American Jewish Committee Leadership Program

Folks, let it not be said that I dont respond to my readers. After several of you complained that I deigned to comment on the Jimmy Carter controversy without actually reading the book, I have gone out and pruchased a copy at the inflated price of $30 and am now in the middle of it. So far I can say that its mind-numbingly boring for the most part, even when going over the fascinating history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past 30 years; some of which I witnessed myself as a young man (like Sadat's 1977 visit to Jerusalem). But I'll leave my political analysis for the next posting. In the meantime, please read my piece on the AJC Russian Leadership Program, which ran last Sunday in the New York Daily News. Unfortunately, it did not appear on the DN's website for some reason, but here is the piece as I wrote it.By Walter Ruby

Boris Serebro, a 50-year-old attorney from White Plains who came to New York from Odessa at the age of 30 and Yana Stunis, a 24-year-old Manhattan resident and trader at a major New York bank, who arrived here with her family from Moldova as an 8-year-old, are a generation apart with very different life experiences, but both have long seen their respective paths into philanthropic and political life as running through the Russian Jewish community.

So both Serebro and Stunis were gratified when they were invited a year ago to join the American Jewish Committee’s Russian Jewish Leadership Program, a cooperative venture of the AJC and a group of Russian Jewish activists launched in 1997 to train current and potential leaders of the Russian Jewish community in advocacy for Israel, leadership skills, and building ethnic coalitions. Since the beginning of the program, more than 200 people, including nearly all of the major political and organizational leaders of the New York Russian Jewish community, have graduated the year-long AJC Leadership Program and applied the skills learned there to organize the Russian community and help Russian Jews to participate more fully in American Jewish life.

Serebro, a partner at the Manhattan law firm of Olonoff, Afen and Serebro, said he found the AJC Leadership Program a good fit for him because it is run by and for Russian Jews but under the aegis of a “not-for-profit well established organization outside of the Russian community. The Leadership Program makes a huge effort to bridge the gap between Russian Jews and mainstream American Jews. During lectures and discussions headed by some of the AJC’s top experts on American foreign and domestic politics and American Jewish life, Russian Jews are exposed to ideas and opinions they usually don’t have a chance to hear within the Russian community. I learned a great deal about many political and social issues.”

Despite being, in her own words “more American than Russian,” Stunis, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, said she grew up in the Russian community in Brooklyn with a strong sense that “We Russians are a distinct community.” Stunis said, “The AJC Leadership Program gave me the chance for the first time to be a part of a group that represents the interests of the Russian community as a whole. I also had the opportunity to meet incredible people of all ages and positions in life; many of whom are terrific mentors and role models.” Stunis added, “I was proud to represent the younger generation within the Leadership Program and let the leaders of our community to know that there are people of my generation who share their interests and pride in our roots.”

At a festive event held earlier this month which marked both the ‘graduation’ from the AJC Russian Leadership Program of Serebro, Stunes and 33 other members of the Class of 2006, and the 10th Anniversary of the creation of the Leadership Program, some 200 prominent Russian Jews, including New York State Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny, financier Felix Frenkel, Dr. Igor Branovan, President of Russian American Jews for Israel and Leonard Petlakh, executive director of the Kings Bay Y, gathered to reminisce as to how the Russian Leadership Program impacted their lives. Peretz Goldmacher, an 87-year-old community organizer, widely seen as the patriarch of the Russian Jewish community, recalled that when he and sociologist Sam Kliger visited several American Jewish organizations ten years ago and pleaded with them to sponsor the first ever Russian Jewish leadership program; “We were received polite receptions and nice smiles, but not much else. Only when I called the American Jewish Committee did we find people like Dr. Steve Bayme (director of AJC's department of Contemporary Jewish Life) David Harris (AJC executive vice president) who were willing to seriously consider our proposal and to take a chance on a pilot program.”

Kliger, who was eventually appointed as head of Russian Jewish Affairs at the American Jewish Committee and head of the Russian Leadership Program, said, “It makes me enormously proud to see that over the past decade, graduates of this program have permeated the entire American social fabric, whether it is in politics, business or social services. This program has greatly strengthened the Russian community and has built bridges of understanding between Russian Jews and mainstream American Jews. By accomplishing those goals, this program is clearly strengthening the American Jewish community as well.”

In a warm salute to David Harris, Brook-Krasny, who recently became the first Russian-speaker elected to political office in the United States, compared the AJC leader, who is unique among American Jewish leaders in speaking Russian and having been expelled from Moscow during the early 1970’s for making contacts with Soviet Jewish activists, to Martin Luther King, remarking that that just as King built bridges between blacks and whites, Harris helped to unite American-born Jews and Russian-speaking Jews. Brook-Krasny said that Harris “convinced people on his side (of the divide between the two communities) that the people on our side were worth reaching out to.”

Clearly moved by the affection shown to him by members of the the Russian Leadership Program, Harris told the crowd that his encounters with Soviet Jews over 30 years ago represented the defining moment in the development of his own Jewish identity. “You opened my eyes to the joy of being a Jew, rather than the ‘oi’” Harris said. “Many of you express gratitude to the AJC, but we have much more to thank you for than vice versa. You bring courage, strength and passion to American Jewish life and we badly need it.”

Harris concluded, “When the President of Iran says that he wants to destroy Israel, some say, ‘He doesn’t mean it seriously,’ but because of your historical experience in the Soviet Union, you take such remarks with deadly seriousness. I believe it is your job to awaken American Jews to the realities of the world.” Harris concluded that while “American-born and Russian Jews will never look at the world in exactly the same way, we need to continue reaching out to each other through the Russian Jewish Leadership Program and other means. Each of us has his own path, but we are on the same journey, with a common destiny.”