Ira D. Silverman; American Jewish Committee Official

Ira D. Silverman, 46, a former executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee. Silverman served as executive vice president of the Jewish human rights and advocacy group for two years. He resigned last year because of a parasitic illness he contracted while visiting China but continued as head of the committee’s Institute for Human Relations, said Walter Gips, the committee’s national treasurer. Silverman graduated from Harvard University in 1966 and earned a master’s degree in 1968 from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He was director of admissions and assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson school from 1968 to 1971, when he left to become director of federal relations of the Assn. of American Universities in Washington. In 1977, Silverman became head of the Institute for Jewish Policy, Planning and Research, a think tank founded by the Synagogue Council of America. In New York City on Sunday of a heart attack.