Executive Committee
Max Arpels Lezer
President
Max Arpels Lezer, a Dutch Child Survivor, has been the President of the World Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants since 2023. Prior to becoming President, he served as Executive Vice President of the organization. He is also the former President of the European Association of Jewish Survivors. Max was born in 1936 in the Netherlands to Flora Arpels and Solomon Lezer. His mother was murdered in Auschwitz. His father arranged for Max to be hidden in a village in Northern Holland, where most people knew Max was Jewish but never betrayed him. In 1961, Max married Sofia Snoek, a Jewish woman who had also survived the war in hiding, and they settled in Amsterdam. Max is the author of two autobiographical books in Dutch: Max is een hondennaam (“Max is a Dog’s Name”), 2005; and En toen zag ik mijn moeder (“And Then I Saw My Mother”), 2021. In 2007, Max was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his leadership in Holocaust memorialization advocacy.
Dr. Charles Silow
Executive Vice President
Dr. Charles Silow serves as the Executive Vice President of the WFJHS&D and is the lead member of the Executive Council responsible for developing the Annual Conferences’ program. A second-generation descendant of Polish Holocaust Survivors, Dr. Silow was born in Belgium. He has extensive experience addressing the psychological needs of survivors and their families through his work as a psychologist and Director of the Program for Holocaust Survivors and Families at Jewish Senior Life in Detroit, MI. Throughout his career, Dr. Silow has focused on creating and overseeing support group counseling, including the Claims Conference’s program Café Europa. He also spearheaded a photographic project in which over 700 survvors at the Zekelman Holocaust Center were photographed and interviewed. Their portraits and testimonies are available at portraitsofhonor.org. Additionally, Dr. Silow is the founder and current co-president of CHAIM—Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Michigan—and a member of GSI.
Isaac A. Kot, CPA, MST, PFS
Treasurer
Isaac has served as Treasurer of the WFJHS&D since 2009. He is the son of Boris Kot, a survivor from Kovno, Lithuania, who resisted the Nazis during World War II as a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Partisans. As a Certified Public Accountant, Tax Planning Specialist, and Financial Consultant, Isaac has advised individuals, trusts, and not-for-profit organizations for over 40 years. In addition to his WFJHS&D duties, he serves as Director and Treasurer of Generations After, a non-profit organization.
Annette Bar-Cohen
Secretary
Annette Bar-Cohen, WFJHS&D Secretary, the daughter of two survivors from Poland, was born in a German Displaced Persons Camp. She is the current Co-President of Generations MN-DAK and a past President of Generations After in the Washington, D.C. area. Annette is a founding member and serves on the Coordinating Council of Generations of the Shoah International, the umbrella organization for second-generation groups worldwide. With graduate degrees in psychology and public health, Annette worked as Senior Educator in the Cancer Control Program of the Minnesota Department of Health and as Executive Director of the Center for Advocacy and Training at the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Rose Gelbart
Member
Rose Gelbart was born in 1935 in Leszno, Poland. She survived the Holocaust in a ghetto and then in hiding with her mother. She was liberated by the Soviet Army in 1945 and came to the United States in 1951.
Erika Gold
Member
Erika Gold is a Holocaust survivor born in 1932 in Budapest, Hungary. She and her mother escaped a Nazi transport in 1944 and hid with a former housekeeper until the Soviet Army liberated them. Erika is an author and frequent public speaker widely recognized for her educational outreach across Ohio and the U.S. In 2025 she received the Cleveland Jewish News Sam Miller Lifetime Achievement Award
Esther Toporek Finder
Member
Esther Toporek Finder, a daughter of two Holocaust Survivors, is the President of the Holocaust Survivors’ Group of Southern Nevada and Generations of the Shoah – Nevada, as well as a member of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust. She serves on the Coordinating Council of Generations of the Shoah International (GSI), and the Executive Committee of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA.
David Wachs
Member
David Wachs, the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, has been a leader in the community of Holocaust survivor descendants since 2010. He was President of 3GNY from 2017 to 2023 and co-led the creation of Living Links, the first nationwide organization for 3Gs, in 2021.
Jason Camis
Member
Jason Camis is the Treasurer of the Kindertransport Association (KTA). He joined the KTA board a few years ago when he determined it was his responsibility to honor his grandmother, Ilse Camis (a Kind from Vienna), by sharing his vast nonprofit experience to help the organization look to the future.
Leadership Sub-Committee
Max Arpels Lezer
Dr. Charles Silow
Isaac A. Kot
Annette Bar-Cohen
Governing Board
The Governing Board of the WFJHS&D consists of all its Member Groups.
Staff
Lily Elbaum, CMM, Conference Management.
Susan Dubin, Administration.