Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Natan Sharansky Wins Second Term as Head of Israel’s Jewish Agency

Natan Sharansky was elected today to a second four-year term as chairman of the Jewish Agency in a unanimous vote by the organization’s Board of Governors. Deputy Chairman Rany Trainin was also reelected to a second term.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking on Monday to the Board of Governors in Jerusalem, urged its members to extend Sharansky’s appointment.

Sharansky, a former dissident, was incarcerated for nine years in the Soviet Union. After his release in 1986, he immigrated to Israel where he was reunited with his wife Avital. He served as a member of the Knesset for nine years and as industry and trade minister, interior minister, housing and construction minister, Jerusalem affairs minister and deputy prime minister. After leaving political life, he was elected chairman of the Jewish Agency in 2009.

In his role as chairman of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky has put greater emphasis on building bridges between Israel and Diaspora Jewry and less focus on what was traditionally the organization’s outstanding mission of promoting aliyah.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.