Two years later, in 1977, the American real estate developer and erstwhile president of B'nai B'rith International Philip Klutznick succeeded Goldmann as WJC president. In 1979, when Klutznick was named US secretary of commerce by President Jimmy Carter, the Canadian-American businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr. took over as acting head of the organization. Bronfman was formally elected WJC president by the Seventh Plenary Assembly, held in Jerusalem in January 1981.[87]
Edgar M. Bronfman
Under the leadership of Bronfman, the new Secretary General Israel Singer (who took over from Gerhart Riegner in 1983), and Executive Director Elan Steinberg, the WJC adopted a more aggressive style. Steinberg characterized the change as follows: "For a long time, the World Jewish Congress was meant to be the greatest secret of Jewish life, because the nature of diplomacy after the war was quiet diplomacy. This is a newer, American-style leadership — less timid, more forceful, unashamedly Jewish."[68][88] Bronfman led the World Jewish Congress in becoming the preeminent Jewish organization. He broadened its organizational base by bringing in new member communities in Europe. Through campaigns to free Soviet Jewry, the exposure of the Nazi past of Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, and the campaign to compensate victims of the Holocaust, Bronfman became well known internationally in the 1980s and 1990s.[89]
On 25 June 1982, WJC President Edgar Bronfman became the first leader ever of a Jewish organization to address the United Nations General Assembly.[90]