My first board meeting at AJC - Sept/10/2012

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) had a special guest political speaker to give an update on the situation in the Middle East at the September 10th, 2012 board meeting that I first attended as a Federation Fellow.

This format in itself was a great surprise for me, correcting the image in my head that the governance board of a national advocacy group should deal with operational and relevant tactical issues. Nancy Price, the President of the AJC board, explained to me after the meeting that most board meetings are for strategic discussions and overall policy discussions following a national meeting, while the detailed, sleeves-rolling, project-focused work happens in the various sub-committees with much fewer attendees. It makes sense, since the hour and thirty minutes evening meeting proved to be only sufficient time for a few follow-up questions after the presentation.

Dr. Kori Schake

The 20-30 attending board members - all varied in age, but having a trending average of somewhere over 40 years, with similarly matured professions such as CEOs, lawyers, emeritus rabbis and professors - were gathered to be educated on issues about Syria, Iran and Egypt. The presenter, Dr. Schake, is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an associate professor of international security studies at the United States Military Academy. She gave an early disclaimer that she is not a Middle East specialist, but a US defense expert, who worked for the Bush administration and McCain-Palin campaign as a security adviser.

Although my political and foreign policy compass may not align perfectly with the presenter's, I have learned appreciated her analysis about the strategic consequences of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government having been charged with war crimes by the UN Human Rights report, and why overturning his regime plays well for US military interests in the region. Similarly, I gained better insight of the similarities of nuclear games between Iran and Iraq, and why the Islam Brotherhood's influence in Egypt might not be as negative for the US and Israel as one might have thought. One of the key messages of Dr. Schake was that there isn't a separate "Arab world" to talk about, only a global and highly diverse world that deserves attention from all sides of the political spectrum.

The meta experience of the evening makes me think of the opportunities for the organizations where I serve (and have served) as a member of the board. Particularly for my shul's board, we need to start thinking about letting the day-to-day decisions to be delegated to more efficient committees, while the board as a whole needs to become more humble and better listener of expert opinions.