page_title: World Jewish Congress
section_title: Leadership changes
hierarchical_section_title: World Jewish Congress / History / 1950s–1980s / Leadership changes
caption_attribution_description: English: World Jewish Congress President Nahum Goldmann (standing) opens the Sixth Plenary Assembly of the WJC in Jerusalem. Seated in the front row, right: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
context_page_description: The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people." Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, US, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem, Israel; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
context_section_description: At the WJC Plenary in 1975, longtime WJC leader Nahum Goldmann (then 80) stood again for WJC president. Several Israeli delegates, notably from the Herut movement, but also former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, opposed Goldmann's re-election for his criticism of Israel's policies, notably with respect to the peace process.
  Two years later, in 1977, the American real estate developer and erstwhile president of B'nai B'rith International Philip Klutznick succeeded Goldmann as WJC president. In 1979, when Klutznick was named US secretary of commerce by President Jimmy Carter, the Canadian-American businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr. took over as acting head of the organization. Bronfman was formally elected WJC president by the Seventh Plenary Assembly, held in Jerusalem in January 1981.
caption: Nahum Goldmann addressing the Sixth WJC Plenary in Jerusalem in 1975. Seated on the right: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
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