Obama taps Adam Szubin as sanctions czar

Soon-to-be Treasury undersecretary will be third Jew to fill post; helped found DC Minyan

By JTA 18 April 2015, 3:31 am 4

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Director of Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control Adam Szubin. (screen capture: Youtube/HouseResourceOrg.)

President Barack Obama nominated Adam Szubin to be the top Treasury official monitoring sanctions compliance.

Szubin, nominated Thursday to be undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, would if confirmed by the US Senate be the third Jewish undersecretary in the role.

He would follow David Cohen, who early this year became deputy director of the CIA, and Stuart Levey, who shaped the office’s role in enforcing Iran sanctions as an undersecretary who straddled the Bush and Obama administrations, from 2004-2011. Szubin has served as acting undersecretary since Cohen’s departure.

Szubin, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been a senior official in the sanctions enforcement regime since 2006, when he was named director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

In 2002, he helped found DC Minyan, an Orthodox congregation based on egalitarian principles.