AJCongress Closes L.A. Office

AJCongress Closes L.A. Office
The American Jewish Congress closed its Los Angeles office this month. The move was part of massive reorganizing and staff reductions spurred by the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, which reportedly cost the 91-year-old AJCongress $21 million of its $24 million in endowments supporting programs in the United States and Israel.

“Shortly thereafter, they let go probably half of the staff of the entire organization,” said Gary Ratner, who until Feb. 1 was the Western regional director. “Some of the people who were going to remain — and I was asked to remain — were asked to take enormous compensation cuts.”

Ratner left to become executive director of the Zionist Organization of America. Ratner will be replaced, though there is no timetable, said Matthew Mark Horn, AJCongress’ acting co-executive director.

The office will not reopen. Long before the Madoff scandal was revealed, Horn said, he and his co-executive director, Marc Stern, had been considering a plan to close regional offices, saving money and encouraging regional directors to spend more time on the road.

“Madoff gave us the causus belli to do what was being talked about and what Marc and I felt strongly about,” Horn said. “Quite frankly, if my people are in the office, they’re not out raising money; they’re not out talking at a shul; they’re not out talking at a school; they’re not out promoting the AJCongress’ programs and mission.”

The Los Angeles office closed before in 1998 and reconstituted itself as the Progressive Jewish Alliance, with different politics and priorities. AJCongress reopened the following year.

Horn said that the region remains a priority.

“As long as Marc Stern and I and the organization can function by telephone, fax, e-mail, carrier pigeons to the West Coast, we’ll do that,” Horn said. “When things move along and we go out there and start meeting with people, we will find the best person for the job and have a regional director. But we are in daily contact with board members out there. Right now there is not urgency for a regional director.”
— Brad A. Greenberg, Senior Writer

Widow of Kidnapped IDF Soldier, Hijacking Hostage to Speak at Heroism Event
Karnit Goldwasser, the widow of abducted Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser, will spend next week in Los Angeles, speaking with schoolchildren and community members about her efforts to save Israeli prisoners of war.

Goldwasser and Ilan Hartuv, who survived a plane hijacking to Entebbe in 1976, will headline an “Evening of Jewish Heroism” Feb. 24 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. The event is a fundraiser for Bnei Akiva of Los Angeles, an Orthodox Zionist youth group.

Goldwasser’s husband was abducted by Hezbollah guerillas in July 2006 while patrolling in Israel near the Lebanese border.

Karnit Goldwasser and others have led an international campaign for two years, meeting with politicians, human rights activists and business leaders in an attempt to get information about Goldwasser or Eldad Regev, who was captured with him. In 2007, she addressed the Iranian president at the U.N. General Assembly.

In July 2008, as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser were returned to Israel. Examination revealed that they were probably killed during the initial attack.

Hartuv was on an Air France flight to New York with his mother, where they were to attend his brother’s wedding, when Palestinian terrorists hijacked the plane to the Entebbe airport in Uganda on July 3, 1976. His mother had been taken to a hospital before the Israeli army conducted a daring rescue operation that saved all but three of the 260 hostages. One Israeli commando, Yonatan Netanyahu (Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother), was killed in the operation. Soon after the raid, Hartuv’s mother was killed by Ugandan soldiers. Her remains were not recovered until 1979.

Hartuv served in the Israeli navy and government and was Israel’s economic ambassador in several African countries, Rome and Fiji. Now 80, he lectures internationally on economics, global terrorism and his experience at Entebbe.

Students at several area Orthodox day schools will spend the week learning about the raid on Entebbe and the context of Israel’s battle with Hezbollah before meeting with Goldwasser and Hartuv. Hartuv will also speak with public school students at an event at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Westwood.

The “Evening of Jewish Heroism” is Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 6:45 p.m. at the Writer’s Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. Tickets start at $100, but Bnei Akiva’s Shalom Ashkenazi says tickets will be made available for those who can’t pay that price. For more information call (310) 467-8179 or (310) 248-2450.
—Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

Anti-Genocide Group Awards Fellowship
The Genocide Intervention Network has named Peter Marcus, vice president of Jewish World Watch, as a Carl Wilkens Fellow. Marcus will participate in a yearlong, part-time fellowship program named for the only American to remain in Rwanda throughout the 1994 genocide. The fellowship provides advocacy and leadership training; conflict and legislative education; anti-genocide philosophy, vision and values, and training in other core topics.

“Change begins with one,” Wilkens said. “So few people in America were aware of the Rwanda genocide at the time it was happening, and even fewer were equipped to do something to end it.”

“That’s why I’m so excited that Peter has been selected to join this year’s class of Carl Wilkens Fellows. I know he will be a lifelong leader in the movement to end genocide,” Wilkens said.

The fellowship also includes two weekend retreats in Washington, D.C., and $1,500 toward organizing events in local communities.
— Lilly Fowler, Contributing Writer