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News that the American Jewish Congress was suspending most of its operations and considering its next moves with a bare-bones staff didn’t surprise San Francisco lawyer Fred Blum.

But it did sadden the one-time president of the AJCongress’ Northern Pacific regional office in San Francisco, which closed in 2001.

“This wasn’t a debating society,” said Blum, who held the position for four years, beginning in the early 1990s. “At the time I was there, it was a bunch of younger men and women looking to be politically active as Jews. There was nobody else around close to doing that.”

While organization insiders said the AJCongress’ decline was hastened by cash-flow problems (including a $21 million loss in the Bernie Madoff scandal) and shifting priorities of the American Jewish community, Blum attributed its problems in part to “forgetting its roots,” adding that the AJCongress “lost its way years ago.”

“When I first got involved, it was all youthful enthusiasm,” said Blum, who served on the New York–based national board and was a member of the AJCongress in Los Angeles prior to coming to the Bay Area. “We didn’t have enough experience to know what couldn’t be done.”

That outlook led to major accomplishments within the Northern Pacific regional office, as its members mobilized to confront controversial issues including affirmative action, church-state separation, violence, homelessness, bigotry and Israeli politics.

Blum said it was hard to recall a major issue that the AJCongress wasn’t involved in.

“The debates were sometimes manic, sometimes loud, but that’s the way it should be. The people who wrote the largest checks didn’t always win,” he said. “But that’s what the congress became. And once it did that, there was no reason for its existence.”

Rabbi Allen Bennett, spiritual leader of Temple Israel in Alameda, also served on the regional board.

In 1982, Bennett became associate director, and seven years later he moved up to regional executive director, holding that position until his departure in 1993.

“The American Jewish Congress had it right when it understood the concept of enlightened self-interest,” Bennett said. “If it’s good for everybody, it’s good for us as well. The AJC would never be accused of being self-serving, whether it was nationally or locally.”

Bennett said he was most proud of the number of local Jewish attorneys who volunteered to serve on a regional version of AJCongress’ Commission on Law and Social Action — created to eliminate the causes of group tensions and anti-Semitism, and to establish an alliance between oppressed minorities and American Jews.

The local spinoff of the commission was one of the “custom-fit” endeavors that the Northern Pacific office took from national AJCongress programs and adapted to meet the needs of Bay Area residents.

Bennett recalled research the local organization conducted in 1986 under the leadership of former executive director Joel Brooks concerning the regulations, responsibilities and basic standards of living of the nursing home industry.

“We took it upon ourselves to survey dozens of nursing homes,” Bennett said. “We asked, ‘How bad does it smell?’ ‘What is the percentage of residents who seem to be drugged or nonresponsive?’ ‘What is the ratio of patients to doctors?’ and ‘Who’s tracking the number of violations and are they being fixed?’”

Bennett said the AJCongress made the survey results public in a widely distributed consumer guide to San Francisco nursing homes.

“We weren’t rating nursing homes,” he said. “We simply said, ‘This is what we learned and feel free to draw your own conclusions.’ As a result, there was more state attention paid to this stuff.”

Other notable local accomplishments: creating a local entity based on the Service Corps of Retired Executives that connected retired small-business owners with those who wanted to start their own businesses; providing tax preparation for low-income citizens; and producing a guide for parents about religious liberties in the school system.

“We helped Jews and non-Jews understand each other better,” said Tracy Salkowitz, a consultant in organizational development for nonprofits who served as the AJCongress regional executive director from 1993 to 2000.

“The AJC at its best presented a strong, liberal voice for the Jewish community,” she said. If the organization shuts down entirely, “it’s a really big loss and a real shame.”

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