Robert Singer (Jewish leader)

Robert Singer (born in 1956 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine) is a Jewish organizational leader and former Israeli government official. Since May 2013, Singer has served as the chief executive officer and executive-vice president of the World Jewish Congress, the most senior professional of the international Jewish NGO.

Singer moved to Israel from Ukraine with his family at the age of 15. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Tel Aviv University in 1976. In 1996, he was awarded a Master of Science in Management Engineering from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Between 2005 and 2008, he completed several executive management courses at Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School. Singer is married to Anna and they have twin daughters.

Asked in an article published in the magazine Jewish life about what motivated him he once said that given that he had been born into a family of refuseniks in Ukraine he was encapsulated by an "unrelenting desire to assist Jews and gentiles with economic and educational development, enabling them to find a way out of the most dire of circumstances." Singer added: "Moving to Israel with my family at the age of 15 was the initial catalyst for me being motivated to invest myself wholeheartedly in helping to develop projects for educational and economic development in Israel and the Jewish community worldwide.”

In January 2013, it was announced that Singer would assume the top professional position at the World Jewish Congress which until then was that of secretary-general but changed to Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice-President when Singer took over at the WJC Plenary Assembly in Budapest in May 2013.

In his speech to the delegates in Budapest, Singer said to "every anti-Semite, every neo-Nazi, every anti-Israel: we are watching you, we are hearing you, we are reading you, and we will not allow you to continue spreading hatred and bigotry. We Jews are united, and we will prevail."

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