International Board

Lester Crown

Lester Crown is Chairman of Henry Crown and Company, a family-owned and operated company which includes diversified manufacturing operations and real estate. He is a member of the Board of Directors of General Dynamics Corporation and Chairman of its subsidiary, Material Service Corporation.

Born and raised in Chicago , Mr. Crown received his bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Crown is a director of Yankee Global Enterprises LLC and an indirect owner of the Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership (the Chicago Bulls basketball team).

Mr. Crown is actively involved in civic activities. He is a director of the Children’s Memorial Medical Center and its Foundation, Lyric Opera of Chicago (chairman of its executive committee), the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (of which he is Chairman of the Board), the Commercial Club of Chicago (of which he is Chairman of the Board), the Aspen Institute (of which he is a Vice Chairman), and the Jerusalem Foundation. He is a Life Trustee of Northwestern University, a trustee of the Michael Reese Foundation, member of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Theological Society, Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also chairs the Advance Gifts Campaign at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

He has previously served as a director of: Chicago Pacific Corporation, Continental Bank and Trust Company, Esmark, 360° Communications Company, TransWorld Airlines and TW Services.

Mr. Crown resides in the Chicago area with his wife, Renée. They have seven children and 24 grandchildren.



General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

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Can Kerry Rescue a Two-State Peace Accord?

If the purpose of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel was to dispel the view held by most Israelis, and by rightwing American Jewish supporters of AIPAC and the Likud’s annexationist policies, that he is hostile to Israel and to the Zionist enterprise, it must be judged a brilliant success. Not everyone was converted, but his words and personal charm seemed to have worked wonders on most Israelis.
While his visit was not expected to revive prospects for a two-state solution, he spoke far more directly and energetically about the need for an end to Israel’s occupation and about his own continuing efforts to help the parties achieve an agreement than his recent disengagement from the peace process prepared anyone for. But nothing he said in Jerusalem or Ramallah–and, more importantly, that he failed to say–justifies an expectation that his reengagement will be of a kind that has any chance of preventing Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from finally nailing down the coffin in which they are burying a viable two-state outcome.

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