Moshe Rivlin for the past 11 years Director General of the Jewish Agency, is to become chairman of the Jewish National Fund Directorate, it was widely reported here today. The reports have not been officially confirmed, but there has been no denial. Rivlin will succeed Yaacov Tsur, the veteran diplomat and former envoy to Paris, who retired from the JNF chairmanship earlier this year.
Rivlin’s appointment was reportedly initiated by Jewish Agency Chairman Yosef Almogi. It represents a major step forward career-wise for Rivlin. In effect, it is a leap from the “civil service” ranks of the Jewish Agency organization to the “ministerial” level. The chairman of the JNF Directorate is ex-officio a member of the Jewish Agency-World Zionist Organization Executive, the “cabinet” of the overall organization.
Rivlin, 51, a scion of one of Jerusalem’s oldest-established Ashkenazi families–his great grandfather was one of the first Jerusalem Jews to live beyond the Old City walls and became known as “the builder” of new Jewish suburbs–served as a Consul in New York in the 1950s. The appointment, which must be formally made by the JNF Directorate, is likely to go into effect coincidentally with the World Zionist Congress early in 1977.
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