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The Shekel Before the Storm GA Magazine / Battling over the blue box By Anshel Pfeffer Tags: GA, Jewish World, JNF  Full coverage of the 2008 GA conference Although 2008 has not quite come to a close, it seems clear that this year's fundraising figures for the Jewish National Fund in the United States will make grim reading. The downturn was already evident last year, when fundraising stalled at about $44 million - down from between $50 million and $60 million just two years before. The malaise that has been eating away at JNF-USA donations is not just an outgrowth of the global financial illness - it is a gradually worsening side effect of a bitter legal feud between the Jewish National Fund's historic base in Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and its two oldest and largest affiliates, the JNF branches in the United States and Britain, over who has the rights to the JNF trademark. Advertisement As of late last month, the bickering between the Israeli and American branches of the organization was still going on, and has even recently extended to the new leader of the JNF in Britain. The prize they all covet is ownership of the Jewish National Fund brand name, said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But recently, some participants in the saga have been asking themselves whether the end result might be an irreversible erosion to the JNF's credibility. When the victor or victors finally emerge, the sweetness of their success may be dampened by the realization that the trophy they so vigorously sought has seriously diminished in value. While the dispute between the Israeli and Diaspora branches might not be making headlines, enough reports of the squabbling have trickled down to convince a growing number of donors that their hard-earned dollars might be better donated to organizations less driven by discord and strife. The estrangement between the Israeli KKL and its JNF branches in the United States and Britain has been growing for many years, as the Israeli base has been forced to accept that although the Diaspora branches raise money using the organization's name and symbols, the Jerusalem office actually has little control over the funds collected overseas, ostensibly for its activities in Israel. Much of the money remains in the countries where it is donated, to cover exorbitant overhead and local projects - and even the money arriving in Israel has increasingly been going to pet projects adopted by leaders of the branches abroad that have nothing to do with the Israeli movement's agenda. Wannabe green movement The rift came to a head in 2003, when JNF-USA applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the names JNF and KKL as its exclusive trademarks. Even the JNF's legendary blue box - those once-ubiquitous little metal pushkes that over the years collected the nickels, dimes and pennies of Diaspora Jews expressing their connection to Israel - were to become an exclusive trademark. These symbols are so potent, and so potentially valuable, that they have become the subject of legal wrangling costing both sides millions of dollars since the Israeli office of Keren Kayemeth discovered the patent registration. Indeed, it's not just the name or the symbol that's at stake. The venerable foundation, established by Theodor Herzl and the Zionist Congress in 1901 to harness the Jewish world's largess to the building of a Jewish economy in the Promised Land, has become a multi-million dollar international concern providing its leaders with influence in the Jewish world. In Israel, the organization has evolved into land-management and forestry agency, and in recent years also a wannabe environmental movement. On the American side, control of the trademark has been estimated at some half a billion dollars - and that much money commands a lot of power and prestige. Not surprisingly, the men at the top of JNF-USA have been some of the most powerful figures in American Jewry. Until last year, the president was cosmetics billionaire and political mover and shaker Ron Lauder, now the president of the World Jewish Congress; he still wields considerable influence in JNF-USA from his position as president emeritus. The new president is Stanley Chesley from Cincinnati, one of the most successful lawyers in the United States. When he was appointed last year, Chesley, known as the "king of torts," seemed poised to become a significant player on the American political scene. He was a major fundraiser for the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who at the time seemed quite likely to become the next American president. Lauder and Chesley were bullish about JNF-USA's independent agenda, insisting on supporting the establishment of new towns and villages in the Negev despite Israeli planning and environmental policy that calls for strengthening existing towns instead of building new ones. These hard-nosed businessmen implicitly understood the value of the JNF trademarks and remain determined to retain U.S. control over them. "Men like Lauder and Chesley see things in financial terms," says a senior executive of KKL in Israel. "A brand name like JNF that can raise $50-60 million a year is worth perhaps half a billion dollars. They don't want that brand-name to belong to anyone else." Meanwhile, similar trouble was brewing in Britain, with the equally venerable, if smaller, JNF-UK battling for control of the trademarks on its stomping ground. The British branch had another claim as well: Huge swathes of land purchased in the early 20th century for the Zionist movement in Mandatory Palestine had been bought in its name, and control was transferred to KKL after 1948. Fifty-five years later, JNF-UK has begun questioning that arrangement. What's at stake The debate between the Israeli and Diaspora branches could, Keren Kayemeth leaders fear, intensify a trend toward questioning the justification for the historic organization's continued existence. Israel's Supreme Court has upheld the right of Israeli Arab citizens to purchase homes on KKL-administered land in Israel, leaving the organization's leaders in Israel concerned that by losing control of the trademarks to its American and British branches, Keren Kayemeth would also lose something far more important: the basis for its claim to be a movement safeguarding the interests of the entire Jewish people. The JNF dispute is perhaps the most prominent example of the divide between Israel-based organizations and Diaspora branches that have turned into a billion-dollar fundraising industry. The Jewish charity ORT is also embroiled in a similar dispute. London-based World ORT, which runs a worldwide network of Jewish vocational schools, has split from its former parent organization, ORT Israel, the largest operator of secondary schools in Israel. The two organizations have gone to court to fight over the right to use the ORT name in Israel. What's at stake is who can take credit for ORT's activity in Israel, and use that credit for fundraising. In addition, Israeli left-wing group Peace Now is involved in a serious struggle with its American fundraising wing, Friends of Peace Now. The largest Jewish organization in the world, the Jewish Agency, has also been facing tension between its Israeli base and several members of the board of governors who for the last year have been demanding a decoupling of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, whose members represent Israeli political parties. Otherwise, they say, major donors will stop contributing to the United Jewish Communities' Israel appeal, which is channeled to the Jewish Agency. The Israeli faction argues that this political representation is essential to retaining a connection between Israeli society and the Jewish Agency. Part of the struggle may be related to the disinclination of a growing number of donors to pour their dollars into general-purpose funds. More and more prospective philanthropists want to retain control of where their money goes, sometimes even down to details like the color of the roof tiles. The bigger donation and the more influential the Jewish leader, the greater the likelihood that the donor will want to influence what happens to the money. This desire for influence extends to lobbying (a gentler word for exerting pressure on) Israeli politicians on political issues such as the negotiations with the Palestinians over the future of Jerusalem and whether to continue allowing Ethiopians of Jewish descent to move to Israel. But the JNF fracas is about much more than the personal vanity of millionaires. "This isn't just a fundraising business," says an Israeli politician who is active in the KKL leadership. "The JNF was the most important platform for building the Jewish state, and it still has a role to play. But for that to happen, its heart has to remain in Jerusalem." Not that the venerable institution is a stranger to personal vanity. Menahem Ussishkin, the "iron man" of the KKL, who headed the movement from 1923 to his death in 1941 and oversaw the foundation of dozens of new settlements, famously used KKL laborers to remove the signs on the street on which he lived in Jerusalem. On his 70th birthday, he had the sign changed from Yehuda Halevi Street to Ussishkin Street. That way, he could walk daily up the street named after him, turning on to Keren Kayemeth Street (also changed at his request), to reach the KKL offices. Jerusalemites have lived with the results ever since. The effects of the 21st-century JNF affair could end up being much wider than the alteration of a few street signs. In Britain, allegations of financial mismanagement, and even corruption, have brought about a change in the JNF leadership. The new chairman, Samuel Hayek, an Israeli businessman living in London for the past two decades, has managed to seal a compromise with Keren Kayemeth by which JNF-UK recognizes the Israeli ownership of the trademarks but receives an irrevocable license to use them in Britain. Control over the money raised will effectively remain in London. Efforts to bring about a similar compromise in the United States, however, have been stymied by obstinacy on both sides. The American dispute has broader implications than the British one, and a resolution is still not in sight. Both sides fear that an outcome could ruin the image of the Jewish National Fund, Keren Keyemeth LeIsrael, or both, forever. Full coverage of the 2008 GA conference Bookmark to del.icio.us   The King is dead Archeologists find new evidence for King Herod's tomb site. Al-Hasbara Israel launches Arabic YouTube channel to bypass Arab media.

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