As Daniel S. Mariaschin approaches retirement after 53 years in Jewish advocacy, including 37 years at B’nai B’rith International where he has been CEO since 1999, he is very concerned about Jewish wellbeing.
“As a community, we’re facing challenges to the extent and the level that we’ve never faced before,” he told JNS.
Mariaschin is not retiring out of exhaustion or intimidation of playing Whac-A-Mole with global Jew-hatred, especially over the last few years, he said.
“It’s not a matter of my walking away but of a change in priorities at this stage in my career,” he told JNS.
The “transmission belt of hate” has accelerated from a time when one would write letters or place long-distance calls to a time when hate is available all the time, at the touch of one’s fingers, and even so, it’s an era of increased division and “don’t confuse me with the facts,” according to Mariaschin.
That means that “it can not only keep all of us engaged, but it means that this is a time when we really do need all hands on deck to fight this,” he told JNS.
The B’nai B’rith leader noted that the Hamas terrorists, who carried out the Oct. 7 attacks, recorded their behavior “and yet, we have this stonewall, this denial.”
“If you present the evidence in a democracy, you should have a fair chance of being able to make a persuasive case,” Mariaschin told JNS. “But that does not seem to be the case today.”
B’nai B’rith has fought anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, both in New York and Geneva, in a pronounced way, but problems remain in areas like South America, where Mariaschin traveled recently.
“We don’t hear as much about anti-Israel activity or antisemitism there but it is there, and we’ve had a few presidents in Latin America, particularly during the two years of the Gaza war, who were particularly spiteful to Israel, hypercritical of Israel, buying into the blood libels and the big lies,” Mariaschin told JNS.
Europe remains a focal point for the nonprofit, and “one need only take a look at some of the prominent leaders of several countries to see the targeting of Israel, not only during the Gaza war, but now after,” he said.
B’nai B’rith, which maintains a Brussels office, is “well positioned” to “do battle” there and works with members of the European Parliament and others to “push back on what we’ve seen in terms of the relationship between Europe and Israel and with the rise of antisemitism in many of those countries,” Mariaschin said.
The outgoing CEO told JNS that it has been a “great privilege” to have the opportunity to “be able to speak truth to power to prime ministers, foreign ministers, presidents, members of parliaments and media figures.”
He also appreciates having been “able to take our case, which advocates for a strong and viable Israel, for fighting the age-old scourge of antisemitism, and to be able to lay out the Jewish communal position.”
‘Great incubator’
Decades ago, Mariaschin worked as a community relations associate at Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council. He called a refusenik in Russia as part of organizing a demonstration against the visiting Bolshoi ballet.
“That was like the launch of my career in Jewish life,” he told JNS.
He was named director of the New England office of the American Zionist Federation and Zionist House in Boston, and then had a stint as director of the Middle East affairs department at the Anti‑Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and as an assistant to ADL national director Nathan Perlmutter and director of the ADL national leadership division.
He was then director of political affairs at AIPAC.
At B’nai B’rith, Mariaschin worked for the rescission of the infamous U.N. “Zionism is racism” declaration, battled the Israel boycott and pressed for Holocaust restitution.
“My family on my mother’s side suffered great losses during the Shoah, so I attached myself to that issue,” he told JNS. “It’s been a great opportunity to be involved in seeking justice and restitution for survivors and for their families.”
As Jewish communal life and the challenges facing it have evolved during Mariaschin’s time, so has B’nai B’rith, which has been called the “great incubator” of U.S. Jewish institutions.
“This is an organization that gave birth to the Anti-Defamation League and neighborhood youth organizations,” Mariaschin told JNS.
He described a current-day focus on public diplomacy, senior care and natural disaster assistance.
“The Fifth Commandment is ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and so when federal funds became available, we became deeply involved in sponsoring affordable housing for seniors—not just for Jewish seniors, but for everyone,” Mariaschin told JNS.
B’nai B’rith holds dozens of properties to help seniors live in dignity, and the nonprofit advocates on related issues, such as transportation, prescription drugs and internet scamming.
Ahead of his June 30 retirement, Mariaschin was honored at a gala tribute late last month, during which a new Daniel S. Mariaschin Institute for Leadership and Public Policy was announced.
Robert Spitzer, president of B’nai B’rith, said that the new institute reflects the organization’s role “in cultivating the next generation of leadership, influencing global policy discussions and engaging decision-makers on issues critical to the Jewish people and democratic values worldwide.”
He said that it also “underscores our commitment to defending human rights and to both shaping policy and preparing leaders to meet the challenges of our time.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that Mariaschin has been “a key figure of so many of the defining moments that shaped us.”
“Again and again you have stood up for our people’s rights with clarity, courage and conviction,” he said.
Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, president of the International March of the Living and former chair of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, praised Mariaschin at the gala.
“Your legacy will live long,” she said. “The legacy you leave us is one of compassion, understanding and commitment.”
Internal struggles
Mariaschin told JNS he intends to write a book that would address the main challenges facing the American Jewish community and propose remedies.
But as much time as he’s spent battling outside forces, Mariaschin told JNS that the issue that worries him most now might be the internal battle.
“I’m deeply concerned about the dissension that I see sometimes in our own community on the issue of Israel,” he said. “I’ve looked at the polls. I’ve looked at the studies and the surveys, and we need to address this.”
Non-Jews tend to take their cues from Jews on how to view Israel and the issues surrounding the Jewish state, he said.
“Israel is a fractious democracy, and you can choose any spot on that political spectrum and feel comfortable, and I encourage people to do that,” Mariaschin told JNS. “But at the end of the day, I think it’s extremely important that we understand that you can’t send an 18-year-old off to college without filling in many blanks before they leave.”
Those blanks, he said, include “why being Jewish is important, why Jewish continuity is important and why Zionism is in our DNA.”
