As a followup to our post last Friday, Who Owns the ORT Name?, here’s an update from TotallyJewish.com (the article below is from page 2 of the print edition).

“The Chairman of America’s United Israel Appeal this week denied claims that he had revoked his call to member organizations to suspend funding ORT.

As the Jewish News reported last week, Bruce Arbit wrote a letter to, among others, the Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee expressing concern over lawsuits between ORT Israel, World ORT and ORT America. He urged the bodies to “resolve their differences outside the courtroom” and suggested funding be ceased until the matters were settled.

In response,a World ORT spokesman said that following contact with the UJIA chairman, his request was “no longer valid”.

However, Arbit told the Jewish News on Tuesday this was not the case. He said: “My words have been twisted and manipulated to wrongly suggest that I had withdrawn my original letter – which was untrue.”

Praising World ORT and ORT Israel for the “wonderful services they provide for Jewish students across the globe,” he added: “I only opined that the Jewish people’s money was being wasted in what I perceive as a shameful process of international fighting and squabbling…I just want the fighting to end.”

World ORT declined to comment further on the matter.”