Cosmetics mogul Ronald Lauder announced that he will run for president of the World Jewish Congress. Lauder, the Jewish National Fund president and a former head of the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is a
former WJC treasurer credited with helping rebuild
Jewish infrastructure in Eastern and Central Europe.Lauder’s primary competition appears to be Mendel Kaplan, chair of the WJC
executive committee and a South African steel manufacturer. The pair are competing to replace Edgar Bronfman, who announced his resignation from the organization June 10 after nearly three decades as its president. It is unclear if
Bronfman’s son, Matthew Bronfman, will also run for the presidency.”It’s time for the World Jewish Congress to look forward,” Lauder said last Friday. “The WJC is
more than an election, it is more than its leadership and it is
certainly more than a scandal. Given world events, always remembering
our history, it is time to focus on the future and move the World
Jewish Congress forward together.”Though the WJC flourished under Bronfman, playing key roles in the Soviet Jewry movement and the fight for Holocaust reparations money, he stepped down after five years of scrutiny over the organization’s finances. Lauder resuscitated the JNF, in nine years taking it from an organization in financial disarray to one of only three Jewish non-profits that has received the Better Business Bureau’s Charitable Seal of Approval.
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