Peoplehood will soon nominate a WJC president…

I nominate…

Ronald Lauder and Mendel Kaplan are the two official candidates to lead the World Jewish Congress. Some of us are thinking of running a slate for the election of next generation candidates who are not connected to the taint and old-school, old boys network. Mendel, who is a smart businessman and helped bring some reforms to the Jewish Agency, served in top WJC posts during the whole affair and is therefore implicated by virtue of what he didn’t do to bring the same standards of financial accountability and human decency as he has brought to other endeavors. Lauder is president of the JNF, which sends roughly only 50 cents on the dollar to Israel. (A major improvement, by the way, but way short of donor expectations), is close to Bibi and has been involved with some questionable financing of Israeli elections in the past.

The press will jump on both of these as more of the same at the WJC. The decline will continue. The Jewish people will lose.

The next President and the next Chair of the Board should both be relative outsiders, and a team. And it should be as much about their bold, new ideas for the future of the Jewish people as it is about their squeaky clean records and leadership abilities.

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