The issue ultimately comes down to the lack of transparency,
accountability and governance in an organization primarily funded by the
contributions of 400,000 American donors who respond to mail solicitation.
I feel that the World Jewish Congress, now that it is no
longer being financed by one person, must cease operating like a private
fiefdom of one or two people. Ultimately I believe that Jewish people power
will bring this about.
You are of course aware that it was my intention to have
this issue dealt with discretely within the WJC. But this was foiled when my
computer was broken into and my initial drafts concerning the matter were
leaked to the media.
The issue has therefore now been covered in the
American Jewish media but I draw your attention to two articles translated from
the Swiss Jewish weekly, Tachles.
It is from Swiss Jewish leaders that the allegations about financial
irregularities were first drawn to my attention.
Should you require further information, please let me know.
Isi Leibler
------------------------
28. September 2004
4. Jahrgang
Ausgabe 40
Tip of the Iceberg?
by Gisela Blau
The
affair that shook the World Jewish Congress (WJC) – if not at its foundations,
then at its tip – was triggered by Alfred Donath of Geneva, President of the Swiss
Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG). As Tachles was informed by various sources, the affair deals with
the obscure financial behaviour of the WJC, the
secret payment of wages to Israel Singer, the
highly skilled hacking into the computer of the Senior Vice-President Isi Leibler and above all, a WJC-account at the
UBS in Geneva – how ironical, given the attacks of Israel
Singer on the Swiss banks! – with
dubious deposits and transfers.
Had
the director of the WJC office, established in 1936 in Geneva, noticed something and asked
unwelcome questions? At any rate, Maya Ben Haim-Rosen
during the last week of March 2004 received a letter from a colleague, Maram Stern, chief of the WJC Bureau in Bruxelles. Content: closure of the bureau on April 1st.
The chief and her employees were thrown out. Simultaneously, the tenure of the
distinguished jurist Daniel Lack in Geneva, who was the legal attorney
for the WJC over the past 30 years, was also abruptly terminated, by a letter
from Brussells. The Israeli jurist Ms. Ben Haim, who had been working for the WJC for more than a
year, went to Court; the case is not closed yet for the WJC.
Ben
Haim issues no statements about the matter. Nor, for
reasons of professional ethics, has Tachles
obtained any information from Lack,. The financial
drama in Geneva became known in September by
other means.
However
hints regarding the questionable development and the issues requiring answers,
had surfaced earlier. On April 25th, SIG President Alfred Donath wrote a letter to the President of the WJC, Edgar
Bronfman, as he knew that they were to meet soon. Several days later, during a
conference on anti-Semitism in Berlin, he sent the letter to
Bronfman. During the same conference he gave copies of the letter to the
members of the Steering Committee in the WJC, Israel Singer,
Elan Steinberg, Isi Leibler and Professor Yoram
Dinstein, former President of the
Tel Aviv University.
“I
asked questions in that letter relating to rumors regarding financial
transactions handled through the WJC-account in Geneva and requested that an
independent audit be carried out”, Donath told Tachles. Daniel Lack also did the same. “I
also asked”, said Donath, “why the account in Geneva was closed so abruptly and
without giving notice to the SIG.” Donath expressed concern that the press might learn about
the story of the money and that this could indirectly harm the Swiss Jewish
Community.
In
spite of verbal promises to Donath – and also certain
threats from Israel Singer – until now no
answers were given. Now, half a year after this offence to their President, the
SIG management is considering writing another
letter. “It is a delicate situation”, says Donath.
Although the controversy in the WJC cannot be ignored and the mysterious
account was disclosed long since, the President of the SIG, a European Jewish
Congress (EJC) Presidium member, was rudely silenced
during a discussion on this subject. No wonder: the EJC budget depends on half
a million Dollars from the WJC and obviously, as Tachles
learnt, does not wish to ruin its relations with this source of money, which is
so convenient for so many people.
Donath
courageously asserts that he shall not give up, because he fears that the shock
in New
York
might have repercussions in Switzerland as well. “But I
also see what is happening to Isi Leibler”, he says.
Indeed,
Leibler, the prominent Vice-President of the WJC is
the focus of an unimaginable storm of insults and threats. The 69 year old
long-time President of the Australian Jewish community and formerly head of one
of the biggest travel organizations of the fifth continent,
had immigrated to Israel five years ago and
currently lives in Jerusalem. Immediately following the
Jewish New Year he was “dismissed“ by the new Steering
Committee of the WJC. However, in the case of an elected person as he was, this
decision may be made only by an assembly of WCJ-delegates. “I felt as if I were
at a Lynch-Party of a Politburo", says Leibler
to Tachles. “All other eight members
joined in blindly and refused to take notice of the isues
that I attempted to draw to their attention.” Elan
Steinberg was also dismissed along with Leibler,
without pension, although he had served the WJC for over thirty years in management
positions. He also evidently joined Leibler’s request
for transparency.
“Unfortunately,
I did not appreciate the seriousness of what Alfred Donath
told me in Berlin and only asked to be provided with evidence, which at that
time he did not have yet”, says Leibler to Tachles. “I also consented to the decision
we, the Committee of the WJC, made, to close down the Geneva bureau, at the urging of Israel
Singer. This too was a mistake.”
Leibler
believes that the bureau was closed down approximately at the time when the
financial irregularities became known. “Besides other irregularities in the management
of the WJC accounts in Geneva”, Leibler
also referred to a confidential letter written in July by Daniel Lack, the
Geneva WJC attorney-in-law, detailing the events. Leibler also
asserted that he became aware that his computer had been accessed by hackers
and that this was confirmed by the Israeli computer specialists with IDF
backgrounds. Leibler
referred to an account at the UBS Geneva
which was discovered, the existence of which was unknown to everybody and to
which someone – Leibler assumes it was Israel
Singer himself – transferred several times over the course of
three years, two to three hundred thousand Dollars from New-York, until the
deposit in the account reached a sum of 1.2 million Dollars.
The
credit balance was transferred quickly from Geneva to Tel Aviv via Zvi Barak, who served under
Singer, as Vice-President of the World Restitution Organization and was also
once his substitute in the Volcker Commission, which
was very sensibly named “Commission of Outstanding
Personalities”. Barak, who acts as an attorney-in-law
for Singer, ordered the total amount be transferred to London. This took place prior to the
money being repatriated to New York, where it had originated as
a transfer of 1.5 million Dollars of the Jewish Agency. 300,000 Dollars
remained in New
York
– perhaps only because the Geneva account was discovered too
soon? There are also some who wonder whether these 1.2 million Dollars in Geneva were only the tip of Israel
Singer’s iceberg. And that Edgar Bronfman should have been
aware of the whole matter yet in spite of this, he continued to back up this
powerful man all the way. Edgar Bronfman wanted to retire some time ago but
first wished to give the WJC a new structure. However, now he has called
everything off. Leibler sees no signs of the
transparency he has requested. Yet Leibler is
reproached that he himself aspired to the Presidency and it is alleged that is
the reason why he suddenly started the scandal. This is vehemently denied by Leibler: “The next President of the WJC should once again
be an American.”
Allegedly,
Singer himself conveyed the draft memorandum to the Jewish Week in New York early in September,
obtaining it one way or the other (Leibler says he
could not identify the element who ordered the computer hacking). It is now
also in the possession of Tachles).
Every week Singer cited another reason for the Geneva account: he received the
money from the Jewish Agency for his contribution to the cause of the Jewish
people, "as a pension", no, as a pension for all WJC employees. Leibler notes that there already exists a pension fund of
2.1 million dollars in New York. When Israel
Singer changed his position from an employee, with 280,000
Dollars per annum, to an honorary position at the WJC, Leibler
approved a pension program of 150,000 Dollars per annum, which, he had never
made use of. Leibler says: “No wonder – he was still
paid 226,000 Dollars per annum, which at first he declared was a private
payment from Edgar Bronfman, when these finances became known.”
Already
in 2001 Leibler requested financial transparency from
the WJC, in which he has been a member for several decades. “Once I thought, as
did many people, that the WJC were still being supported entirely by Edgar
Bronfman”, he states. “As soon as I became aware that now we have more than
400,000 contributors in the USA who pay more than 4
million of the 7-million budget, I requested an independent audit.”
He
also requested financial supervision, regulation of the expenses – and an
independent audit, as soon as he became aware of the irregularities in Geneva.
But
because of that he was looked upon as a person who was fouling his own nest.
"My
name was being fouled”, says Leibler. “But I am not
giving up.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08. Oktober 2004
4. Jahrgang
Ausgabe 41
Everyone Knew About It
by Gisela Blau
On July 1st,
2003, Rabbi
Israel Singer entered a clinic in Geneva and ordered the 79 year old bookkeeper Jacques Chamach to leave his hospital bed, to get dressed and to
accompany him to the UBS. There Chamach was ordered
to countersign a bank transfer of 1.2 million dollars, the full balance of a
dollar account, on behalf of Zwi Barak.
The official reason given was “for the pension”. Then the old man was allowed
to return to the hospital.
This is not a third rate screenplay. Several people
described the exact same events to the Tachles-magazine
and it was confirmed by the now 80 year old bookkeeper. Chamach
depicts himself as an American citizen and lawyer, who used to be a civil
servant in the American army and was employed by several major insurance
companies.
Rabbi Singer is the number two man in the World Jewish
Congress (WJC) in New York. Chamach, who served as
bookkeeper of the Geneva WJC-office for 29 years, has been ill since 2002 and has had to
undergo several operations on his heart and legs.
“On June 23rd
2003 the new boss
showed up at my hospital bed and told me that, as of July 1st, I was not
employed any more” Chamach recounts to Tachles. “She didn’t give me any reason. My salary
had stopped coming in as of May 2003.”
Apparently no pension fund has been offered. The “new boss” was Maya Ben-Haim-Rosen, since April 2003 director of the Geneva WJC-office.
Apparently, Ben Haim had met
with Israel Singer in London at the end of June. For the last two years Singer
has served in
an honorary capacity as the WJC’s general secretary
without being on the organization’s payroll (therefore receiving “only” 226,000
dollars per year instead of 280,000, apparently financed by the private funds
of Edgar Bronfman, the “owner” of the WJC).
The Tachles
investigation has shown that the since fired, but then newly elected General
Secretary, Avi Beker, was
also present at the meeting. Both learned from the Geneva Director how she had
no choice but to let bookkeeper Chamach go, due to
“financial irregularities”.
Several days later Singer flew to Geneva, ordered the fired bookkeeper out of his bed and emptied a bank
account that had been opened at the end of 2002, when Chamach
had already been ill. Whether Singer acted alone, and whether there are other
such bank accounts, is not known. Over the course of the next few months, high
six-digit amounts were transferred – most probably by Singer himself, as
everybody questioned by Tachles magazine has
claimed. It was easy for the Bronfman protégé to transfer the money without
being discovered , since the New York office had no authorization hierarchy at that time
(and possibly still does not have one). The money originated in a general WJC
account in which the Jewish Agency had deposited in 2001 its membership dues of
the last three years, amounting to 1.5 million dollars. At the end of winter
2003 there were 1.2 million dollars in the Geneva account. Singer’s claim that the money was intended
for his personal pension fund has been denied by the Jewish Agency. Why should
the Agency provide the president of its sponsor’ s
Claims Conference with a pension fund?
According to Chamach, Singer
did not tell him in the clinic why he was in such a hurry. Chamach
did not question the nature of the transactions: “He was the boss.” In his
wildest dreams Chamach did not imagine July 1st
to be the date marking his first day of unemployment. From his point of view,
the transaction was simply a financial decision made by the WJC.
The dollar account in the above mentioned Geneva UBS-branch is officially owned by
the “Congrềs Juif Mondial”. Singer was a co-signer of the account, the
bookkeeper emphasizes, even though he himself was the only one who was
authorized to sign in the Geneva account. Did he know about the account? “Yes”, Chamach says. Was he the only one who knew about it? “No,
everybody knew about it”, at least in Geneva, the fired bookkeeper claims.
According to certain documents found, everybody else
involved swears to their innocence, including legal advisor Daniel Lack,
who due to professional ethics could not give Tachles
any information. Documents show that Isi Leibler, first vice president of the WJC, as well as advisor
Elan Steinberg and other members of the higher echelon, did not have any knowledge of the account. Steinberg , too, refuses to speak to the press.
If somebody was still unaware of the existence of this
account they were going to be informed of it in a movie-like scene: Singer had
the entire contents of the account transferred to his friend and legal
representative Zwi Barak in
Tel-Aviv. But both he and Barak had overlooked the
fact, and were also not informed by the bank, that there could be expenses
involved. The amount of 40 dollars was charged to the WJC account as an
overdraft. This is the reason, or at least the claim has been made, that the
account was discovered through a bank statement in October of 2003, three
months after the transfer to Tel-Aviv was made. Tachles
was not able to discover where the bank statements had been sent to before.
Apparently in October 2003 the WJC office in New York was informed of the account. In March 2004 legal
advisor Maya Ben Haim-Rosen was fired given a week’s notive, after having worked in the WJC-office in Geneva
for only one year (Tachles reports). She has subsequently sued
the WJC for unlawful termination. In April 2004 Alfred Donath,
president of the SIG (Swiss Organization of Jewish Communities), wrote a letter
addressed to the WJC-leadership and is still waiting for an answer (Tachles reports). In July Daniel Lack wrote to the
WJC. But what has happened between October 2003 and today?
Lack demanded what Donath and Isi Leibler had already asked for: An independent investigation
of what had occurred in Geneva. Others have demanded an auditing of the WJC in New York to clarify why Singer transferred funds to Geneva and later to Tel-Aviv and whether this is the only
case at hand.
The SIG executive will decide on October 21st
whether to write another letter and demand an investigation of the Geneva events. Opinions are, as Tachles
reports, split.