Highland Park Mayor Meryl Frank has been appointed president of the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress.
April 22, 2008
Highland Park Mayor Meryl Frank has been appointed national president of the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress.
AJCongress president Richard Gordon said Frank’s role will be to revitalize the division and “return it to the forefront of the discussion of women’s issues and women’s empowerment.”
“Meryl Frank has all the qualities necessary to do that,” said Gordon in a written release. “She will bring a new vitality and determination to the women’s division.”
Division director Harriet Kurlander said Frank “had proven her ability to lead and inspire others. She is a dynamic and highly respected activist on behalf of social justice, women’s rights, and human rights.”
Frank said she became familiar with the work of the American Jewish Congress while attending its 2006 Conference of Mayors in Jerusalem.
“I was impressed,” Frank told NJ Jewish News.
She recalled how the conference brought together 60 mayors from places such as Nairobi, Budapest, and Calcutta “who have a tainted view of Israel.”
“They got to see how Israel really works,” said Frank. “We spent a week there traveling and talking about typical mayor issues like trash and budgets, but they also got to see a country that was very different from the image they had.”
Each of the mayors’ conferences, started years before by former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, reaps benefits for Israel for many years to come, said Frank. Many of the mayors rise through the political ranks in their home countries with a positive image of Israel.
Frank said she has talked about the issue of empowerment with Gordon and is eager to work on the AJCongress International Conference of Women Judges, set to take place at Washington’s Georgetown University next year. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the scheduled keynote speaker.
Frank became mayor of Highland Park in 2000. She has created the state’s first green community, and has won awards for innovation in government. She is an international speaker on sustainability, ethics, democracy, and women in politics.
“The American Jewish Congress has been a leader among American-Jewish organizations in environmental policy and that is a key interest to me,” said Frank.
A member of the national board of the Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee, Frank is national cochair of Jewish relations for the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.
Frank is a Lion of Judah and a board member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, and a life member of Hadassah. She has also received Johnson & Johnson’s H.O.N.O.R. Community Service Award.
Also a member of AJCongress’ executive committee, Frank said she admires the organization’s commitment to Israel, which includes building bomb-proof bus shelters in Sderot, which has been a regular target of missiles from Gaza.
Other projects it has undertaken include those that help various Israeli communities and promote tourism.
The almost 100-year-old organization, which was started by former U.S. Supreme Court justices Felix Frankfurter and Louis Brandeis, has a “glorious history,” according to Frank.
It struggled financially in recent years and saw the defection of a number of local chapters who objected to a perceived rightward drift in its politics. When Gordon, a longtime Democratic political activist, became its president last year, he promised to “return AJCongress to its traditional role of serving as a light unto the nations on issues of social justice,” according to a release from the group.
The group recently tussled with Ms. magazine, which refused to run an AJCongress ad celebrating the accomplishments of Israeli women in politics.
Frank said she believes the empowerment of women as a force for change that “makes a difference in the lives of Jews” is something the division should push.
“We want to move into a new century,” she added. “It’s a tremendous honor and responsibility and I take it very seriously.”
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