Olga Deutsch, born in Belgrade in 1979 and twice evacuated to Israel as a child, will become president and CEO of NGO Monitor in January. A finance graduate with extensive European and communal leadership experience, she joined NGO Monitor more than a decade ago and rose to vice president with responsibility for its Europe work. Deutsch leads a team that publishes open-source reports alleging troubling ties and activities by some NGOs; she credits that work with influencing funding decisions and policy changes. Living in Petah Tikva with her husband and two sons, she describes her mission as an incremental defense of Israel’s legitimacy.
Olga Deutsch: From Evacuee to CEO — Exposing the Dark Side of Some Human Rights NGOs
At NGO Monitor Annual Event in Dec. 2025 at Jerusalem
Olga Deutsch, who was twice evacuated to Israel as a child, will become president and CEO of NGO Monitor in January, succeeding founder Prof. Gerald Steinberg. Over the past decade she has led the organization’s Europe desk and served as vice president, building a profile as a watchdog of NGOs she and her colleagues say promote anti-Israel agendas or maintain problematic ties.
Early Life and Education
Deutsch was born in Belgrade in 1979 and grew up in what was then Yugoslavia. During the violent upheavals of the 1990s she was among Jewish children evacuated to Israel by the Jewish Agency. She spent a year at a WIZO agricultural boarding school in Rishon Lezion and later returned to complete her studies in Serbia.
Deutsch earned degrees in banking, insurance and finance from the University of Belgrade and the University of Munich, and completed a six-month fellowship at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She has lived and worked across Europe, including in Germany and Brussels, and is fluent in English, Hebrew and German, with an understanding of Russian.
Leadership In Jewish Student Movements
Her early communal work included founding the Serbian Union of Jewish Students and serving as chairwoman of the European Union of Jewish Students, an umbrella body representing 34 national student organizations. That role combined her business skills with community leadership and led to a move to Brussels in 2006.
Joining NGO Monitor
About ten and a half years ago Deutsch joined NGO Monitor as head of its Europe department. She was promoted to vice president seven years ago and will assume the organization’s top role in January. NGO Monitor was founded in 2002 by Prof. Gerald Steinberg to scrutinize the activities and funding of NGOs that its supporters view as politically mobilized against Israel.
Olga Deutsch. (credit: Courtesy Olga Deutsch)
Work, Methods and Impact
Deutsch leads a team of researchers whose open-source reports aim to document financial ties, political activities and public messaging by NGOs that NGO Monitor regards as biased, antisemitic, or affiliated with extremist groups. She emphasizes transparency and says the group's findings are publicly available and verifiable.
"Our work can be very depressing because the types of things we monitor are the worst examples of terror affiliation, antisemitism, anti-Israel bias, discrimination, and incitement – all disguised as defending human rights," Deutsch has said.
Deutsch and NGO Monitor attribute a range of policy outcomes to their work, including persuading some governments to reduce or suspend funding for NGOs the group has flagged and influencing specific measures such as U.S. sanctions on five Palestinian NGOs and an added anti-incitement clause in certain EU contracts after Oct. 7. She estimates cumulative taxpayer savings related to these decisions at more than $200 million; this figure is presented as the organization's estimate.
On controversial media claims about alleged Israeli abuses, Deutsch says NGO Monitor has researched and published background on the groups cited in high-profile op-eds, and has sought to make source material available to officials and the public.
Perspective and Strategy
Deutsch frames NGO Monitor’s mission as part of a long-term defense of Israel’s legitimacy: an incremental, precedent-by-precedent approach rather than a single decisive victory. She describes the work as "political warfare" in media, courts, campuses and international fora and says demand for reliable documentary research spiked after the Oct. 7 attacks.
Personal Life
Deutsch lives in Petah Tikva with her husband, Menachem Deutsch, and their two sons. She says raising Israeli-born children was a personal dream fulfilled by making aliyah. Balancing international travel and frequent public engagements with family life remains a challenge she manages with practical solutions, including occasionally bringing her children along on official trips.
How She Sees Israel
Deutsch praises Israel's people and entrepreneurial energy, calling Israelis warm and resilient. Despite repeated national crises in recent years, she says she has never doubted her decision to live in Israel: "There's no other place. This is home."
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