Does this look to you like a serious reckoning with valid concerns, or like a stand-up act?

I have only a few moments to write this. I have to get back to memorizing page 32b of Tractate Sanhedrin, as I was instructed to do daily by my partners at the Jewish Enrichment Center. Thankfully, those anti-feminist Orthodox people don’t require me to wrap teffilin every day as they apparently did to that poor, unsuspecting Birthright Israel alumnus in Gal Beckerman’s article, “Birthright Alumni Center Tied to Haredi Outreach”. Then I would certainly have no time to put pen to paper. Fortunately, I have a moment off to respond…

It’s the first titillating paragraph of Rebecca Sugar’s “response” to mounting criticisms about the way she farmed out all Birthright NEXT programming in the New York area to the JEC, a haredi kiruv (ultra-Orthodox evangelism) organization.
Ms. Sugar, listen carefully. First, let me congratulate you on your writing style. You’ve hit heights of snark I can only spy forlornly through a dented telescope. Second, you’re missing the point:
The concern raised by Gal Beckerman and the editors of the Jewish Daily Forward, by David Kelsey, by Shmarya Rosenberg, and by yours truly and fellow Jewschool bloggers & commenters was not that Orthodox Jews can’t run pluralistic Jewish institutions that cater to, respect, and serve the entire Jewish community.  Some of the best Hillel professionals I’ve ever met are Orthodox. I’ve seen Jews who affiliate in whole or in part with Orthodox forms of Judaism become valued leaders in Jewish social justice organizations like JUFJ, communities like Jews in the Woods, and educational projects like Limmud.
However, Ms. Sugar — and this is a big however — these individuals were honest, righteous frum men and women whose love of the wider Jewish community was broader than any partisan loyalties they held for their own brand of Jewishness. They were not flag-wavers or missionaries. They were not liars. They were not stealth kiruv workers.
The folks at The JEC are stealth kiruv workers. As reported by Gal Beckerman,

In conversations with the Forward, a handful of Birthright alumni have painted a picture of the JEC as a place where Orthodoxy [sic] is the end goal, though it is encouraged through slow, gentle steps that are often difficult to perceive. “If they had just said, if their whole mission statement was, we’re Orthodox Jews, we’d love to present this lifestyle to you and see if it’s for you, and then did the same exact things that they are doing, that would not bother me,” said David Siegel, who was involved with the JEC for two years and went on three of the center’s follow-up trips to Israel.
“Each and every one of them on a person-to-person level is totally open to helping you understand life, spirituality, growth, relationships; anything you want to talk about, they’re open about it,” said another Birthright alumnus, who asked to remain anonymous. “The issue for me was eventually after spending a lot of time there, it became apparent that they did have an agenda to try and get me to incorporate Orthodox practice into my life. And that became awkward.” After he started individual studies with a rabbi, the situation became strained. “Eventually they wanted me to start memorizing sections of Talmud even though that was not something I was interested in doing,” the anonymous alumnus said. “They wanted me to start wrapping tefillin. I didn’t want to do that, either. And instead of just saying, all right, do your own thing, they kept bringing it up and pressing the issue.”

This would not be a problem if there were other Birthright NEXT providers in the NY area — but the JEC is the only authorized provider of  Birthright NEXT programming in that largest BRI alumni community in the world.
This would not be a problem if the JEC were open about its Haredi affiliation, kiruv goals, and connection to Ohr Somayach — but it’s not.
This would not be a problem if the JEC supported Birthright’s non-Haredi alumni in their diversity of Jewish styles and nurtured their personal paths of Jewish growth — but Jewish growth only means one thing for the JEC.
This would not be a problem if the JEC didn’t sponsor extreme right-wing political speakers under the guise of Jewish educational programming — but we’ve already reported on that here.
It comes down to the simple proposition that the Birthright program is not supposed to be a kiruv scam, Ms. Sugar.  And no false accusations of Ortho-bashing, no matter how cleverly worded, can distract from that truth.