The controversy surrounding the World Jewish Congress, the tiny nonprofit organization that won billions for Holocaust survivors, continued this week, as its chief patron, Edgar M. Bronfman, accused its former leader, Israel Singer, of misusing money and concealing “significant information.”

“I learned that a man I called my rabbi, my friend and even my son had undermined the very principles of morality and integrity we fought together to preserve around the world,” Mr. Bronfman, the group’s president, wrote in a March 30 letter to congress affiliates in Europe and elsewhere. The letter also accused Mr. Singer of spending the organization’s money for his personal use and of lying to Mr. Bronfman.

Mr. Singer’s lawyer, Stanley S. Arkin, denied the accusations in the letter. “The allegations, in so far as a claim that he did anything which was morally or legally wrong, are themselves dead wrong,” Mr. Arkin said.

He said any World Jewish Congress money Mr. Singer used was for the purposes of the organization.

“You have to understand that this was not a company that kept pristine books,” Mr. Arkin said. “In many ways, the W.J.C. was a powerful, kind of unique operation that was the spirit and energy of Israel Singer and the money and status of Edgar Bronfman.”

Mr. Bronfman’s announcement last month that he had fired Mr. Singer upset some Jewish leaders, and Mr. Bronfman wrote that his latest letter was intended to respond to their concerns.

He suggested that he had no choice but to dismiss Mr. Singer after new information surfaced about a puzzling chain of money transfers that started a controversy over Mr. Singer’s leadership three years ago. He said he had tried to get Mr. Singer to leave the organization in a way that would “preserve some dignity,” but to no avail.

“Without our own action to maintain integrity, the New York State attorney general and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service can apply sanctions to the W.J.C. itself,” he wrote.

The attorney general’s office completed an investigation last year that found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, but found that Mr. Singer had violated his fiduciary responsibilities and barred him from any further financial role in the organization.

Stephen E. Herbits, a longtime business confidant of Mr. Bronfman who is the organization’s secretary general, said new information had come to light that had to be conveyed to the attorney general under the terms of a settlement the organization had signed. Mr. Herbits declined to disclose that information because the group’s steering committee did not yet know it.

A separate I.R.S. investigation continues, Mr. Herbits said.

In his letter, Mr. Bronfman said Mr. Singer “never paid taxes on the money he took for his own use.” His letter also accuses Mr. Singer of “playing games” with hotel bills in a way that violated World Jewish Congress policies and proper accounting procedures.

Mr. Arkin said he doubted that Mr. Singer had failed to pay taxes. As for the hotel bills, Mr. Arkin said: “Can you imagine how miserable and almost mindlessly petty, given that he’s talking about a man who’s in Jerusalem fighting for the Jewish people, it is to talk about whether the bill is signed off in the right way?”

Mr. Herbits said that how the hotel bills were handled was pertinent under the agreement with the attorney general. “Whether or not the amount involved is petty isn’t relevant,” he said. “It is that it violates the terms of that agreement.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company