Shelley Hubal, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Great Binghamton, attended a meeting of upstate New York Federation executives on August 16 in Syracuse. The meeting was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Central New York. The purpose of the meeting was to share knowledge and brainstorm on ways to help each Federation attain its goals.

Among the topics under discussion were “What was your biggest success this year, and how did you accomplish it?”; “Engagement: How do we reach and engage people (particularly young people) Jewishly in an age of declining religiosity? What do they want? What do we want from them?”; “Campaign: What technologies work? How do we deal with the recalcitrant donor? How do we deal with donors who have substantially more capacity to give?”; “Balancing divergent interest groups – How do we deal with the fringes and the loud voices?”; “Israel – What’s the story? How do we tell it? When do we march? When do we speak out?”; “Being a part of the collective – How does our system work and how do we work within it?”; and “Security – How do we ensure that we indeed are ‘living secure’ in the future?”

There was also a presentation by Al Kinel and Michael David from the New York Israel Chamber of Commerce. They shared their vision for promoting and improving business relations between upstate New York and Israel. 

Hubal said, “It was a pleasure to listen to and learn from other Federation executives. I left feeling inspired and supported. Ultimately, the meeting affirmed to me that we have a vibrant and caring community here in Binghamton, albeit on a much smaller scale than Buffalo or Rochester.”

For more on Hubal’s thoughts on the meeting, see the article in the Federation Executive Director’s column here.