Monday, November 15, 2004

What is the WJC afraid of?

It seems like the World Jewish Congress is slowly being torn apart by the allegations of financial 'irregularities' which have been bandied about for some time now. After Elan Steinberg and Isi Liebler were booted out, you now have the chairman of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities threatening to pull out of the WJC unless the irregularities are investigated by an external auditor -- and the European Jewish Congress, in turn, is threatening to remove the chairman of the Swiss Federation from its own presiding board.
To an outsider, it certainly seems as if an external audit of the WJC is warranted; the internal audit, which WJC officials are saying should be enough, is being conducted by Stephen Herbits, a former employee of Seagrams -- hardly an objective figure. But regardless, we are quickly reaching the point where it would seem to be in the WJC's interests to do whatever it needs in order to clear its name and reputation, even if this means an external audit. What are they so afraid of???????
(And please don't say, 'a public row which will damage the Jewish people,' which is the line being taken by so many WJC spokespeople -- unless they reach a conclusive result, the long-term damage will be far worse).

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