Natan Sharansky agrees to stay on as Jewish Agency chief

Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, will head the organization for an extra year.

The board of governors announced today that Sharansky agreed to its request that he stay a year past his second four-year term ending in June. The announcement comes at the closing plenary of the board’s winter meetings in Tel Aviv.

Sharansky had said in September that he would not remain past June, despite a request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

His recent efforts include trying to secure a compromise for an egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall and calling for wider recognition by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate of conversions done by rabbis outside the Jewish state.

“Although I was skeptical of the value of remaining for an additional year, what has taken place in recent months has convinced me that it is important that I remain,” Sharansky says in a statement.

— JTA