The Jewish Agency for Israel

"There is fear in the selection committee that if there’s no real chairman during the Ukraine crisis, the Jewish Agency’s reputation will be hurt dramatically," one of the candidates said.

The emissaries of the Jewish Agency will move to a temporary mission to open in the city of Lviv, until a reassessment of the situation early next week.

The 10-member selection committee of the Jewish Agency has been unable to make a decision for the last 8½ months on who will head that organization.

Natan Sharansky says that the Israeli politicians have been abusing the role of chairman of the Jewish Agency and treating it only as an opportunity to offer a job to fellow politicians

The Jewish Agency was unable to agree on a new chairman at their recent meeting and will try to come to an agreement before the Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting on February 27.

The Jewish Agency has the potential to play its most important role since 1948, when it fostered the first realization of Jewish sovereignty in nearly 2,000 years.

The time has come to ask: Is the role of the Chair of the Jewish Agency to serve as a global Jewish leader, or merely to function as political patronage to solve domestic coalition challenges?

Sources involved in the process said they did not feel they needed to hurry, because the agency's board of governors will not be meeting until February.

There is a strong possibility that the committee will receive a request from Lapid to extend the deadline.

The new leader of the Jewish Agency must address critical issues of concern to all Jews, rather than focusing on divisive agendas that will only serve to alienate various groups of Jews.