When it takes seven syllables just to say your organization’s acronym, let alone its full name, you know you have a marketing problem.

Which is why finding a new moniker and “re-branding” are among the top priorities of BJENY-SAJES, the merger of New York’s two central agencies for Jewish education: the 100-year-old Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York and the relatively youthful Suffolk Association for Jewish Education Services.

But the transformation of the agency, which receives 52 percent of its funding from UJA-Federation of New York and works with hundreds of diverse educational institutions, from haredi yeshivas to Reform congregational schools, has gone well beyond the cosmetic.

Since 2007, when the BJE completed a strategic plan and hired a new chief operating officer, Robert Sherman, and soon after when the two agencies began merger talks, change has been brewing, with new programs launched, new professionals brought in and a complete rethinking of everyday operations.

While mergers usually mean a reduction in staff and budget, the new agency is now larger than the combined totals before the merger process began, thanks mostly to increased support from the federation.

Read the full article at The Jewish Week...