Elan Steinberg, WJC Official, Dies at 59
Elan Steinberg, the former World Jewish Congress executive vice president who helped lead efforts to obtain restitution for properties stolen during the Holocaust, has died.
Steinberg, 59, died in New York on Friday after a brief struggle with cancer, said Menachem Rosensaft, who, like Steinberg, is a vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.
Steinberg helped lead efforts in the 1990s that led Swiss banks, European governments and other entities to compensate victims of the Holocaust and their descendants.
He left the WJC in 2004 in the midst of an internal battle subsequent to reports of mismanagement of funds at the organziation.
Steinberg was seen as allied with Isi Liebler, then the WJC’s senior vice president. Liebler had spearheaded efforts to uncover the wrongdoing but was isolated because he was also believed to be attempting to take over the organization from its then chairman, Edgar Bronfman, who was not implicated in the wrongdoing.
“Elan was a passionate advocate for the Jewish people, for the State of Israel, and for any Jew anywhere in the world who was persecuted or threatened,” Rosensaft said in a statement. “His brilliant mind and his great heart have no equal and are irreplaceable. He died tragically all too young, and the entire Jewish community is orphaned today.”
He is survived by his wife Sharon, his sons Max and Harry, his daughter Lena, and his brother Alex.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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
