The Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, as the name implies, is Jewish. Accordingly, the vast majority of its fundraising targets and the charities it supports are Jewish. Likewise, most of its staff and volunteer time, most its events and meetings, most of its brainpower and cultural ambience, are Jewish.
But what is Jewish? In the federation scheme of things, the answer is obvious, but sometimes surprisingly. And appropriately so. This week, for example, Jewish is a federation call to support a federation-founded Boulder Fire Relief Fund, demonstrating human solidarity with the victims of the terrible conflagration that struck that area.
Jewish is both universal and particular. It is true that if Jews do not look after their particular concerns their own people, their own institutions no one else will. It is also true that from time to time it is appropriate for Jews to express human solidarity. Thus, just as there is now a Boulder Fire Relief Fund, the Allied Jewish Federation collected and forwarded money to victims of the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004, of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, of
the earthquake in Haiti last January, and of other massive tragedies in past years.
Not to mention, the Allied Jewish Federation stepped up to the plate in 2006 when war fell upon northern Israel, a result of unceasing rocket attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon. This, of course, might be called federation bread-and-butter, but the fact is that this Israel Emergency Campaign was also above and beyond the daily activities, the formal budget and the professional responsibility of the Allied Jewish Federation.
We would not want the federation to become the mere Jewish arm of United Way or the American Red Cross (neither, we guess, would anyone at the federation). We have too many Jewish needs to abandon them to the vagaries of general good will; we have too many bitter memories of what happens to the Jewish people when they do not stand up for their own. That said, we are proud of the Allied Jewish Federation for reminding us on periodic, appropriate occasions, as the poet said, no man is an island unto itself; and, as the Aleinu prayer puts it, our hope is for the repair of the world under the Kingship of the Alm-ghty.
Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
