Biography - Lesley Weiss
Ron Sachs/CNPLesley Weiss is Director of Community Services and Cultural Affairs for NCSJ. (formerly National Conference on Soviet Jewry). She travels frequently to the former Soviet Union, where she coordinates democracy initiatives, community education and outreach efforts, and promotes partnerships between American Jewish communities and communities in the region. She monitors compliance by the governments of the region in the areas of free emigration and religious and cultural rights.
Lesley has extensive experience in program development and fundraising, community relations, legislative outreach, hate crimes training, combating anti-Semitism, and Holocaust education. She has worked closely with the governments of the former Soviet Union and the Jewish communities in the region on the restitution and preservation of Jewish communal property.
Lesley served in 2005 as a Public Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and Intolerance in Cordoba, Spain, and in 2007, to the follow-up Conference on Combating Discrimination and Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding in Bucharest, Romania. In addition, she has represented NCSJ at other OSCE meetings, including the 2006 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, and the 2010 Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination in Astana, Kazakhstan. In April 2011, President Obama appointed Lesley as a Member of the U.S. Commission to Protect America's Heritage Abroad.
Lesley previously positions include Associate Director of the Washington DC Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League where she organized and led missions to Eastern Europe to investigate anti-Semitism, monitored activities of extremist groups, directed a national diversity training institute focusing on racial, religious, and ethnic prejudice for Washington area educators, developed a Holocaust education and anti-Semitism awareness program for Catholic school educators, and investigated and resolved cases of individual discrimination complaints.
Lesley Weiss is a graduate of the Baltimore Institute for Jewish Communal Service (now the Darrell D. Friedman Institute). She received a B.A. in Jewish Studies from American University, a Master’s Degree in social work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work and a Master’s Degree in modern Jewish history from the Baltimore Hebrew University.
Read Trip Reports:Read Community Services Reports:
- Russia, Ukraine & Estonia 2007 (.pdf 277 K)
- UJF in Russia & Ukraine 2004 (.pdf 455 K)
- Republic of Georgia 2003 (.pdf 350 K)
- Azerbaijan 2003 (.pdf 640 K)
- Baltics 2002
- Russia 2002
- Ukraine 2000
Contact Lesley Weiss
- 2011 Stanford-Moscow-Warsaw Student Leadership Program
- 2010 Stanford-Kyiv Student Leadership Program
- 2009 Stanford-Moscow Student Leadership Program
- 2008 Washington-Moscow Student Leadership Program
- KehillaWatch: February 2003 (.pdf 200 K)
- KOLOT "Russia Project Takes Root"
- KOLOT: Fighting Domestic Violence (.pdf 360k)
- Texas-Russia Leadership and Advocacy Program
- Dnepropetrovsk-Boston Student Leadership Program (.pdf 430k)
...with BBI Executive Director Dan Mariaschin and refusenik activist Yosef Begun
...at the 2007 OSCE Conference in Bucharest, Romania with U.S. Delegation Co-Chair Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
...with Igor S. Neverov, Director of the North American Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
...at the 2005 OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and Intolerance in Cordoba, Spain, serving as an advisor to the U.S. Delegation, led by Gov. George Pataki (second from left)
...with Estonian President Toomas Ilves (center) and B'nai B'rith International leaders
...at a 2005 NCSJ and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations leadership meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
...with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (center) and Jewish leaders
...with Israeli MK and refusenik Yuli Edelstein
... with Ukraine government leaders and Coalition for a Secure and Democratic Ukraine members
...with Vice President Joe Biden at the 2010 White House Chanukah Party
...with Prime Minister Andrus Ansip at the Embassy of Estonia in Washington
...with Moldovan Prime Minister Vladimir Filat at the U.S. Department of State
...at the June 2010 OSCE Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Conference in Kazakhstan
...speaking at the December 2009
Holocaust Legacy Conference in Berlin
...leading the March 2009 Stanford-
Kyiv Student Leadership Program
...leading the March 2009 Stanford-
Moscow Student Leadership Program
...with Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov (second from right) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia
...leading the March 2008 Washington- Moscow Student Leadership Program
...at the 2006 OSCE Human Dimensions Implementation Meeting in Warsaw
Ron Sachs/CNP
... with Belarusian Amb. Mikhail Khvostov at an NCSJ reception in the U.S. Capitol building
Ron Sachs/CNP
... with U.S. Amb. Ross Wilson in Baku, Azerbaijan
... with Dr. Judith Wolf and Arkady Suharenko, Chairman of the Latvian Jewish Community, in Riga
Lesley Weiss (above, left) in Voronezh, Russia with activists in the Kolot domestic violence awareness project
RFE/RL
...leading a Washington briefing on domestic violence in Russia
...at the Conference on Euro- Integration at the National Mining University in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine
...meeting with BBI Executive Vice-President Dan Mariaschin, Georgian PM Zurab Noghaideli, and Georgian Amb. Levan Mikheladze
...at Spaso House in Moscow, with (l.-r.): Rina Edelstein, former NCSJ President Dr. Joel Schindler, U.S. Amb. Alexander Vershbow and Pittsburgh Jewish Community leaders
... at the Vilnius Holocaust Education Conference with (l.-r.) Emanuel Zingeris, Director of the Vilnius Gaon Jewish Museum; NCSJ Vice-President Dr. Judith Wolf; Daniel Mariaschin, B'nai B'rith International Executive Vice President
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