Morton Klein

National president of the Zionist Organization of America since 1993; former health-policy statistician; opponent of the Oslo Accords and of a two-state solution

Morton Klein
Image	Klein speaking in West Palm Beach, Florida, December 2018 (photograph by Gage Skidmore)
Born	Displaced persons camp, Günzburg, Germany
Occupation	National president, Zionist Organization of America; formerly biostatistician and health-policy analyst
Known for	Leading the Zionist Organization of America since 1993; opposition to the Oslo Accords; close relations with the Trump campaign and administration
Education	Temple University (mathematics and economics; master's in statistics)
Website	zoa.org profile

Morton A. "Mort" Klein is an American activist who has been national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) since 1993. His ZOA biography describes him as a child of Holocaust survivors, born in a displaced persons camp in Günzburg, Germany, who worked as an economist in three US administrations and as a biostatistician before taking over the organisation. Tablet wrote in 2019 that under his leadership the ZOA had become "a blunt political engine" rather than a membership body, and that it gained access to the Trump circle early in the 2016 campaign; the ZOA opposed the Oslo Accords from the outset. His pay and the organisation's governance have been the subject of litigation between 2018 and 2025, described below.

Background

The ZOA website reproduces a Jewish Standard profile of Klein. According to it, he attended Central High School in Philadelphia and Temple University on a scholarship, majoring in mathematics and economics, taught high-school mathematics for two years, took a master's degree in statistics at Temple, and then worked as a senior health-policy analyst in the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, where he says he was "in the top policy-making arm of the federal government during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations".

The same profile says he later worked with the chemist Linus Pauling on research into nutrition and disease, and that his last professional article, in the journal Epidemiology in 1992, concerned vitamin C and heart disease, with Klein listed as technical consultant; the ZOA biography says the work was cited in Discover magazine's top 50 scientific studies of 1992. Tablet summarised that he lectured and published on vitamin C and Pauling's work before turning to activism in the early 1990s.

Path to the ZOA presidency

The Jewish Standard profile says Klein began activism after finding errors about Israel in a Baedeker travel guide, for which the German publisher later hired him to rewrite the text, and in a school history textbook, which its publisher revised; he also took part in the 1992 campaign supporting Senator Arlen Specter against Lynn Yeakel. Tablet adds that he volunteered for the media-monitoring group CAMERA and that, in spring 1991, two eyewitnesses said he was among about ten people who disrupted a talk by Gail Pressberg of Americans for Peace Now at a Philadelphia-area synagogue; Klein acknowledged in a letter to the Jewish Exponent that he had attended the event and wrote that a "significant factor" in the disruption was Pressberg's background.

He was elected ZOA national president at the organisation's convention in late 1993, defeating Jim Schiller, who had been ZOA president, in what the chair of that convention told Tablet was "an upset"; several press accounts give 1994 as the start of his presidency. As president of the Philadelphia chapter in 1993 he had led what Tablet called a "nearly successful" campaign to block Americans for Peace Now's membership bid at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The Zionist Organization of America under Klein

Tablet wrote that after 1993 the ZOA "transformed from an august membership organization into a blunt political engine best known for generating headlines and scandals". Citing former activists and internal documents it said that local chapters (including those in Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh) declined or split away, that "paid up, active members" fell from 7,178 to 3,817 between 1995 and 1999, that the national and executive boards were restructured, that presidential term limits were removed in 2002, and that from a 2014 constitutional change the board elects the president. The Jewish Week reported in 2017 that for the first six years the presidency was a volunteer post and that Klein had drawn a salary since; Klein told the paper he had been elected "every two to four years" and had faced opposition once. He gave the membership as "20,000, counting children".

The ZOA's own account of Klein's campaigns lists the reinterpretation of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students, textbook corrections, recognition of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the move of the US embassy, and defunding of the Palestinian Authority.

Donors

Tablet reported that the ZOA received "a reliable $1 million a year" from the casino owner Sheldon Adelson, "often accounting for between 1/5th and 1/6th of the group's annual income". Klein told the Jewish Week that he denied reports that Adelson bankrolled the ZOA and put the Adelson share at about 15 to 20 per cent of the budget, adding that Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus was also a major contributor.

Pay and finances

Klein is listed as president on the ZOA's Form 990 returns, with a 40-hour week. The returns for the last four years available at the time of writing show:

Morton Klein's pay as reported on the ZOA's Form 990 (US$; years ending 31 December)

Year	Reportable compensation from the organisation (Part VII)	Other compensation (Part VII)	Total
2021	505,008	37,301	542,309
2022	534,423	38,998	573,421
2023	571,717	41,289	613,006
2024	600,372	21,663	622,035

Earlier figures were reported by Tablet, which cited the Forward, the New York attorney general's charities register and the ZOA's 990s: $212,000 in 2004; $315,385 in 2007; $613,462, $635,000 and $385,000 in 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively (filed late, as described below); and $462,462 in 2017.

The ZOA's own totals over the same period, from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer (2016–2020) and the 990 XML files (2021–2024):

Zionist Organization of America: summary finances (US$)

Year	Total revenue	Contributions and grants	Total expenses	Total assets (year end)	Total liabilities (year end)
2016	41,472,586	4,691,983	6,294,788	42,210,017	1,878,590
2017	5,640,512	4,936,972	7,117,973	41,251,627	1,494,252
2018	5,761,274	4,599,543	7,043,781	38,102,335	1,756,054
2019	5,234,179	3,975,973	6,788,085	38,893,101	717,943
2020	6,125,271	4,478,874	5,296,997	42,358,864	1,288,662
2021	12,429,362	8,799,777	5,341,390	47,678,606	804,770
2022	6,748,286	5,843,854	5,421,911	43,440,672	1,344,644
2023	7,351,972	6,264,917	7,110,453	52,765,148	7,766,105
2024	8,584,534	6,391,718	7,244,281	52,647,291	5,519,084

The 2016 revenue figure is far above contributions because of the sale of the organisation's New York building, which The Forward and Tablet reported at $38 million.

Disputes over governance and pay

Tax-exempt status, 2011–2013

Tablet reported that the IRS revoked the ZOA's tax-exempt status retroactive to May 2011 after it failed to file Forms 990 for three years, and that the status was restored in May 2013 once the missing returns were filed; The Forward reported in 2012 that the retroactive filings showed Klein had received a 38 per cent raise in the years in which the group had not disclosed its finances.

Arfa and Drimer lawsuits

A 2013 suit by a former senior employee, Orit Arfa, alleged that Klein had called her "at all hours of the day and night to berate her" and had instructed her to mislead donors about the group's tax status; Tablet said it was reportedly settled for $300,000, and Klein declined to comment on it.

On 26 July 2018 the ZOA's former executive director David Drimer, who had been dismissed in November 2017 days after writing to the New York attorney general, sued the ZOA, Klein and board officials for $3.4 million. His complaint alleged that Klein received "numerous periodic and substantial secret cash 'gifts'" from board members and donors during his first years as president, that one reason the ZOA failed to file its Forms 990 was to avoid disclosing them, and that Drimer was retaliated against as a whistleblower. Klein told The Forward he had no comment; the ZOA's lawyer, Cliff Rieders, called the allegations "frivolous". Tablet reported that the judge denied the ZOA's motion to dismiss on 27 February 2019. In an order entered on 11 April 2024 the Appellate Division, First Department, deemed withdrawn, in accordance with a stipulation of the parties dated 28 February 2024, the appeals of two defendants, Michael Goldblatt and Henry Schwartz, from an April 2023 order of the New York County Supreme Court.

In the same article Tablet also reported accounts from former ZOA staff of Klein's treatment of employees, including a 2009 discrimination suit by a former national director of campus programmes, Julie Sager, which was dismissed after a bench trial in 2012. Klein told Tablet in writing that he had never mistreated Sager and that "we won".

Conference of Presidents, 2019

In January 2019, Tablet reported, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued its first written warning to a member group, citing eight examples of ZOA staff denouncing other member organisations including the Anti-Defamation League, HIAS and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Tartell v. Klein (2024–2025)

In 2024 two ZOA board members, Paul Tartell and Brian Grodman, filed a derivative action on the ZOA's behalf against Klein, the ZOA and four board members (Rubin Margules, Michael Orbach, Bart Blatstein and Tyler Korn). The complaint asked the court to remove Klein, to recoup "misappropriated funds", and to award damages for alleged fraud and breach of fiduciary duty; its main grievance was Klein's alleged consulting work for a board member, Henry Schwartz, and it also alleged that he was overpaid and abused his credit card. The defendants moved to dismiss. On 5 May 2025 Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York County Supreme Court granted the motion and directed judgment dismissing the action. He held that the plaintiffs had standing and had satisfied the demand requirement, and that their pleading "just barely" met the particularity requirement for fraud, but that they had not shown that the ZOA's constitution or by-laws prohibited consulting work, and that a non-profit board "can pretty much do what they want" under the business judgement rule; he added that "the Klein faction clearly controls the ZOA". The opinion noted that the complaint did not allege that Klein had "his hands in the ZOA's cookie jar". The ZOA said in a statement of 6 May 2025 that the case was "meritless" and that its board had re-elected Klein in September 2024.

The ZOA's Forms 990 for 2021 to 2024 list Tartell as vice chair and later acting co-chair (through December 2024) and Grodman as treasurer in 2021.

Politics and Congress

Trump campaign and administration

The ZOA dinner in New York on 20 November 2016 was held days after the election; the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Klein welcomed the president-elect and said "Thank God we have Donald Trump" while praising him for being tough on Iran. The ZOA had advertised that Stephen Bannon would attend but he did not; JTA said some attendees "adopted Klein's position that Bannon himself ... certainly isn't an anti-Semite". The Jewish Week wrote in February 2017 that Klein was "an outspoken advocate of Bannon", opposed a two-state solution, favoured more settlement building and supported the Trump immigration ban, and that the ZOA had become "the go-to Jewish organization on Israel" for the White House. Tablet said Bannon spoke at the ZOA's 2017 dinner and National Security Adviser John Bolton headlined in 2018, and that Senators Rand Paul and Tom Cotton had tweeted photographs with Klein in February 2019.

Opposition to James Mattis

When it was reported that Gen. James Mattis was Trump's leading candidate for defence secretary, the ZOA denounced him, citing Mattis's statements in support of a two-state solution and critical of settlements; the ZOA called it "remarkable" that Mattis "expressed such a hostile attitude towards standing by our ally Israel".

Testimony

The ZOA's biography lists Klein's testimony before the Senate Labor, HHS and Education subcommittee (30 October 2003), the House Oversight subcommittee on National Security on moving the embassy to Jerusalem (8 November 2017) and on Golan sovereignty (17 July 2018), and the House Judiciary Committee on hate crimes and white nationalism (9 April 2019).

Awards and affiliations

The ZOA's biography lists Klein as a board member of Ariel University and as the recipient of awards including the Center for Security Policy's "Keeper of the Flame", an AIPAC award, a World Zionist Congress recognition (August 2022) and a World Zionist Organization honorary fellowship (February 2024); it records that the ZOA's own board gave him a "Theodore Herzl Award" on 4 November 2018.

See also

• Zionist Organization of America
• James Mattis
• Tom Cotton

External links

• ZOA biography