In a setback to its chairman, Jack Rosen, the American Jewish Congress voted this week to separate the organization from the Council for World Jewry, an offshoot dealing with international issues that he also heads. The vote, initiated by a resolution from the Dallas region of AJCongress at the national annual meeting in Washington, D.C., this week, was passed by a wide margin and will go into effect Sept. 1, officials told The Jewish Week. Critics within the Congress had complained that it was improper for Rosen to chair both groups, and that the Council operated more independently than had been planned when it was created in 2003, at times taking positions that embarrassed the parent group. A report in The Jewish Week (“AJCongress Chair
On The Hot Seat,” Jan. 11) focused on the controversy, noting that Rosen, who was president of AJCongress from 1998 to 2003 and has been chair since then, was seen in his Council role as uncomfortably close to autocratic world leaders like Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, whom he has praised as a moderate, and Russian president Vladimir Putin. As further evidence of an effort to limit Rosen’s power, the AJCongress delegates also voted this week to reinstitute term limits for regional presidents. Rosen has been accused of stacking key lay roles with friends and business associates.
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