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Lauder envisions the JNF of the future Many people consider Ronald Lauder to be the Jewish National Fund's (JNF) "white knight." When asked how he feels about that honorary title, Lauder responds wryly, "As opposed to the prince of darkness?" Such a sense of humor can be helpful in the best and worst of times. JNF appears to be somewhere in between. Recently, Lauder, who is four months into his term as president of the non-profit organization known for planting trees and other land-development projects in Israel, discussed his vision for a "new JNF" during an exclusive interview with the Washington Jewish Week. "JNF will be as professional and as open as anybody else, because that's the only way we're going to get people's confidence back in us," said the international businessman and philanthropist. Many JNF supporters lost confidence in the organization after it was revealed last fall that, due to financial mismanagement, only a fraction of the money raised for projects in Israel was actually getting there _ less than 21 percent of total expenditures according to an independent audit. What followed was a management shakeup and ongoing reorganization efforts, as was previously reported in the June 12 issue of WJW. According to Lauder, contributions to JNF are "less than in the past, because we have not got the message out about a new JNF. Right now they've ceased going down and they're starting to build up." Lauder said he expects them to rise rapidly by the end of the summer. "It takes a long time. You can destroy confidence in a very short time. It takes a much longer time to rebuild confidence," he said. "I think what happened to JNF and the criticisms that were lodged against it were age-old problems that all the Jewish organizations have, which is a question of how much money is put into administration and how much money is actually put into programs. I think if you look into any organization, you'd have a similar problem," said Lauder. "The first piece of my puzzle," he explained, "is changing the whole
overhead, particularly as it relates to New York [JNF's national headquar"
"We've been able to make dramatic changes in overhead in a short period of time," he said, but declined to provide details. "It's too soon to give specifics," Lauder said, but he added that "restructuring decisions will be complete by the end of the month." Some JNF officials say a 25-percent, across-the-board cut has been ordered, but Lauder would not confirm that. "What I want to do is get the whole thing together, because I think it's more meaningful," Lauder said. He explained that he did not want different numbers and different stories circulating. "I want to get one figure that everybody has," he added. That gets to the heart of the controversy surounding JNF expenditures. "What happened is as such, the way I understand it .... There were different figures out and nobody either rejected or accepted [them] .... The question was, it depended how you counted. You can make numbers do anything you want to." JNF's financial mismanagement led to an "atmosphere of suspicion," according to a report produced by an internal JNF committee. Mitchell Rosenzweig, formerly of New York's 92nd Street Y, is now keeping the books at JNF. He replaced Controller Jack Grunspan. According to Lauder, Rosenzweig is "as good a financial person as I've ever seen." JNF hired the accounting firm Ernst and Young to do its annual audits. But Lauder said no other outside help has been called in. "It's very straightforward. This isn't the Pentagon, where I spent three-and-a-half years. This is an organization of a certain size that has two or three or four functions to do and the basic one is fund raising," he said. Lauder said he isn't spending his time fund raising these days but is concentrating on getting to know regional board members. He has traveled to nine regional offices and says that is critical to "understanding the different regions and what they can do and where the tensions are." Lauder said he is pleased that JNF regional board members share his vision of a new JNF with a broader mission than it previously had. He said the concern he had before meeting with them was that they would say, "Oh no, we only want to plant trees, and that's it." Instead, Lauder said, "people really clicked on to what I what I was about." Lauder said he would like to focus on the whole ecology of the Middle East. Among the topics he speaks passionately about is the issue of water in the region. "In its charter, JNF deals with the land and all aspects of the land, and there's no question water is part of that," Lauder said. According to him, JNF can play a key role in helping Israel increase its water supply by helping to establish desalinization plants, something skeptics say is too costly. "I've been meeting with people on desalinization," counters Lauder. "It's much less costly than people believe because of the fact that there is new technology." He said Israel and its Arab neighbors have to try to work together to find a solution to the region's water shortage, and he said JNF "can be a catalyst to get this all done." Lauder said the knowledge acquired and the technology developed in Israel also could be helpful to countries in Eastern Europe, which, he says, have some similar ecological problems. An interview with Lauder would not be complete without touching on Eastern Europe. He is a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and, through a foundation that bears his name, has helped revive Jewish life in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic. The foundation has rebuilt synagogues and established Jewish schools and recreational centers throughout the area. When talking about this work, Lauder expresses pride. "What we've been able to do throughout Eastern Europe is have Jews feel comfortable with being Jewish, with being able to go to synagogue and not feel strange going there," he said. "When I first came to synagogues in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, I would see mainly old men, and there was no talking between them," said Lauder. "Now when I go to synagogues, as we see in our temples, you see young people there talking and walking around with kids. It's an entirely different thing .... It's the way it should be." In concluding this interview Lauder said the way he sees it, this generation
seems to be building "both a powerful Diaspora and a powerful Israel together."
And he added, "JNF, I think, plays a critical role in this."
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