Definitions of Integration Can Be Misleading

The discussion in this paper departs from a fundamental premise: that in the foreseeable future local central agencies for Jewish education will not be receiving from their parent Federations the degree of increase in allocations which will enable them to significantly expand — let alone sustain at the current levels — the array of services which they deliver. This situation can be traced to a number of factors. To begin with, in many communities the ability of the Federation to raise funds through its annual campaign has leveled off. As a result, the total amount of money available for distribution to all Federation constituencies, including local bureaus of education, is no longer increasing in step-function fashion. Secondly, other Federation beneficiaries are staking claim with ever greater determination to their perceived share of the community dollar. Over the years most central agencies for Jewish education have become inured to this sort of competition for Federation funds from such sister agencies as the Jewish community center, the local Jewish home, and the like. But in recent years, allocations to local Jewish Day Schools have climbed to record levels, often making these institutions prime “competitors” with bureaus of Jewish education for community funds, more particularly with that portion of the total pie which has been allotted to education. This places bureaus in a difficult dilemma: On the one hand, they must support — indeed, encourage — increased funding for Jewish day school education. At the same time, bureaus are confronted with the uncomfortable fact that each community dollar allocated to day school education is a dollar which, potentially, might have been assigned to the central agency.