Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Joel Levy Set To Be Named Center for Jewish History Chief

Joel Levy, a former official at the Anti-Defamation League, is poised to become the new top executive at the Center for Jewish History, the Forward has learned.

Levy’s appointment to run the Manhattan institution is expected to be approved at a meeting of the Center’s board later this week, according to several well-placed sources at the Center.

Levy was most recently director of development for the not-for-profit Vera Institute of Justice. Previously, he served as New York regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

This year has been a turbulent one for the Center, which houses one of the world’s largest and most important collections of Jewish art, archives and artifacts Its longtime top executive, chief operating officer Michael S. Glickman, resigned in May.

In August, the two billionaire co-chairmen of the Center’s board, Joseph Steinberg and William Ackman, stepped down.

The Center is home to five Jewish institutions: YIVO, the Leo Baeck Institute, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Yeshiva University Museum and the American Sephardi Federation.

Each of the partners has its own separate operations and board.

Steinberg and Ackman both advocated an idea to streamline the Center by bringing the five boards under one single board of directors.

Amy Goldman Fowler, vice chairman of the Center’s board, recently told the Forward that such an idea had been considered, but she declined to elaborate.

Fowler said that the Center’s board would discuss plans to streamline the running of the Center, and other cost-cutting measures, in the coming weeks.

Contact Paul Berger at [email protected] or on Twitter @pdberger

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.