May 1, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4597
 |
 Shalom TV Interview from 2010 dealing with this topic. |
Every day we hear additional heartbreaking stories depicting the
appalling suffering of destitute elderly Holocaust survivors denied
elementary needs such as food, medicine and other basic services to
enable them to live out their remaining years with dignity.
In addition, the scandal of the $57 million embezzled by Claims Conference employees seems unending.
A number of the perpetrators
were found guilty of theft and sentenced to prison terms. But spokesmen
for survivor groups monitoring the ongoing trials were stunned when the
Prosecutor from the Manhattan US Attorney General’s Office sought to
suppress questioning by the Defense alluding to an alleged lack of
oversight and negligence by the Claims Conference management. The
implication was that had management fulfilled its obligations and
appropriately implemented checks and balances and other procedures, the
scam may have been averted.
There are now concerns that
more funds may have been stolen and that the greatest fraud in Jewish
organizational history may even exceed $57 million. When the scandal
first broke, the Claims Conference had initially suggested that merely
$350,000 was involved.
The theft was orchestrated over
a 15 year period by Claims Conference employees, including a senior
manager and six key staff from the New York head office.
Prior to that, in the wake of a
series of earlier scandals and highly questionable payments to
consultants and organizations, there had been public calls for greater
oversight of the multibillion dollar enterprise handling public funds.
But these appeals were contemptuously dismissed and management continued
to rely on only one part-time auditor to monitor a fund dispensing
billions of dollars until the fraud was exposed.
Moreover, those responsible for
supervising the enterprise, including the Chairman and Executive Vice
President under whose very noses the thefts took place, instead of
instituting an independent review to determine the facts, had the
chutzpah to actually congratulate themselves. Incredulously, they
“inspired” a board resolution, unblushingly expressing “complete
confidence in the leadership and management of the Claims Conference and
their commitment to the principals of transparency (including the
presentation of fair, accurate and comprehensive information regarding
its activities); the fair processing of claims under the various
programs it administers; the principles of integrity, fairness,
accountability, dialogue and service in operating its programs and
overall operations; and to abide by the highest ethical standards”.
It is simply mind-boggling that
Chairman Julius Berman and his Executive Vice President Greg Schneider
could succeed in shamelessly orchestrating such a Stalinist resolution
in response to calls for accountability in the wake of a $57+ million
dollar fraud which occurred on their watch.
Such contemptuous rejection of
all managerial accountability in the wake of such a massive fraud would
be inconceivable in any public company or government body where
resignations or dismissals would have been mandatory.
In the same vein, calls for a
genuinely independent forensic financial audit to review other divisions
to ensure that they had been operating professionally, were also
summarily ignored. Instead the management assured the Board that it had
investigated itself!
It is scandalous that the Board
representatives – who purportedly represent the global Jewish community
– failed to reject these resolutions and that none of them demanded
that under such circumstances, an independent investigation and review
were mandatory.
This failure of Board members
to exercise their fiduciary responsibilities is at the heart of the
problem within the Claims Conference. The organizational composition of
the Board remains largely unchanged since its establishment over sixty
years ago and is today completely out of sync with the changes that have
since occurred in Jewish life.
Board members meet annually
and, by and large, simply rubber stamp complex decisions and
recommendations proposed by the inner cabal, most of whom, including the
chairman, have been controlling the organization for too long without
term limits. That the Board has never in its history rejected an
allocations proposal highlights the lack of any genuine or effective
Board engagement. The absence of effective restraints, gives credence to
allegations that the management regards the organization as a personal
fiefdom rather than a vehicle entrusted by the Jewish people to disperse
sacred restitution funds.
To further complicate matters,
some board members face direct conflicts of interest because the
organizations they represent receive handouts.
At its last annual meeting,
under pressure, the Board did finally agree to appoint an ombudsman – a
request it had resisted for many years. Yet whether this role is being
implemented in a meaningful manner has yet to be confirmed.
Initially, the management also
“rejected” the recommendations of an independent review of German
heirless properties by a leading QC commissioned by the Board of
Deputies of British Jews (the Gruder Report). This review criticized the
moral conduct of the Claims Conference for its efforts in preventing
heirs from recovering stolen property from their families and demanded
greater transparency. Following intensified expressions of public
outrage and governmental inquiries, the Claims Conference belatedly
released lists of the properties concerned – but by then most had
already been surreptitiously sold on the open market.
These superficial adjustments
could not conceal the fact that the same small clique controls the
organization and its resources whilst Board members still fail to
appreciate the gravity of their fiduciary responsibilities and lack the
courage to confront their management.
Besides the lack of
accountability for the purloined $57+ million, a lack of transparency
still prevails in relation to funds allocation. Huge sums of money are
distributed to albeit worthy causes but totally unrelated to the
Holocaust such as hospitals, nursing homes, Israeli infrastructure,
Yeshivot and even Birthright. The response that Holocaust survivors
benefit from this is a red herring and could equally apply to railroads
or other forms of social welfare accessible to everyone. This led to
calls for a genuinely independent commission to review allocation
procedures - which were also rejected.
The German authorities have
behaved impeccably, even when close to $60 million of their taxpayer
funds were stolen under the responsibility of the Claims Conference. But
understandably, they have no desire to become engaged in internal
squabbles within the Jewish community. In fact, with the rapidly
diminishing number of survivors receiving support, they have used
residual funds in their budgets to widen the eligibility of recipients.
The overriding urgent challenge
today, as highlighted this week during the deliberations of the
Knesset’s Welfare, Labor and Health Committee, is to provide assistance
to the elderly survivors unable to afford basic food, medicine and other
basic necessities. This represents the greatest scandal in Jewish life
since the postwar era and it is our obligation to ensure that they are
enabled to live out their remaining years with a modicum of dignity.
We must demand that the Claims
Conference freeze all discretionary financial allocations and direct
them solely toward Holocaust survivors. That should be accompanied with
an effort to react like other responsible organizations in difficult
economic times and drastically reduce expenses. Few are aware of the
astronomical salaries paid to senior Claims Conference administrators.
For example, the CEO who presides over the paltry sums paid out to the
struggling survivors and has brazenly refused to accept any
accountability concerning the $57 million stolen under his watch,
receives a salary commensurate with that of the head of the
International Monetary Fund.
The failure of representatives
of Jewish organizations affiliated to the Claims Conference to raise
their voices in protest concerning these issues is simply
unconscionable.
The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.comHe may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Some of my recent articles:
American Jewish Leaders: Stop the Rot Now (April 23, 2013)
Independence Day and the Zionist Vision (April 15, 2013)
No comments:
Post a Comment