By Donald H. Harrison

Jon Levine, the New York-based American Jewish Committee official who oversees the organization's 32 chapters around the country, says Sunbelt Jewish communities are so different from those on the East Coast and the Midwest, that the AJC wants to rethink how it should structure itself in places like San Diego, Orange County, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Whereas in older communities there are established Jewish neighborhoods and higher rates of affiliation, he said, the typical pattern in Sunbelt communities are for Jews to be dispersed over wide areas and for affiliation rates to be low.

He said when Sam Sokolove resigned as AJC's regional director in San Diego last year to take a better-paying position with the United Jewish Federation of Albuquerque, it was the stimulus for considering whether an attempt should be made to develop a new model for a Sunbelt city chapter.  

Levine said he will be spending time in San Diego attempting to figure out with local leaders just what such a new model should look like.  In the meantime, he said, it was financially prudent to close the office and to cut back on AJC's small staff here, leaving interim director Paula Jacobs to run  the agency from her home on a part-time basis.

He noted that in the age of  email, the internet, faxes, and phones, a person can serve as a regional coordinator from a desk located almost anywhere. AJC will remain active in San Diego County during the evaluation period, Levine said, but the organization will depend far more than it has before upon the volunteer efforts of its local Board of Directors.

San Diego President Tad Seth Parzen and fellow board members met at AJC's  soon-to-be-closed office on Murphy Canyon Road on Wednesday evening, January 18, to discuss priorities. According to several accounts from people who attended, there was consensus that continuation of the Jewish-Latino Dialogue was a high priority.  Professor Bernardo Ferdman of Alliant International University will head up the AJC side of the dialogue.

Another priority will be to continue sending San Diego leaders to Israel on tours with leaders from other cities.  For example, explained Deborah Horwitz, who serves on AJC's regional and national boards, there will be programs like the one on which County Supervisor Ron Roberts some years ago traveled with local government officials from other areas of the United States to learn about Israel.  She recalled that as a result of what he saw on that trip, Roberts developed some proposals for educating foster teens at the residential San Pasqual Academy.

Levine said San Diego also will remain involved in a program sponsored by national AJC that brings emerging leaders from Central and Eastern Europe to the United States to meet with government officials and members of  local Jewish communities. Levine noted that in some cases, these emerging leaders go on to serve in the European Union and the United Nations, where their understanding of Jewish issues could be critical.

No formal votes were taken at last Wednesday night's meeting, according to former state Assemblyman Howard Wayne, one of the attendees.  Still to be determined is how active the local AJC chapter may become in San Diego's longstanding legal battle over the presence of a large free-standing Christian cross on public land atop Mount Soledad.  

Interviews with various AJC board members revealed a difference of opinion on this issue with some expressing the belief that the chapter should be high profile on the controversial issue and others saying that given consistent court rulings upholding the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state, the chapter could better put its efforts toward other issues