John Ruskay Announces Resignation, Steered Federation Through Fiscal Crisis

Long Tenure: John Ruskay will leave the helm of UJA-Federation of New York next year after 15 years. Image by getty images
John Ruskay will resign as head of the UJA-Federation of New York in mid-2014, leaving a position he has held since 1999.
UJA-Federation, which calls itself the largest Jewish philanthropic organization in the world, had revenue of $234 million in 2011. The organization said that it had raised $2.7 billion over the course of Ruskay’s tenure.
Despite the 2008 economic collapse, UJA-Federation’s endowment has grown dramatically under Ruskay’s leadership. Yet questions about the Jewish communal umbrella group’s future linger amidst findings from the UJA’s own surveys that show New York’s Jewish population changing dramatically.
“If you read the Forward in the ‘90s, they were counting the Federations out,” Ruskay said. “Jews have always wanted an entity that comes together to say we’re going to take care of the Jewish community and the Jewish people wherever they are.”
Ruskay will be nearly 68 years old when he steps down as CEO. He said that the organization has already hired a search firm to find his replacement. He plans to spend time with family, and to work on projects related to Israel education.
Prior to arriving at UJA-Federation in 1993, Ruskay earned a doctorate in political science at Columbia University. He was an activist with Breira, a short-lived left-wing Jewish group formed in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war to advocate for mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians.
“This has been a fabulous, wonderful professional journey,” Ruskay said. “It’s also time to move on a little bit, to create some room for others.”
Among his proudest achievements at Federation, Ruskay cited the organization’s response to the economic crisis in 2008 and to Hurricane Sandy.
“New York is a thriving Jewish community,” Ruskay said. “So many institutions are vibrant and thriving…. [W]e’ve had a role in seeding and supporting some of that renewal and vitality.”
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 Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Ben Shapiro, Emily Damari among torch lighters for Israel’s Independence Day ceremony
-
Fast Forward Larry David’s ‘My Dinner with Adolf’ essay skewers Bill Maher’s meeting with Trump
-
Sports Israeli mom ‘made it easy’ for new NHL player to make history
-
Communications The Forward Announces Gifts of Domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org by Elie Hirschfeld and his wife Sarah Hirschfeld, MD
-
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.