A billionaire with Israeli and Ukrainian citizenship was elected the new president of the European Council of Jewish Communities.
With the announcement of the election of Igor Kolomoisky at the council’s annual conference currently meeting in Berlin, the ECJC becomes the second major European Jewish organization to be headed by a Jewish man from the former Soviet Union.
Moshe Kantor, a billionaire philanthropist with Russian and Israeli citizenship, heads the European Jewish Congress, which traditionally has dealt with political issues related to Israel and European relations. Now the ECJC is claiming a part in the European Jewish identity as player on the world stage together with Israel and the United States.
Speaking at the Berlin conference, hosted in part by German-Jewish organizations, outgoing ECJC President Jonathan Joseph of Britain said the choice of Kolomoisky reflects “a new paradigm that really draws together East, Central and Western European Jewry as a united front” for Israel, against anti-Semitism, and for a stronger European Jewish voice on an array of issues.
The ECJC represents Jewish communities and organizations in some 40 countries, going beyond the official European Union boundaries to include the countries of the former Soviet Union and Turkey.
Long connected with and supported by American Jewish organizations, the ECJC had been forced to look elsewhere for financial support in recent years, said Joseph, who has headed the body for six years. The weakening U.S. economy “has had an extremely sobering effect,” he said, adding that “declining economies” and an “aging leadership” in the U.S. had “led to reduced commitments financially.”
Kolomoisky, whose fortune reportedly is in oil and gas companies, is a major donor to the Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk. He was named as the second wealthiest Ukrainian in 2009 by Ocnus.Net, a U.S.-based news blog.
The ECJC was established in 1968 as a not-for-profit organization. It has NGO status at the Council of Europe and the European Union, and its main office has been in Berlin for two years.
