Reut Institute

March 1, 2009

I met with Netaly, a manager at the The Reut Institute (http://www.reut-institute.org), for a lively one hour discussion of the unique contributions of this young organization founded in 2004 by Gidi Grinstein. He had served as the Secretary and Coordinator for the Israeli negotiating team during the 2000 negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He realized that policymakers too often do not know how to ask the right questions, that is, they don’t know what they don’t know, so they don’t know what to ask. Building on the work of PRAXIS, Reut examines the premises or assumptions and reframes questions or issues so as to help avoid strategic surprises. It sounds quite similar to Facilitative Leadership by Roger Schwarz. The Institute is a training center where all of the “exams” have real-life consequences, because they are working with government clients. The training portion, with a curriculum on personal leadership, group leadership, technical skills, and Jewish/Zionist history and ethics, lasts 18 months and most analysts stay for 2 or 3 years. The goal is to place people trained in these techniques in positions to assist government ministers and eventually to have these techniques as common practice in ministries. The staff is young and energetic, unlike the typical think tank where experts think great thoughts, write books, and often answer questions that policy makers don’t have. The website said that the shortest turnaround on a project was 60 hours!

What motivated my visit to Reut was the series of blog posts last March by Gidi Grinstein, entitled Diaspora and Jewish Philanthropy in Israel: Overhaul or Be Marginalized. He first came to my attention with a short column in the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) late in 2007. When I began to explore seriously the idea of coming to Israel, I recalled the column and then learned that he had subsequently written a series of blog posts. I recommend this document to anyone with interests in Jewish philanthropy in general and Diaspora philanthropy in Israel in particular. In fact, I don’t just recommend it. It should be required reading. The theme of these provocative and well-written posts is that financial contributions from abroad, approximately $1 billion annually (prior to the economic and Madoff meltdowns), have become a small and shrinking resource for a country that has a GDP of greater than $160 billion. There are two primary conclusions. First and foremost, Diaspora donors, whether communities or individuals, need to be more strategic in their contributions. They need to look at the needs, set priorities, and measure the impacts. $1 billion spent strategically can have far greater effects than many current approaches. Related to this is the important question of what should the government be doing, what can it do, and how do those responsibilities interact with donors and organizations? For example, I am still curious why the government needed the U.S. Jewish community to provide $10 million to provide basic trauma relief services during the Gaza operation. Such services would seem to be a fundamental governmental obligation. Second, the now substantial resources of Israel herself need to be part of the equation of community-building. Israel has a vibrant economy that has created much wealth. Granted, the security needs are disproportionate, but it is important to collaborate in ways far different than the past when Israel was struggling to build a new nation.