AJCongress taps Israel Singer

By · November 29, 2007

Israel Singer was named chairman of a council at the American Jewish Congress.

The AJCongress released a two-line statement earlier this month announcing Singer’s appointment to the group’s international policy council of the Council for World Jewry.

Singer spent years as the top professional at the World Jewish Congress and the president of the Claims Conference until he was found to have improperly used WJC finances, as part of an investigation begun in 2004 by the New York state attorney general.

Singer was fired last March after then-WJC president Edgar Bronfman alleged that Singer had tried to transfer $1.5 million of WJC money into a non-WJC Swiss bank account.

Singer, who played an integral role in the Soviet Jewry movement and the Holocaust restitution fight, has denied any wrongdoing.

“Rabbi Israel Singer has a decades-old record of distinguished service to the Jewish people worldwide,” the AJCongress said in its statement announcing Singer’s appointment. “It is hard to imagine a vigorous international Jewish life in which he is not centrally involved.”

Earlier this year, Singer announced he would not run for another term as president of the Claims Conference, a position he had held since 2002.