CPMAJO taps as next chief Dianne Lob of HIAS

(JTA)—The nominating committee of US Jewry’s foreign policy umbrella has tapped as its next chair the immediate past chairwoman of the lead Jewish immigration advocacy group—one that has clashed repeatedly with the Trump administration.

Dianne Lob of HIAS is the pick of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group announced Friday. The chair is the lay leader of the Presidents Conference.

HIAS and the Trump administration have clashed repeatedly over the administration’s restrictive immigration policies and has been among the lead plaintiff in lawsuits seeking to inhibit the president’s initiatives.

The Presidents Conference, which was established in the 1950s as the community’s liaison to the executive branch, usually seeks out lay leaders whose views are in sync with a sitting president. Its leaders are chosen from among past lay leaders of constituent groups.

Lob, a New Yorker and an executive at an investment management firm, will run unopposed in the full vote by the Presidents Conference’s 50-plus members on April 28. A daughter of German Jewish refugees, she would be the third woman to lead the organization.

Lob, 65, would succeed Arthur Stark, a past chairman of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

William Daroff, the organization’s CEO, and Malcolm Hoenlein, its vice chairman, noted the pandemic crisis in the statement announcing Lob’s nomination.

“During this unique time in Jewish life, as we all struggle with the uncertainty of the COVID-19 crisis, Dianne Lob brings a unique and valued outlook from her leadership position as the chair of one of the most storied organizations in American Jewish life and from her senior positions in the financial industry,” they wrote.