Clearly there will never be concensus on this issue as there are conflicting definitions of what a Jew is, depending on which side of the gefilte fish you sit. One side says you must have a Jewish mother for starters whilst the other side doesn’t place quite the same level of importance on this technicality. No doubt someone’s going to get offended here.

I would be more than satisfied with individuals simply requiring themselves to place a tick in the box next to “Are you Jewish?” on the application form. If the person says they are Jewish, then so be it. No proof required. Who cares, and what difference does it make?

It’s unlikely said organisation will be swamped with unchosen people for starters, and you’ll never please those who take a higher moral ground.

Michael.

Great post (#29)

I think you really got the point of what I was trying to do, ie – begin a discussion around ways to change the leadership model.

I want to give some response around the issues that you raised.

1. Running Costs of an Electoral System

I will not say that I have scoped out these costs in any meaningful way, but I am not so certain that an online registry along the lines that I have proposed would be so capital intensive to start and maintain. I think there are ways of doing it that would not cost an arm and a leg.

But perhaps I am wrong about this. In any case, the issue of the cost of the system leads right in to your next point:

2. Costs of a Leadership Structure

I think here you hit the nail firmly on the head. The positions would have to be salaried. And renumeration would have to be at some sort of decent level to attract the necessary talent to do the job well.

Therefore the body would have to be funded.

But as you tongue-in-cheekily asked, where would this money come from?

I would say that before that problem can be solved, we would first have to present a program and establish a mandate for this new organisation that would actually give the community real value. The value of a school or a shule or Jewish Care is self evident. They provide a real service that is of value to the people that are users of the service.

A governing body that would have any teeth at all would have to provide real, tangible value to the community that it could not achieve in other ways. I think the JCCV does provide some value, especially through the CSG and in terms of its advocacy work, but I think that if we were re-thinking the role of leadership in the community we would have to come up with some real value propositions.

Once we had that we could then evaluate them, put a price on them and begin to think seriously about a funding model, one that would be congruent with the underlying aims of the new organisation.

This is issue, the issue of what real value a leadership body brings to actual community members, ought to be the subject of at least one, if not many posts here and some serious off-line discussion in the community as well.

3. Not enough people are online

Hard to argue against that one at all. At the present moment, in 2009, it simply happens to be true. However, Id say three things. First, no system without the backing of statutory authority will ever guarantee universal suffrage, therefore as I see it the task is to find the most representational system possible. I still think the internet wins in that regard.

Second, while I see the online element as having great communicative functionalities, its primary purpose is for voting on the leadership, once every two years. Should the aims of the new body be things that give real value to the community, Im sure many of the older generation could be persuaded to come online just for that. And that possibly goes for the more orthodox elements of the community as well.

Third, again, my model is just a starting point and maybe it needs an offline component to really make it work. The main pitfall to this approach is that online systems are a cheap an easy way to aggregate individuals, and the reason these democratic models were unviable before is because of the enormous costs and energy involved in aggregating people in the off-line world.

4. Email lists.

I don’t think we’d need them. Through social networks and support from the community in general I think we could get to enough Jewish people in Melbourne to bypass the need for an email list. Take this blog as a case in point. It has achieved phenomenal numbers with no advertising what so ever, just some modest exposure in The Age and the AJN.

Again, were this new body to provide something of real, tangible value to the community, getting the message out would not be the problem.

5. 5 Year Plan.

Yup. I agree here too. My proposal is indeed to radical to be implemented overnight. It would be a transition. The exact timeframe I don’t know, but as they say, Rome was not built in a day. As for what parts of the proposal to do first, which are the most achievable and which represent the most bang for the buck, well, that’s what we’re here to discuss. Right now I am not entirely sure. But I would come back to my earlier point. Until a leadership body can clearly articulate the real value that it provides so that the community wholly recognises that value, then leadership will be in name only.

It occurred to me that in essence the JCCV, ADC, ECAJ and SZC shouldnt actually have any problems with this new process, as it is just so different to what they do.

They currently do not interact with individual non-represented members of the community, do not have a system of representation, or transparency, or a forum for discussion , democratic process or similar.

What they do have is an amount of successful advocacy going on at a government level, the ability to be an ‘umbrella’ or ‘roof body’, and the ability to raise funds to keep themselves functional. All are noble acts… but none of them have anything to do with what is being proposed here.

So really this plan or any similar plan to create a democratic system of representation, governance and transparency is really not stepping on any toes at all. Its completely different to what they do.

In fact, it may even prove to be something which would ultimately make their jobs easier.

Great points.

Who is a Jew – You are right in suggesting that it will become a pertinent issue. As of yet I have not thought adequately on proposing a model that would be inclusive in the extreme yet satisfy the more traditional elements of the community at the same time. Perhaps such a middle ground position is not even achievable. I hope that is not the case. I’d like to develop some ideas and devote a post to it some time in the future.

Candidates – Yes, the most likely scenario under my model would be that candidates would present themselves for election, possibly coming from interested parties or voting blocs. At the present time, despite the pitfalls of that system I still think what I have proposed is better than the current model, whereby there is virtually no democracy or representation. If you or anyone else has a more effective idea that would maximise participation and minimise politicking, then come forth. I am well aware that the model I am proposing has its limitations.

Efforts from within – I agree. Ideally the current leadership bodies would opt to reform themselves to become more inclusive, participatory and above all, more relevant organisations. Whatever happens, the governance of the community must be for all the community, and that includes the old guard as well.

Also, from a purely pragmatic point of view, transitioning an old body might be much easier than starting a completely new one. And speaking of pragmatism is a great way to segue into a discussion of David Werdiger’s pragmatic suggestions. See my next post.

In the wake of all the criticism of what we have now, it’s great to see a proposal that is innovative and full of vision.

I’m going to take raise a few issues:

1. While we all love democracy, it is well known that it’s hardly the most efficient form of government. Maintaining voter registries, running elections, all this stuff costs lots of money.

The JCCV has struggled financially for many years, and that’s simply trying to collect dues from its member orgs, and through its own annual appeal.

Yoram’s proposal would carry a huge cost in establishing and validating membership, and indeed in the vastly expanded brief for the communal governance org. Has anyone thought about what this might cost, and where the funds might come from?

Of course it would need paid staff. I have seen the costings for the proposed JCA, and if you take that and add all the other stuff we’d like in our ideal communal governance org, well … maybe we’d need to shut down a school to release funds for it?

2. Online. We folk who are permanent residents of cyberspace seem to forget all the others who aren’t. The largest member org of the JCCV is JewishCare, and most of what they do deals with older members of our community. How many of them get online? How about some parts of the Orthodox community who shun the internet?

What proportion of our community would an online forum truly represent? How many would actually engage with it? Maybe half if we were lucky.

If we want democracy – one Jew, one vote – then we need an inclusive system that offers everyone representation, so we will need to ensure they can register and vote through “traditional” methods. Again, this adds to the cost of such a system.

I’m all in favour of using online to engage a community – check out the superb book http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell – but we cannot leave behind those who can’t or won’t.

3. Every community org has, as one of their most valuable assets, a “database” or register of all their members. They may share many things with other orgs, but *never* their member list. The JCCV, over time, has also accumulated their own list, but it is far from a superset of all other lists.

The value in these lists is mostly for fundraising purposes, and while Yoram would like the communal governance org to take on this function on behalf of the entire community, much in the way the Sydney JCA does, this itself is a separate issue, and has its own barriers, and has aleady been debated extensively in Melbourne.

I doubt if any current org would put forward their list, even to an independent communal governance org, without wanting to be there keeping a watchful eye on what is being done with it. This is aside from any Privacy Act issues, and sensitivities about maintaining a “list of all Jews”.

To summarize, the main issue is that while this represents a very desirable governance model, it is “too” revolutionary. I see a more effective way to achieve this by change from within, over perhaps a 5 year timeframe. It would start with a manifesto such as this one, so we can roughly agree as regards where we are headed, and then would chip away at the goals bit by bit, choosing the ones that would have the most “bang for buck” first.

You make a fantastic point. Id direct all readers of this blog to check out a book by Jeff JArvis called “What Would Google Do.” Jarvis makes a strong argument for the idea that your most unsatisfied customer is your best friend, precisely because his criticism enables you to refine and improve your products.

Indeed the utilisation of online technologies by businesses have resulted in a very new customer/brand relationship which is still in its developmental phases.

I agree that in this regard for-profit organisations generally lead the way, as the economy is perhaps the fastest moving social institution that we have. Political institutions typically lag the economy but they do eventually catch up.

The other thinker in this regard I’d point both you and the rest of our readers to is Gary Hamel. Hamel is widely regarded as the worlds leading expert on management. He has being arguing quite strongly for a transformation of management structures that decentralises power and flattens hierarchies using online communication technologies. In his vision, a company of employees who are all in active communication with each other and where no issue is off limits for discussion will end up running circles around top-down hierarchical organisations.

He also makes the point however, that these kinds of transitions in governing structures usually come in to effect only after the old guard has moved on completely.

My possibly naive wish, is that the political leadership of the Jewish Community in Melbourne will be convinced of the incredible benefits that systems like those proposed by Jarvis and Hamel can bring to any organisation, and will choose to be a part of their implementation. They would be joining a very prestigious list of corporations, including IBM, Dell and of course Google, who long ago saw the writing on the wall and began to move actively towards the genuine engagement of their stakeholders.

Yoram raises an interesting point about online and offline models and means for representation. I guess many organisations still see the internet as a world unto its own as opposed to one that represents real people and issues. And I don’t mean cute online polls!

Only recently have corporate organisations moved to engaging their customers online. And as I’m sure you’ll agree, for profit organisations are more efficient than and lead the way for non for profit organisations. Rather, they owe it to the investing public!

So let’s just look at the corporate progression online:

Once upon a time: Cool, we can banner advertise.
After this revelation: Wow, we also have an existing customer online.
Revelation after revelation: Wait a second we’ve got millions of customer online
Revelation turned sour: Funny, one of them is complaining about us online
Revelation turned really sour: Oh shit, there are millions of people listening to this guy
Today: Who’s doing something about this – we need to do something about this
Today/Future: This guy is/can actually be our friend, help us get better

Wait did this just happened here on TSJ?

Andrew

In response:

1. The difference between myself & the individuals you mentioned doing army service is that they lived in Israel & were conscripts while I volunteered. The reason this was relevant is simply to allay your fears that all/most contributors to this blog are “Lefties”. I don’t believe too many “Lefties” over the last decade or so would have left their comfort zone in Oz to risk their lives for Israel.

2. Criticisms of Israel by me in the media? This has not occured. In fact feel free to google my posts & you’ll find a fair few opeds & letters supporting/defending Israel (in context). While I may not agree with all Israeli policies, at this stage I find it difficult to criticise it as it would simply be exploited by our enemies (this is a dilemma for me & many others I know!).

3. I hope your curiosity survives!

4. As per SJ’s comments, I’d suggest you find something better to do with your time!

Manny