Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

General Assembly = Super Bowl

Jerry Silverman, the new CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America (formerly known as United Jewish Communities), got involved in the Jewish world after a long career in the business world.

That background showed at the opening press conference for this year’s General Assembly, where he suggested some ideas that seem as if they could have been taken directly from a corporate management handbook.

For starters, there was his stated goal of turning the G.A. into the “Super Bowl of the Jewish world.”

That means, according to Silverman, making the G.A. bigger, adding more content and extending it beyond the three-day time frame. Silverman said he would like to see the G.A. become the main annual gathering of the Jewish community and as such last at least four or five days.

Silverman also promised to be much more attentive to the needs of those participating at the G.A. Staff members are in charge of talking to participants — whom he calls “mystery shoppers” — getting a feel for their needs and wishes, and reporting back to headquarters. This informal feedback is to be used to inform planning for future assemblies.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.