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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release October 23, 1998
                 PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES ZVI KESTENBAUM 
                   AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION FOR
              THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA'S HERITAGE ABROAD

The President today announced his intent to appoint Zvi Kestenbaum to serve as a Member of the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.

Rabbi Zvi Kestenbaum, of Brooklyn, New York, has served as President of the Opportunity Development Association (ODA) since 1974, representing Hasidic entrepreneurial development and community interests. Since 1986, he has served on the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, and is chairman of the cemetary sub-committee and the honorary deputy chairman. He was instrumental in introducing the bill in Congress which created the Commission in 1979. From 1955 to 1974 he was involved in private enterprise. He was the Chairman of the City Council in Azor, Israel, from 1948 to 1955 before he emigrated to the United States. A native of Hungary, he is a survivor of a Holocaust concentration camp. Rabbi Kestenbaum currently serves as President of the Society for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries, was a member of the Governor's Hasidic Task Force, and is a member of the advisory board of Beth Israel Medical Center.

Rabbi Kestenbaum is a graduate of Yeshiva of Munkacs, a Rabbinical Academy in the former Czechoslovakia.

The purpose of the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad is to identify and publish a list of cemeteries, monuments, and historic buildings located abroad which are associated with the foreign heritage of U.S. citizens from eastern and central Europe. The Commission encourages their preservation by gaining assurances of protection, in cooperation with the Department of State and foreign governments.

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