Ex-IDF general Doron Almog picked as new Jewish Agency chairman

By Judah Ari Gross 16 June 2022, 5:16 pm

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Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.

Doron Almog, then the head of the Prime Minister's Office directorate for economic and community development of the Negev Bedouin, during a discussion in the Knesset on December 23, 2013. (Flash90)

Doron Almog has been nominated as the next chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, ending a more than year-long stalemate in which the semi-governmental body has been run by an interim head, after previous chairman Isaac Herzog was named president last year.

Numerous attempts to find a replacement for Herzog had failed as no candidate was able to get the nine out of 10 votes necessary to secure the nomination from the selection committee.

Almog, a former Israel Defense Forces general who now runs a widely lauded rehabilitation village in the Negev desert, is widely seen as a consensus candidate. He was chosen unanimously by the nominating committee, according to a Jewish Agency spokesperson.

Almog’s nomination will now need to be approved by the Jewish Agency board of governors at its plenary hearing next month, though this is largely a formality.