John Ruskay To Leave Top Spot at UJA-Federation

John Ruskay Image by getty images
John Ruskay will be leaving his position as executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.

John Ruskay Image by getty images
The federation announced Ruskay’s departure on Tuesday. His last day as head of the nation’s largest federation will be on June 30, 2014.
Ruskay joined the federation in 1993 and has been CEO since 1999. In Ruskay’s time at the helm, UJA-Federation raised more than $2.7 billion and increased its endowment from $330 million to more than $860 million, according to the federation.
“I have been blessed to have a job that has enabled me to bring together three of my lifelong passions: my conviction that Judaism enhances life; my commitment to care for every being; and my belief in the value of community,” Ruskay said in a letter announcing his departure.
The search for Ruskay’s successor will be handled by the federation’s executive committee and guided by board chairwoman Alisa Doctoroff, the federation said.
Ruskay came to the federation from the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was vice chancellor. In the early 1980s, Ruskay was educational director of the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and earned a doctorate in political science from Columbia University.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture This Jewish New Yorker survived the Holocaust and the Hungarian Revolution, and is still helping others today
-
Fast Forward Trump says he and Netanyahu are ‘on the same side of every issue’ following talks on Iran, tariffs
-
Fast Forward California school board members accused of antisemitism during contentious meeting
-
Fast Forward Over 100 Chicago-area rabbis and cantors condemn Trump’s campus crackdown
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.