For decades, the unofficial arrangement was that the head of the Jewish Agency would make as much the prime minister of Israel, but chairman Natan Sharansky’s pay in 2010 totaled $214,000 – 30 percent more than Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who appointed him and made $164,000 pre-tax in 2010.

This may not seem to some as an astronomic sum for the head of an international organization, but the Jewish Agency is a public Israeli organization, based in Jerusalem, Sharansky’s home town.

But Sharansky is not the agency’s highest earner, in fact in 2010 he was only number four on the list – that distinction goes to the CEO and president of Jewish Agency International Development (JAID ), the agency’s chief fundraiser, Dr. Misha Galperin who is based in New York. JAFI paid Dr. Galperin $478,000 in 2010, according to the IRS report. This isn’t his real salary though, as Galperin began working for the agency only in June 2010 – $478,000 was his pay for only seven months. Galperin’s annual remuneration, including expenses and benefits, is nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

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A former practicing psychologist, Galperin was the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Washington, DC, and before that was the number two at the New York federation. His recruitment by the agency was heralded as a major coup, and was even presented as a budget-saving move as Galperin’s new position was to consolidate the role of JAFI North America’s CEO with the agency’s director of financial resource development who was previously based at the headquarters in Jerusalem. But Galperin makes nearly twice what the previous CEO, Maxyne Finkelstein, earned. Jeff Kaye, the preceding director of financial resource development made barely a quarter of Galperin’s price tag. (Kaye, who left the agency, received a year’s pay in reparation).

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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