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Son of Austrian refugees and born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Israel Singer came to the World Jewish Congress from the academic community. He taught Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at the City University of New York and, from 1969 to 1971, taught Political Theory in the Department of Politics at BarIlan University in Israel. He made two brief departures from the academic world, to serve in the office of the Mayor of New York during the Lindsay Administration and, later, to assist President Ford’s Administration during his reelection campaign. Mr. Singer, a rabbi ordained in 1964 at Yeshiva Torah voDaath, describes his religious views as “… not by nature hard line, not uncompromising, but they are principled. I try to run my life with a relatively fundamentalist view. I go by a Zionist national ideology, but I am very far to the right on religious principles. I wouldn’t even classify myself as Modern Orthodox. I don’t belong to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ Judaism.” Mr. Singer speaks to world leaders with the same respect, tone and clarity he uses with rabbis and students, and his agenda never changes. It is always to protect the Jewish people, to guarantee Jewish freedom and to get justice for the Jews. Paul A. Volcker, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank, who worked with Mr. Singer on the investigation of Swiss banks, says “He’s imbued with a strong sense of mission, and carries it out with energy, effectiveness and goodwill.” Mr. Singer met WJC founder president Nahum Goldmann in 1969, when Goldmann was trying to make contact with the Russians in order to make peace after the 1967 war. Mr. Singer was an activist on behalf of Soviet Jewry. He then became a WJC expert on East- West relations, then an operative, and then the WJC’s major activist, which is about the time Edgar M. Bronfman joined the World Jewish Congress and their collaboration began. Within the framework of his WJC activity, during the last few years Mr. Singer has traveled in excess of a million miles and has visited almost every Jewish community on all continents. His was the first official visit by a representative of an international Jewish organization to the then Soviet Union, where he negotiated in Moscow with top authorities and was instrumental in the release of well-known Prisoners of Zion. As chairman of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, he has maintained negotiations to benefit Holocaust survivors and heirs of Holocaust victims around the world. He has negotiated with Germany and Austria for pensions and restitution for survivors. He has called on the governments of countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union concerning restitution of Jewish communal and private property confiscated during the Nazi period and subsequently the Communist regimes. And he continues to be key in obtaining from the Swiss and other implicated countries landmark agreements and settlement for the return of all assets to the rightful heirs of Holocaust victims.
In February 2006 he became Chairman of the WJC Policy Council. He and his wife Evelyne have five children and a number of grandchildren.
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