After nearly four decades with the organization, the longtime CEO of B’nai B’rith International plans to step down on June 30 next year.
Chevy Chase resident Daniel Mariaschin has served the Jewish professional world for more than 50 years. In 1988, he joined B’nai B’rith International, a nonprofit Jewish service organization that aims to advance human rights, advocate for Israel and ensure stability for older adults, among other priorities. Mariaschin became its CEO in 1999.
President Robert Spitzer credited Mariaschin with the organization’s success at the board of directors meeting last week where Mariaschin announced his retirement: “B’nai B’rith is as strong as we are in large measure because of his leadership.”
“It’s really a great honor to be able to serve the community in this way,” Mariaschin told Washington Jewish Week.
As the CEO, he has directed and supervised B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff. Mariaschin also served as the director of B’nai B’rith’s International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy. Through these roles, he has been the “spokesman for B’nai B’rith,” sharing its policies with the United States Congress, world leaders, diplomats and the media, according to a press release.
Mariaschin has met with heads of state and other leaders to advance human rights and help protect the rights of the global Jewish community.
He began as the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Middle East affairs department in 1977. For seven years, Mariaschin served as the assistant to the ADL’s director, Nathan Perlmutter, and as director of its national leadership division.
Mariaschin said B’nai B’rith’s Israel advocacy is more important now than ever. One highlight of his role has been the opportunity to engage in public diplomacy with representatives spanning the globe.
“As a nongovernmental organization, we’ve had so many important opportunities to speak with diplomats, particularly about the tremendous amount of bias against Israel at the United Nations,” Mariaschin said. “Having that opportunity to speak truth to power really has been a tremendous opportunity for me and B’nai B’rith.”
The organizational mission is important to him personally. “Being able to engage in advocacy for Israel … has been something that I’m very proud of, and it very much matches my ideals,” Mariaschin said. “My passion is for Israel.”
He’s traveled there many times and has many relatives living in the Jewish state.
“Over the more than 50 years that I’ve worked in the community, I’ve had an opportunity to see pretty much every aspect of what makes that country so important to us as Jews and so important to the world in terms of great contributions,” Mariaschin said. “So now, in these times when Israel is facing such difficulties, and in times when antisemitism is becoming so rooted in anti-Zionism, being able to work in an organization that aligns itself with the Zionist idea and the State of Israel is something very gratifying to me.”
Mariaschin has been heavily involved in Holocaust-era restitution for three decades through B’nai B’rith, which turned 182 years old this year. “All the lives that were lost unfortunately, in the Shoah, we can’t replace,” he explained. But the Nazis confiscated Jewish properties across Germany and occupied Europe, including homes, businesses, synagogues and other communal property.
“[We’ve] made effort over the last few decades to negotiate with all these countries where Jews lived, where Jews died, to return these properties to their families, the rightful owners, and where there are no owners, to create a fund in those countries to promote and advance Jewish life, even in communities that were so decimated that very few Jews live in these places,” Mariaschin said.
He spoke about the importance of Holocaust education, especially with the rapidly dwindling number of survivors. “My participation in these kinds of efforts is something I find personally gratifying,” he added.
B’nai B’rith goes beyond the Jewish community, serving older adults and victims of natural disasters. “Seniors are so important in our community,” Mariaschin said. “To be able to make a contribution to helping them in their golden years and to provide housing for people in our community and others as well gives me a great deal of satisfaction.”
Before retiring in June 2026, Mariaschin plans to work on some “special projects” with B’nai B’rith, including covering “a range of Jewish subjects” on his podcast, “Conversations with B’nai B’rith.”
He also has ideas for books to write. “Working as I have for 50 years, I really haven’t had the time to sit down and write, and I’m looking forward to that,” Mariaschin said.
He’s not slowing down anytime soon.
“I’ll continue to work on Holocaust restitution issues,” Mariaschin said. “I hope that there will be some new ways for me to continue to work on pro-Israel advocacy to make my own contribution to strengthening Israel’s place in the world.”
