Natan Sharansky and Ronald Lauder Call for Reform at Claims Conference

Changes Needed: Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, says the Claims Conference should be reviewed by external agencies after a $57 million fraud. Image by getty images

By JTA July 10, 2013

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder called on the Claims Conference to be reviewed by outside agencies in an investigation following the disclosure of a $57 million fraud scheme.

Sharansky and Lauder, according to the Jerusalem Post, released a joint statement on the first day of the Claims Conference board meeting on Tuesday criticizing the Claims Conference’s leadership for not disclosing a 2001 letter warning about the fraud to the organization’s board of directors — in addition to not disclosing a subsequent report on the letter.

For 15 years, Claims Conference employees embezzled $57 million meant to be restitution for Holocaust survivors. The scandal broke in 2009.

Sharansky and Lauder said in the statement that a committee tasked with recommending changes to the Claims Conference be made up mostly of representatives of other Jewish organizations.

“For far too long there has been a gap between the tireless efforts of the Claims Conference on behalf of the Jewish people and the growing perception that the organization is run like a closed club, with little transparency or accountability in its decision-making process,” Sharansky told the Post.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO