Morton Klein

Morton A. Klein
Born Gunzberg, Germany
Nationality American
Ethnicity Jewish
Occupation President of the Zionist Organization of America
Signature

Morton A. Klein is a German-born American economist, statistician, and Zionist activist. He is the president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).[1]

ZOA

In 1993, while serving as the organization’s Philadelphia chapter president, he was elected national president.[2]

The ZOA web site quotes the following from Klein's Encyclopaedia Judaica entry: "Klein revived a moribund Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) in the 1990s and made it one of the most out-spoken organizations on the American Jewish scene." [3]

It has been noted that he has steered the organization "to the right".[4][5]

Personal

He is a child of Holocaust survivors, born in a displaced persons camp in Gunzberg, Germany. He is an economist who served in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter Administrations. He has served as a biostatistician at UCLA School of Public Health and the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif. He has been a lecturer in mathematics and statistics at Temple University.[6]

Today, Klein is member of the International Board of Governors of the Ariel University Center of Samaria.[6]

His father was a Satmar chasid, an Orthodox Rabbi with semicha (religious ordination) from Rabbi Teitelbaum.[7] Mr. Klein said in a Jewish Press interview[8] regarding his father that "In Europe he had a long beard and black hat and was a rosh yeshiva in his early 20s. But he disagreed with the Satmars on Israel. My father loved Israel, so obviously this was transmitted to me."

Klein has Tourette syndrome.[9]

External links

References

  1. ↑ http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/news_view.asp?newsID=834, which states in a footnote that "Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis."
  2. ↑ Popper, Nathaniel (2006-04-14). "ZOA Pressed by Former Officials Over Guard’s Pay – The Jewish Daily Forward". Forward.com. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
  3. ↑ "4819-ZOA Report FL08.p5" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-12.
  4. ↑ he said in an interview here "We're not right wing. Everybody else is just very far left."
  5. ↑ example: speech described here
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "National President Morton A. Klein". ZOA.org. 2010-12-14. Retrieved 2010-12-14.
  7. ↑ "Morton Klein: Bibi Sent Wrong Message,Elliot Resnick, Jewish Press Staff Reporter". Jewishpress.com. 2009-06-24. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
  8. ↑ June 26, '09, p. 10
  9. ↑ ‘We want to expose the truth’: ZOA leader Morton Klein rallies support for Israel in meeting at Beth Tikvah in Naples, Naples News, Feb. 14, 2011