Obama Taps Tom Bernstein for Second Term Chairing Holocaust Memorial

The DC Holocaust Memorial Museum. Image by Getty Images

By JTA December 6, 2015

President Barack Obama named Tom Berstein, a major backer of his presidential campaigns, to a second five-year term chairing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Tom Bernstein. Image by File

Bernstein is the president of Chelsea Piers, the Manhattan sports and entertainment complex, and the vice chairman of Human Rights First, a watchdog group.

Bernstein co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with George W. Bush in the early 1990s and supported Bush’s campaigns for the presidency in 2000 and 2004.

Bernstein was among a small group of big-name Republican donors who switched parties to support Obama after he announced his candidacy in 2007. Obama first named him chairman in 2010.

Obama named as vice-chairman of the council, which administers the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Allan Holt, a senior partner at The Carlyle Group, a major lobbying shop. Holt had been name to the council board in 2014.

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