no difference in how of multifaith initiatives and debated the pros and we look at compassion cons of funding models, more than knowledgeChapter 6 was being shared: bridges were being built. Mejindarpal Kaur The Buncher Program didn’t Legal Director United miss the opportunity to help Sikhs, UK. Participant in 2012 Conference promote a better understanding of Israel – Jack’s love – presented by the conference. Marcelo recalls an interaction between JDC-Israel staff members and conference participants, in particular between Muslims from different continents: It was fascinating to see how Arab Israelis spoke about Israel with so much pride. This is an 94

image that Muslims in Europe simply don’t have.In total, JDC-ICCD convened four Interfaith and Intercultural conferences in which thecentral theme of social welfare was explored through various prisms, including interfaithpartnerships between faith-based organizations; social action and innovation; and socialfinance and social responsibility.By 2015, JDC-ICCD staff felt that the conferences had run their course and fulfilled theirgoal of creating meaningful interfaith dialogue. Now that this dialogue had gatheredmomentum, it seemed appropriate to move from orchestrating opportunities to supportinggrassroots efforts. Current Buncher-supported projects include peer-led interfaithprogramming by the residents of Moishe Houses in Paris, Prague, Sofia, and London,through a partnership with JDC in Europe and the FSU, and a French young adults’organization, which matches young adults from different faiths and trains them to run localinterfaith programs.Helping Arab-Israeli SocietyIsrael has always been central to the Buncher vision. Jack was adamant in his appreciationof Israel's role in the Jewish world. Thus, it is not surprising that when Bernita expressedher desire to extend the Buncher vision to the broader global community, Israel was apriority address.Just as Israel – an amalgam of modern Western life and a multitude of Jewish communities –is a natural laboratory for Buncher, it also offers extensive opportunities for interfaith work.In particular, Bernita was very concerned that Israel maintain its pledge, expressed inits founding document, to care for all its citizens, including minorities – Arab Israelis inparticular:It will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will bebased on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensurecomplete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion,race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education andculture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions. State of Israel Declaration of Independence, 1948Bernita's concern was very timely. Despite the best efforts and impressive achievements ofmany Arab Israelis – including members of parliament, judges, doctors and entertainers – 95

Chapter 6 they remain a disadvantaged population. Arabs in Israel are far more likely to face poverty than their Jewish counterparts. The Arab poverty rate tops 50 percent, compared with 14 percent for Jewish families. Unemployment and underemployment are significant challenges for working-age Arabs, – particularly women, 67 percent of whom are unemployed. Moreover, the significant high school dropout rate causes a critical disadvantage in employment and opportunities for breaking out of the cycle of poverty. Since 2010, the Buncher Foundation has invested in a wide array of programs that seek to foster equality for Arab citizens in Israeli society. Buncher-supported initiatives meet the needs of Arab Israelis in different stages of life and geographical locations, with the constant aim of increasing opportunities and reducing poverty in the broader Arab community. Just as the Buncher Leadership Program has helped Jewish communities in Europe flourish through training, the Buncher Foundation sought to improve Arab Israeli society through training as well. Thus, it has supported Vocational Training Programs that open up new, in-demand employment fields beyond those that have been traditionally acceptable in Arab society. Many courses foster relationships between Arabs and Jews, as they train and enter the workplace together. For women, the training efforts are different. Since many have never worked outside the home, their employment prospects are best improved through workshops to help them balance work and family, and to understand employers' expectations so that they are better prepared to work outside the home. Arab Israelis pursuing university degrees in high-tech who have participated in Buncher- supported internship and networking opportunities to help them integrate into the Israeli high-tech and financial sectors are now serving as academic role models in their communities. In East Jerusalem, the Buncher-sponsored Arab Employment Center is building a foundation of tolerance and understanding, by helping local residents develop marketable skills to get jobs and work alongside their Jewish counterparts in businesses across the city. Some Buncher training programs address both immediate needs within Arab society as well as employment issues. For instance, a training program for male Bedouin nurses in the Negev aims to improve the poor health of local Bedouins, while another program is helping 96

adults with disabilities in several Arab cities to consider employment for the first time.The Buncher Foundation has also demonstrated its commitment to Arab-Israeli societythrough its work with children. This includes after-school enrichment programs in themixed Arab-Jewish city of Ramle, and therapeutic services for children in eight Druzevillages via a Buncher-supported central Early Childhood Development Unit and its satellitechild development centers.As the Buncher Foundation’s influence spreads across the globe, it is perhaps no surprisethat these latter programs are overseen by Rita Fero-Nasreldin, the same participant whocame back invigorated and enthused from JDC-ICCD’s inaugural interfaith conferencein 2010. Rita’s involvement is yet another demonstration of how Buncher trainingopportunities are transforming professionals’ abilities to bring about genuine and lastingchange in their communities. 97

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