Customer Reviews

A Broken Charity: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Educational Center

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From the plot, this book would not appear to be all that interesting. The author describes a Jewish charity that is poorly run and eventually closed by the IRS due to major accounting irregularities. There is a great deal of betrayal and deceit, as the perpetrators of the fraud desperately try to maintain their innocence. However, the author is such a good storyteller, I found myself caring about whether the charity survived. Good authors can take a plot that appears weak and make it interesting. George clearly fits into that mold, this is a book that really should not have interested me, but it did.

Just like a dysfunctional family, a charity can look good on the outside--and do great things for the community--but collapse from the weight of internal strife and mismanagement. Such was the case with the Jewish Educational Center (JEC), a once prominent San Francisco-based nonprofit that served the city's Jewish-Russian immigrant population. Its rise and fall are carefully documented in A Broken Charity by someone who witnessed firsthand what went on. Jack E. George was the administrator of Schneerson Hebrew Day School, which operated under the JEC umbrella, when a surprise raid by the IRS signaled the beginning of the end for the public-benefit nonprofit.

Working for an organization accused of serious financial discrepancies, Jack found himself on an unexpected roller-coaster ride. Unable to pay his employees, and with no answers for their questions about the IRS investigation, Jack was torn. His heart urged him to do everything in his power to keep Schneerson open for the sake of the students and families it served and the staff it employed. But his gut told him to find a job elsewhere.

At first his heart won. At the same time that he strove to save the school, he began to see why the JEC was in such trouble. Fraud and false advertising charges were brought against the charity, which had made numerous unsubstantiated claims. One such claim was that 100% of the money the JEC raised auctioning donated vehicles went to fund local programs, including schools and camps for children and job placement assistance for adults. Investigations uncovered that, in fact, less than 20% went to community programs. The rest paid for operating expenses including advertising and salaries.

Many other issues surfaced, from sloppy bookkeeping practices to spur-of-the-moment board decisions that made little sense. Jack was appalled by what looked like cover-ups and deliberate manipulations, including tampering with records. Dozens of bank accounts existed, yet nobody seemed to fully keep track of them. Numerous cash transactions went unrecorded. The genuine efforts made by Jack and others to keep the school open couldn't compete against this level of business practice incompetence.

When the school year ended and 100 students graduated, Jack became the administrator of a summer camp program run by the JEC. He immediately found himself caught between giving the young campers a meaningful camp experience and dealing with the nonprofit's mounting legal and financial troubles. Because of a lack of funds, activities had to be scaled back. For example, advertised field trips to water parks had to be cancelled, and disappointed campers had to settle for school-based art projects instead. Parents began to voice their concern and anger. In addition, Jack had to deal with countless bill collectors and an intrusive media.

Through it all, Jack watched carefully and learned valuable lessons along the way. The JEC did many things right, but its mistakes ultimately led to the organization's downfall. Even after he resigned, Jack kept close track of the JEC and its off-shoot organizations.

Through A Broken Charity, the author reveals in great detail what brought down a large, well-respected charity. He supplies powerful examples and delves well into the confusion he and other staff members experienced as they tried to piece together exactly what was going on. The book flows well, maintaining a good pace and supplying strong anecdotes.

Jack E. George's exposé is a warning to other well-meaning charities to play by the rules and mind the bookkeeping. His main message is that serving the community is not enough--a charity has to be run legally and ethically. If it isn't, it will ultimately fail, hurting and disappointing many people along the way. A Broken Charity is a must-read for anyone in the nonprofit sector.

In recent years we've started to see the revival of a debate concerning charitable giving. One side advocates staying the present course in which government uses tax dollars to fund a plethora of welfare services for the needy. The other side wants to return to the old days--meaning pre-New Deal days--in which religious organizations solicited monies from wealthy patrons in order to provide a wide range of services aimed at lifting people out of poverty. Government gives so much away in so-called entitlements that we often forget that religious charities still exist today, albeit in a much smaller capacity than the ones operating back in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I personally would rather see private organizations taking over the poverty racket because government has a vested interest in keeping poor people poor. That's a controversial statement, no doubt, but one whose veracity finds endless confirmation in the statistics kept by bean counters in both the private and public sector. Once you've dipped into the federal feed trough, it's quite difficult to extract yourself. There's simply no motivation to improve your condition once the government checks start showing up in the mail. That's not to say that private charities are perfect, however.

Jack E. George's "A Broken Charity: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Educational Center" provides an insider's account of how a private charity can fall prey to the very factors that mark big government poverty programs. Arrogance, corruption, no oversight, and obfuscation--the same problems that plague federal services can torpedo a private charity. George was an administrator of several of the Jewish Educational Center's (JEC) programs in California back in the 1990s when trouble struck in the form of an IRS inquiry. The book begins with this troubling investigation, and for the next hundred or so pages George presents background on the organization and the problems that arose after the IRS started their query. Started by Rabbi Bentzion Pil and his wife Mattie, the JEC sought to help recently immigrated Russian Jews find a place in the hectic American society. They ran a school for children, a summer camp type program, a synagogue with regular services, and a host of other minor initiatives aimed at integrating the foreigners. The Rabbi funded these programs by running a profitable business in which donated cars were resold to needy families. This money ostensibly funded the various programs. Or so Rabbi Pil and his wife claimed.

Everything fell to pieces after a warehouse fire destroyed one of the car lots associated with the charity. California authorities jumped into the fray, filing charges claiming the JEC misappropriated funds from the car sales. They charged that Rabbi Pil and his wife spent thousands of dollars earmarked for the charity on their own son's bar mitzvah. Moreover, the house owned by the Rabbi came into his possession in a most suspicious manner. These problems exacerbated the difficulties faced by George, the other employees of the JEC, and the various programs. Key personnel suddenly quit or resigned, replaced by colorful people with questionable backgrounds. An old civil rights warhorse by the name of Carol Ruth Silver was brought in to manage the JEC's public reputation. An accountant, Mamie Tang, arrived on the scene to handle the money, money that George discovered was increasingly scarce or would suddenly pop up out of nowhere. The author began to ask serious questions about the true motives of the people running the JEC. Oddly, he stayed with the organization long after Pil and his minions declared bankruptcy and founded a different charity that would soon engage in the same problematic behaviors that sank the original JEC. "A Broken Charity" is a disturbing account of financial skullduggery taken to the nth degree.

What you see is what you get with "A Broken Charity." George walks the reader through every upsetting aspect of a charity run by criminals without ever coming out and labeling them as con artists, unfortunately. That's one of the problems I had with the book. On nearly every page of the narrative, Jack George expresses in no uncertain terms his concerns with the unfolding shenanigans committed by the Pils, Carol Ruth Silver, and Mamie Tang (who faced charges for an unrelated pyramid scheme involving millions of dollars). Yet the author stayed with the JEC long after most people of average intelligence would have ran for the door. Even his own bout with financial hardship, caused in no small part by the failure of the Pils to give this guy his paycheck, didn't send him into the streets looking for a job. Why? I started thinking of words like "dunderhead" and "dupe" to describe George before realizing something important. Most honest people, especially someone involved in a charity, would probably rationalize these sorts of problems instead of running out on the organization. He still should have left shortly after the IRS began investigating, in my opinion, but I think I understand why he stayed on. He just didn't want to believe anything was wrong.

Another point I'd like to make about this book deals with the shady way the Pils tried to cover up their wrongdoing. Instead of closing the doors immediately and limiting the damage, these schmucks hired Carol Silver to employ the most scurrilous attempts at damage control I've seen outside of Washington, D.C. She routinely used the kids in the programs to try and shame the judicial system into dropping the charges, and claimed that "religious persecution" was behind the government's actions to close down the JEC. Neither of these assertions possessed any validity, but that didn't stop the Pils from shamelessly using them to escape prosecution. I've always been suspicious of anyone who tries to get what they want by wailing about "the children." Now I know why. Highly instructive, this book called "A Broken Charity," and highly upsetting. Donate at your own risk.

The downfall of the Jewish Educational Center may have made national headlines, but I was completely unfamiliar with this particular charity and its many, self-defeating problems. Reading about the related events from the perspective of the author, I'm left shaking my head at the level of gross incompetence and outright fraud perpetuated by the leaders of this once-respectable charity. Jack E. George served as the administrator of Schneerson Hebrew Day School, which operated under the auspices of the Jewish Educational Center and depended upon charity in order to hold classes that included the children of many poor Russian immigrants in the San Francisco area. George explains the debacle of the charity's downfall and the dissolution of the school from his viewpoint, one which lacked true knowledge of what was going on much of the time. With all of the court cases against Rabbi Bentzion Pil settled, he was apparently free to tell the story as he knew and lived it.

Until the morning George discovered that payroll checks were not forthcoming because the IRS had raided the offices of the JEC, the charity seemed to be quite successful. It had, among other things, pioneered the project of receiving donated cars and other materials, selling them for a profit, and using that money to fund the charity. Such charity auctions were bringing in millions of dollars a year. Not only was the IRS investigating the JEC, though, the state attorney general's office and other agencies were as well. Initially, George sees no reason to doubt the assurances provided employees by Rabbi Pil and his wife, but it doesn't take him long to discover that the JEC is in a real mess of its own creation. The books were so incomplete as to make an accountant shed tears, a lot of cash money coming in was not even recorded, and - as the feds had already discovered - financial records showed much more money coming in than going out. George's interest is in saving the school, but he becomes increasingly privy to what is going on with the JEC and the ongoing investigations into its business practices. He sticks with the school through thick and skin, trying to save it in any form - eventually, it does open elsewhere under a new name, and George is troubled to see the litany of past recordkeeping mistakes continue unabated. George describes the struggle to keep the school doors open while dealing with the constantly troubling and sometimes contradictory instructions of those controlling the JEC and its successor organization.

There is a certain amount of ambiguity to the whole story. It's never made abundantly clear whether the whole case is one of shoddy record-keeping or outright criminal behavior. It would seem to be a great deal of both. Rabbi Pil himself eventually paid a legal price for wrongdoing, yet it's not clear just how extensive his questionable business practices were. As for George, I hardly pulled for or against him, largely because the book is, by editorial design, predominantly objective in nature. With the author having excised many of his personal feelings about the matters he discusses, it's hard to inject yourself into his struggles. Of course, had he made the book personal, his motives and designs would have been called into question.

A Broken Charity stands as a valuable object lesson for those involved in charitable organizations, stressing the necessary ethical foundation and sound business model required for those at the top and encouraging individuals to try and learn as much as possible about the organizations seeking their contributions. The story of the Jewish Educational Center is truly a tragic tale, and it serves as a vivid reminder that there are always some truly committed, humanitarian individuals made to suffer the most in even the most scandalous of financial meltdowns.

How many times, driving to work, do we hear the myriad commercials for 'Here's how to get rid of your unwanted car and write it off as a tax deduction' and wonder just how that gimmick works? Jack E. George has been there, suffered that, and has the bravery and good sense to tell us at least one example (in fact, the prototype of the entire cars for causes network) of a charity and its ups and downs.

Based on fact - the scandal surrounding the Jewish Educational Center in San Francisco - George details all aspects of this unfortunate case and makes it interesting, at times humorous, and always honest in his methods of research and explication. The facts include misspent funds obtained by charitable means, but they also include the personalities of all the people involved - from the top Rabbi and IRS down to the parents and teachers and children.

At first this book may seem as though it is an isolated bit of reportage about one 'company' out of the many names of corporations undergoing investigation. But once the reader begins to enter the world of Jack George, this exacting extended essay becomes a novel of sorts. In short, George has written an expose that is as interesting as most fatter crime novels out there. A BROKEN CHARITY is a fast read,with staying power. Grady Harp, July 05

I started this book not quite knowing what to expect. Would the author, Jack E. George, play a martyr and damn the evil charity organizers or would he demonize the IRS and other government entities involved? Happily, he did neither! His story sticks to the facts. He wrote exactly what he saw and experienced.

Mr. George worked as an administrator of a school funded by a charity that the IRS forced to close because of questionable practices (you'll have to read the book to find out exactly what). He explains the teachers' angst, the parents' frustrations and his own stressful situations. He tries to explain what the people above him might have been thinking but it is obvious, through their surprising actions, they didn't give Mr. George any real information. Through out the book, he gives everyone the benefit of doubt but still points out questions that he never received a reasonable answer to. The reader is not lead by the nose to believe a certain way about anyone's motivations but is allowed to draw his or her own conclusions about what really happened behind the Jewish Educational Center and the charity that funded it.

I found 'A Broken Charity' extremely enlightening and if I ever become intimately involved with a charity, I have learned many things NOT to do! (Like giving the only copy of cash receipts to the parents!)

This is a must read for those involved in charities, those in the community or anyone who remembers the media coverage of the damning investigation. In fact, you can still find newspaper articles on the web on this subject if you need to refresh your memory. Others who simply enjoy a well written narrative will also enjoy this book. I found A Broken Charity well worth the $20 dollars.

Review of A Broken Charity by Jack E. George

This account of Russian Rabbi Pil and his charity JEC clearly detail the events that lead up to the Attorney Generals prosecution and finally the bankruptcy of the Jewish Educational Center. This is an insiders description of events that swallowed an entire San Francisco community of Russian immigrants along with their school. The lessons Jack E. George teaches you from page to page is nothing new for him. First a teacher then a principal for Jewish Educational Center Jack spills his inter thoughts as he sits at the center of this tragic event. A Broken Charity is a real life story of how Coming to America and living the dream can turn into a nightmare for some. I found this story both gripping and compelling as I turned the pages never putting the book down for a rest. I recommend this book to everyone and give Jack E. George a 5 star rating for clear and concise writing skills.
Ronald Nussbeck PublishAmerica author

Many people who aspire to do good are inspired by a worthwhile purpose and establish a charity. At that point, they are able to gather tax-free funds from donors. Depending on how good they are at that task, their enterprise grows or it doesn't. Other than some reporting requirements, there's little supervision. Even if you lie, cheat and steal, it's likely that no one will catch you for some time.

Into that well-meaning opportunity, some are drawn who shouldn't be running anything larger than a bath tub full of water. That appears to have been the case with the leaders of San Francisco's Jewish Educational Center.

Staffer Jack E. George describes how the JEC came unraveled in its final months amid serious allegations and investigations. His viewpoint as an insider provides a whodunit style since he didn't know what was going on either. We share his eye-opening experiences and admire his willingness to sacrifice to try to keep things going for the children.

Although the book is a brief one, it could have been briefer for me. The story too often seems more written to make the author seem innocent rather than to uncover the truth. Ultimately, the lessons are murky. How much wrongdoing occurred? How much of the wrongdoing was simple incompetence and lack of caring? What should potential donors do to be sure they don't misallocate their gifts? What should the regulators be doing? What should board members be doing?

I had some familiarity with this organzation having donated to the JEC. I read many news stories about the charity but nothing painted such a clear picture as this book. It has made me think. It has made me wonder. It has really opened my eyes. This book deserves 5 Stars +.

Joan Bentley, L.A., CA