Top WJC official makes 'Arab' jibe at EJC chief
ETGAR LEFKOVITS
A senior leader of the New York-based World Jewish Congress at the center of a bitter dispute over control of the group's Israel office has made an ethnic slur against the president of the European Jewish Congress for refusing to back Matthew Bronfman's candidacy as WJC president, officials said Thursday.
The controversial remarks appear in an internal memo by WJC Secretary-General Stephen E. Herbits to Bronfman which likens the Tunisian-born European Jewish Congress President Pierre Besnainou to an Arab.
"He is French. He cannot be trusted. He is Tunisian. Do not discount this either. He works like an Arab,"reads the memo which was sent to The Jerusalem Post from the Israel Discount Bank of New York, where Bronfman used to have offices.
Besnainou noted that the memo came shortly after a meeting he held with Herbits in which he refused to support the candidacy of Matthew Bronfman as next president of the organization. Bronfman is expected to be a main contender in the race for president of the organization after his father, Edgar M. Bronfman, 77, steps down after serving in the position for the last quarter century.
Veteran European leader Besnainou, who has been a senior official of the World Jewish Congress, has previously accused the New York leadership of the organization of "going crazy" following a series of controversial steps taken by the group.
Herbits's remarks were immediately condemned by the chairman of the World Jewish Congress in Israel as both hateful and racist.
"It appears that the struggle in the World Jewish Congress has now turned racist,"said MK Shai Hermesh (Kadima), who heads the Israeli board of the WJC.
"Instead of creating unity among the Jewish people, this organization is just creating division and hatred."WJC officials said Thursday that in writing the memo, Herbits had violated his position as secretary-general by taking sides in the upcoming election. The latest incident comes on the heels of a months-long struggle over control of the Jerusalem office, in an organization long plagued by internal wrangling.
After the Jerusalem office baulked at the appointment and efforts at reaching a compromise hit a dead end, New York suspended all funding of the Jerusalem office, citing
"cash flow problems."
World Jewish Congress
1. Finances, Irregularities, and Corruption2. Controversy and Internal Conflicts
3. Racist Remarks by WJC Officials
Notes:
1. Another investigation against the World Jewish Congress is still ongoing, this time by the federal Internal Revenue Service.
2. World Jewish Congress, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, founded in 1998, have secured millions of dollars for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust in payments from Germany, Swiss banks, Insurances and other parties totalling $500 million.
According to the Independent, a series of allegations about the organization's accounting practices and "unusual" money transfers, raised by Isi Liebler, the WJC's senior vice-president, led to a full scale investigation of the finances of the World Jewish Congress.
3. The New York Times states that "Donations fell in 2005, and, according to its financial statements, its expenses were $17 million and its revenues were $9.4 million." A professional fund raising company, using direct mail fund-raising yielded a projected $8.15 million [USD], while charging an annual fee of $3.5 million.
A comprehensive audit of the WJC's accounts in Switzerland from 1995-2004, conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, an accounting firm, found that "over the years $3.8 million 'disappeared' from the bank accounts."[4]
Rabbi Israel Singer was dismissed after a tumultuous period for the organization when its Swiss affiliate discovered that 1.2 million USD were involved in suspicious money transfers between accounts in New York, Switzerland and London. The money could be recovered but the entire affair led to deeper investigations about the organizations finances, as well as lavish travel and other expenses incurred by Mr. Singer.[3]
The Haaretz writes, that the name of the organization "was associated with financial irregularities, corruption and endless power struggles. In early 2006, then New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer ... published the findings of a comprehensive audit he conducted of the WJC over a two-year period. The review followed a series of mysterious transfers of $1.2 million from a confidential Swiss bank account of the WJC. The Spitzer report presented the organization as one in which corruption had spread in recent years.[4] An article in the Haaretz points out that the Spitzer report neglected the audit of the WJC's accounts in Switzerland from 1995-2004 and did not include the most serious charges and accusations.[4]
In March 2007 Bronfman accused Singer of stealing his money in an article published by Haaretz: "'Singer helped himself to cash from the WJC office, my cash,' wrote Bronfman to European Jewish Congress President Pierre Besnainou in a letter. 'The final blow came when we discovered that he was playing games with his hotel bills in Jerusalem.' ... [Singer] boasted of his ability to put one over on presidents and prime ministers, and with the same degree of pride enumerated heads of state as his personal friends. In retrospect, it has emerged that during the same period, Singer himself behaved as though he himself were a head of state, living ostentatiously at the expense of the donors to the WJC."[5]
WJC Secretary-General Stephen Herbits.
Photo: WJC
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