Name:
Bernie Kaminetsky
AIPAC Role:
AIPAC President, Board of Directors, and officer.
Professional Profile/Associations:
Co-founder and Medical Director of MDVIP, the largest membership-based primary care network in the United States with over 1,000 physicians serving more than 325,000 patients. Board-certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology, he earned his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, was an Alpha Omega Alpha member, and completed his residency and nephrology fellowship at NYU, where he also served as Assistant Professor of Medicine. Named alongside AIPAC CEO Elliot Brandt to the Jerusalem Post's "Top 50 Most Influential Jews" list in 2025. In October 2025, he led over 200 AIPAC donors on a nine-day delegation to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea to promote ties between Israel and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Accountability:
As a member of AIPAC's Board of Directors, Bernie Kaminetsky bears individual legal responsibility for the organization's conduct. Under U.S. nonprofit law, board members hold fiduciary duties to ensure organizational compliance with applicable legal standards, implement oversight systems for core activities, and respond to credible information about organizational wrongdoing. In Stern v. Lucy Webb Hayes (1974), the federal district court held that nonprofit directors who fail to supervise organizational decisions breach their fiduciary obligations. In In re Lemington Home for the Aged (3d Cir. 2015), the Third Circuit upheld $2.25 million in damages against nonprofit directors who ignored red flags and failed to exercise reasonable oversight. In addition, as an officer of AIPAC, Bernie Kaminetsky bears additional individual legal responsibility for the organization's conduct. Under D.C. Code § 29-406.42, officers with discretionary authority must act in good faith, exercise ordinary prudent-person care, and affirmatively report material information and potential legal violations to the board. While the DC Nonprofit Corporation Act provides automatic liability protection for directors of charitable corporations, it extends no such protection to officers—meaning executive officers face potential personal liability for conduct that would be shielded if committed by a director. Federal courts have sustained punitive damages against nonprofit executives while vacating them against directors, and federal tax law treats executive officers as "disqualified persons" subject to personal excise taxes on excess benefit transactions.
The information in these profiles is drawn primarily from AIPAC's most recent IRS Form 990, supplemented by publicly available sources including news reports, official announcements, and public records. As a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, AIPAC is legally required to file Form 990 annually with the Internal Revenue Service, and these filings are public documents.
However, IRS regulations allow organizations up to eleven months after their fiscal year ends to submit these forms, meaning publicly available data typically lags by approximately one year. This inherent delay underscores why AIPAC—like most major organizations of its size and influence—should maintain a current, public-facing leadership page identifying its board members and senior executives. The absence of such transparency from AIPAC necessitates this project. We are committed to accuracy and will update these profiles as new information becomes available. If you have corrections, updates, or additional sourced information, please contact us at advocacy@dawnmena.org.
