LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN
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Dear Fellow Zionists,
I am very honored and proud to serve as Chairman of the ZOA Board and to be able to
work with all of you. It has been a terrific year for ZOA. There are many positive accomplishments
to report on as you will read about in this Fall 2019 edition of the ZOA Report. Of
course, ZOA National President Mort Klein continues to do all that he does so well and it is
my privilege and pleasure to work with him on an almost daily basis.
I recently returned from Israel where ZOA Director of Special Projects Liz Berney and I
participated in meetings with executives from the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in
connection with planning for the upcoming World Zionist Congress (WZC) elections which
will take place between January 21, 2020 and March 11, 2020. The WZC elections, and
increasing the number of mandates for the ZOA slate, is a major strategic imperative for
ZOA. We will need everyone’s participation, support and, most importantly, your vote.
While I was in Israel, I also had the opportunity to accompany Yaakov Hagoel, Vice
Chairman of the WZO and Chairman of World Likud, to the Likud campaign headquarters at
the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds on election night in Israel, on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. It was a
wonderful opportunity to spend the late evening (and early morning) at the Likud campaign
headquarters with so many other committed Zionists from throughout Israel and several other
countries as well. I was interviewed by several international media outlets that night, and the
recognition and acknowledgement of the tremendous good work performed by ZOA was one
of the common themes I kept hearing as I was introduced as the Chairman of ZOA to new
friends and colleagues.
The accomplishments of ZOA are truly remarkable and outstanding for an organization our
size. Just to highlight a few of our recent achievements:
ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, led by its Director Susan Tuchman, has been a
leading force behind the recent noteworthy Department of Education, Civil Rights
Division, enforcement actions and notice letters to various colleges across the country, including
Rutgers University, the University of North Carolina and Duke University, relating to anti-Semitic
actions or activities on their campuses.
Liz Berney has been heavily involved in and the strength behind our WZC election effort.
Mort and I have also spent a significant amount of time to date on this, and we will continue
doing so through the end of the WZC election period on March 11, 2020. I again want to
encourage all of you to register to vote in the upcoming WZC elections and to vote for the
ZOA slate.
Our Capitol Hill Advocacy Mission expanded to 1½ days this year and may have been
our best Advocacy Mission ever, with appearances and presentations by over 30 Senators and
Congresspersons. This amazing effort and result was coordinated by our Washington, D.C.
Government Relations team, led so ably by its Director Dan Pollak and Deputy Director Joel
Kassiday.
Mark M kL Levenson, E
Esq.
Chairman of the Board