Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors Extends Leket’s Term Through October

As anticipated, the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors on Sunday extended Yehiel Leket’s term as acting chairman of the agency and the World Zionist Organization until its next meeting in October.

The move essentially buys time for the Diaspora fund-raisers to try to find another candidate for the post, while Leket will use the extension to demonstrate that the best man already occupies it.

Leket was appointed acting chairman in February to replace Simcha Dinitz, who stepped aside after being indicted on charges of fraud related to the alleged misuse of agency credit cards.

The struggle over the chairman’s post reflects the complicated organizational structure of the Jewish Agency.

The agency’s $500 million budget represents the bulk of the money raised for Israel by the United Jewish Appeal and by Keren Hayesod, UJA’s international sibling.

The structure attempts to balance power between Diaspora fund-raising organizations and the WZO, composed of democratically chosen representatives of Israel’s political parties and Diaspora Zionist organizations.

The chairman is elected within the Israeli party system but must be ratified by the fund raisers.

The Board of Governors was meeting this week against the backdrop of calls by Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin to dismantle the Jewish Agency because it is an outmoded form of Israel-Diaspora partnership.

Rabin has dismissed such calls as nonsense and damaging to the fund-raising campaigns.

At the board meeting Sunday, Board of Governors Chairman Mendel Kaplan, who represents the fund-raisers, praised Leket’s job performance “under very difficult circumstances.”

Kaplan said, “There is nothing more we could have asked of him.”

PRAISE BUT NO ENDORSEMENT

But Kaplan appeared to go to great lengths to explain that the extension was a technical requirement and not an endorsement of Leket for the top job.

Leket’s acting chairmanship ended officially on June 10, rendering him unable to sign official agency documents without a board-approved extension.

Kaplan said that while it is in the “best interest of the organization” to pick a permanent chairman as soon as possible, the board has been unable to come to an agreement with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a candidate.

Rabin heads the Labor Party, whose Central Committee must elect the chairman of the Jewish Agency and WZO.

Kaplan and members of the board’s committee, which must approve the candidate for chairman, have in recent days informed Rabin they want former Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat for the job.

Lahat recently resigned from the Likud Party but does not belong to Labor.

That means he cannot be put forward by Rabin without Rabin flouting the rules and antagonizing his party at a time when the party is already riddled with chaos and infighting.

Fund-raising sources said Rabin’s weak posture means they will “sit tight until October.”

“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” said one who asked not to be identified.

The Jewish Agency executive also approved Sunday a controversial contract agreement calling for the Jewish Agency to be the exclusive recipient in Israel of funds raised by the United Israel Appeal and Keren Hayesod.

The UIA is the conduit by which UJA funds reach the Jewish Agency.

The agreement is slated to last five years with an option for either party to terminate the arrangement after three.

But the agreement has not yet been signed.

Whether it will be signed, sources say, depends on whether the Zionist General Council — the WZO’s legislative body — approves some fundamental structural changes in the Zionist organization aimed, in part, at depoliticizing the Zionist body.

The Zionists have scheduled a secret ballot on the proposals for Wednesday night.