Federations set new date for merger vote

A Dec. 1 date has been set by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County and Jewish Federation of Monmouth County to allow their donor base to vote on their planned merger.

That date will keep both federations on track for their planned Jan. 1 merger, said Middlesex federation president Mitchell Frumkin, who would take over leadership of the combined federation.

The Dec. 1 date meets the legal requirement that the federations wait at least 20 days after their boards formally approve the merger. Middlesex approved the merger and bylaws on Sept. 3, Monmouth on Sept. 11. 

Monmouth gave formal approval Oct. 23 while Middlesex is expected to do so at its Nov. 5 board meeting.

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Any donor attending the Dec. 1 meetings is eligible to vote. 

“There’s no reason to expect that these bylaws won’t be approved since we’ve already given them preliminary approval,” said Frumkin. “This is just confirming that vote.”

Now that a public vote date has made the impending merger seem more tangible, Frumkin said, he has noticed a growing anticipation in both communities.

“As we hold discussions and more people get involved, the more they are getting exciting as they realize this is a good thing for both communities,” he said. “We are spending a good amount of time together as we work to merge our staffs, merge our payrolls, merge our programming, and we are seeing there are going to be even more benefits than we thought there would be. 

“We are seeing the cultures of the communities are exactly the same; the missions of our federations are exactly the same,” said Frumkin.

Citing the merger report presented to the two organizations, Monmouth federation executive director Keith Krivitzky said, “Our overarching goal is to strengthen our local Jewish community. We believe that a merger will bring both our communities significant benefits — greater funds raised and therefore more funds to disburse to organizations working to strengthen our Jewish community locally, in Israel, and overseas.” 

Krivitzky said that the leadership believes that “combining our federations will result in the ability to better tackle significant challenges facing the Jewish people, as well as enable improved systems and greater efficiencies. We also believe that a merger will allow us to better attract, retain, and support top professional and volunteer talent.”