Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) shakes hands with AIPAC’s next national president, Michael Kassen, during his meeting with AIPAC members in Moscow on April 4.

WESTPORT – Michael Kassen of Westport has been elected by the national Board of Directors of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to serve as the next national president of AIPAC.  Kassen will begin his term as president-elect at this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference to be held May 22 – 24 in Washington, D.C. He will be installed as national president at the 2012 AIPAC Policy Conference to be held March 4 – 6, 2012.
Kassen and his wife Shelly have long been leaders in the Westport Jewish community. In 2007, he was among 14 business professionals and communal leaders throughout the state to be named a “Mover & Shaker” by the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.”
Kassen is the most recent of several Connecticut Jewish communal figures who have risen to positions of national prominence on the stage of American Jewish affairs.
Last month, Rabbi Stephen Fuchs, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, was tapped to become the next head president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). Fuchs, who has served as Beth Israel’s senior rabbi since 1997, will retire as a congregational leader in June. He will take up his new post in early July.
In 2008, Rabbi Robert Orkand of Westport was elected president of ARZA: Association of Reform Zionists of America, after many years of leadership in the Reform movement’s Zionist organization.   Orkand has served as spiritual leader of Temple Israel in Westport since 1982. In 2010, he was re-elected to the ARZA post for a second term.