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Fischer For World Bank President?

Probably not; plus, a curious lacuna in the ranks of this position

by
Marc Tracy
March 14, 2012
Stanley Fischer.(Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images)
Stanley Fischer.(Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite clamoring from around the world for someone who is from some other part of the world, the White House, which for all intents and purposes controls this process, says that the next president of the World Bank will be an American.

Which brings us to the next question: will it be the fourth Jewish president?

Current president Robert Zoellick is not Jewish—if you thought he is, you were probably confused by that Jew-baiting Adbusters article.

One bookie giving odds has former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers heavily favored and Columbia professor and anti-poverty activist Jeffrey Sachs—who has actually announced that he would love the gig—in second place. Both are Jews.

Farther on down the list is the guy we’d like to see: Stanley Fischer, Israel’s center banker, a former World Bank chief economist, and an all-around genius, who was last seen getting screwed out of disqualified from the International Monetary Fund’s top job. Fischer isn’t American—he’s Rhodesia-born, London-educated, and now, of course, Israeli—but he did spend a lot of time stateside, specifically teaching at M.I.T. Surely an exception can be made!

Except here’s here’s the thing: there have been 11 World Bank presidents, and not one has been a woman. The twelfth should be a woman. Preferably a Jewish woman.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.