Content area
Full Text
Barak's Favorite Peace Group Loses Its Founder
JERUSALEM -- With a possible deal with Syria and final status negotiations on Israel's horizon, the Israel Policy Forum has its work cut out for it. Now, the organization, which works to further American support for and involvement in Israel's negotiations with its Arab neighbors, will have to move forward without the presence of its founding executive, Jonathan Jacoby.
Mr. Jacoby has announced that he will be leaving the Israel Policy Forum, an organization he helped found in 1993. Mr. Jacoby is saying that, for the time being, he will devote his energy to Bronznick Jacoby LLC, a consulting company that works with not-for-profit organizations and that Mr. Jacoby co-founded in 1997.
In a sense, Mr. Jacoby is leaving the Israel Policy Forum at the organization's peak. Since Prime Minister Barak's election in May, Mr. Barak has given the group significant time and attention, raising the prominence of the organization as well as the eyebrows of Jewish leaders from more traditional and established groups. When Mr. Barak traveled to America on his first official visit as prime minister, he met not only with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations but also with the IPF, and the president of the organization, Jack Ben... was seated across from the prime minister during a Friday dinner at a New York hotel. In November, when Mr. Barak was not able to attend the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities because of airplane damage in Manchester, England, he nonetheless flew to America in...