World Jewish Congress director Adam H. Koffler has pledged US$ 100,000 to advance the organization’s Young Professionals Diplomatic Corps (YPDC). Koffler’s announcement comes days after the election of Ronald S. Lauder and Matthew Bronfman as the new leaders of the WJC. “This donation will strengthen the WJC’s Young Professionals Diplomatic Corps and give us the ability to train and engage even more young diplomats,” said Lauder said. “The WJC remains committed to strengthening and training the Jewish community’s next generation of global leaders and the YPDC is the only one of its kind to do so.”
“As a young leader, I know how important it is to have proper tools and skills. Adam Koffler's generous contribution will help young men and women receive the necessary training to don the mantle of global Jewish leadership,” said the new chairman of the Governing Board, Matthew Bronfman.
“After our new leaders assured me of their continued support for this program, I felt it necessary to do the same,” said Koffler, who is the lay director of the YPDC and a board member of the WJC Foundation, which will receive the grant. “Through the program, young Jewish leaders have been given the resources and the ability to effectively represent the Jewish people in meetings of international importance from the Red Cross, to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States, and everywhere in between.”
The Young Professionals Diplomatic Corps was created by the WJC Governing Board in February 2006 and since then has trained dozens of young professionals between the ages of 28 and 40 to be the next generation of Jewish diplomats. As “ambassadors of the Jewish people” they have participated actively in meetings which led to the acceptance of Israel’s Magen David Adom into the International Federation of the Red Cross, in September’s United Nations General Assembly, and in other conferences around the world.
