Last week large Russian businessman Moshe Kantor was elected Chairman of the Board of Governors of the General Assembly of the European Jewish Congress (EJC). On the whole, this was a rather ordinary meeting of the EJC General Assembly. Representative of French Jews Pierre Besnainou was elected a new EJC President, Mr. Serge Cwajgenbaum was reelected Secretary General of the EJC and, accordingly, 17 members of the EJC Executive were elected.
Mr. Moshe Kantor’s election to such a high post in this, the most authoritative European Jewish organization has become a prominent event solely because he is a Russian Jew – Jews from the CIS had never played a somewhat prominent role in the EJC before. Of course, he deserved this election – thus, the EJC General Assembly appraised Mr. Moshe Kantor’s merits as one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Russia, as well as the fact that it was Mr. Kantor who became an initiator of convening on January 27, 2005 of the International World Leaders Forum in commemoration of the 60 th anniversary of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau liberation. Marking the importance of Mr. Moshe Kantor’s election to this post, Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Rabinovich emphasized that for him as a leader of the Jewish community in Ukraine it is a sign that in the Jewish world, at a long last, leaders start to be estimated by their merits and personal qualities, and not by their belonging to this or that country…

What else can I say?! When will a day finally come, when election of this or that “Russian” Jew to this or that responsible post in international Jewish organizations do not provoke surprise and delight with anyone and are perceived as a matter of course?!

“RI” newspaper, No. 27(443)