Gloria Landy of Rumson has been elected secretary of the World Jewish Congress American Section.
Photo by Jill Huber
January 8, 2008
Gloria Landy of Rumson has been elected secretary of the World Jewish Congress American Section.
Landy was elected by acclamation at the Dec. 10 meeting of the WJC’s American Section governing board at the WJC New York City office. She replaced Rabbi Marc Schneier, who now serves as section chair.
The primary focus of the WJC’s American Section, she told NJ Jewish News, is to provide American input in the WJC’s international deliberations, encourage American-Jewish efforts to fight anti-Semitism and intolerance, and reach out to a new generation of Jewish leaders in the United States.
The American Section meets in New York and Washington with officials responsible for U.S. policy toward the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Each agency is critical in generating a coordinated international response to anti-Semitism, Landy said.
“No organization by itself can bridge the gaps in American-Jewish life,” she said. “The American Section draws inspiration from the global inclusiveness of the World Jewish Congress and from initiatives within American Jewry.”
Although this is her first time as a member of the WJC American Section executive board, Landy is not unfamiliar with the organization. She is vice president of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues and has attended WJC American Section meetings as the main nongoverning organization representative for the council.
She will also draw on her leadership experience: She served as the first woman president of Congregation B’nai Israel in Rumson from 1983 to 1985 and has been involved with the New Jersey region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
The WJC was founded in Geneva in 1936 and seeks to be the representative body of Jewish communities and organizations in 100 countries on six continents.
“The congress works to secure the rights and safety of Jews and Jewish communities around the world, intensify the bonds of world Jewry, and strengthen the links of Jewish solidarity,” said Landy. “It also acts in coordination with, and on behalf of, Jewish communities before governmental, intergovernmental, and other authorities on matters concerning the Jewish population, and cooperates with all people on the basis of universal ideas of peace, freedom, and justice.”
WJC has also been central in the effort to recover stolen assets and provide restitution to Holocaust survivors, a primary reason Landy became involved with the organization.
“These assets were denied to the survivors, who went to their banks to seek their own monies,” Landy said. “They were told that they did not have ‘proper papers’ to prove their ownership. The WJC forced the banks to show their records, and in this way, the money was recovered.”
The WJC has also advocated on behalf on non-Jews, Landy said.
For example, in 2006, the WJC sponsored a delegation of 35 young Jews from Europe who traveled to Rwanda on a fact-finding mission about the genocide that took place there 12 years earlier. Also in 2006, the WJC hosted an event at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, at which survivors of atrocities in Rwanda, Darfur, and the Holocaust shared their experiences with an international group of Jewish and non-Jewish youths, said Landy.
Recently, the WJC and the Latin American Jewish Congress condemned a police raid on a Jewish center in Caracas, Venezuela.
“The harassment of the Venezuelan-Jewish community through one of its central institutions was unacceptable,” said Landy. “The Venezuelan-Jewish umbrella organization CAIV called for a thorough investigation into the raid. The WJC’s stand against such wrongdoings is among the reasons that make me proud and honored to be associated with the World Jewish Congress.”
The WJC also received some unwanted attention last year, when Edgar Bronfman, who served as president of the WJC for nearly 30 years, resigned in May. The move came two months after Bronfman fired his close associate and a top WJC official, Rabbi Israel Singer. Bronfman claimed Singer mismanaged WJC money, an allegation Singer denied.
The WJC elected Ronald Lauder as its interim president in June, with officials voicing hope that the organization could get past its years of legal and internal wrangling.