B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International is greatly disturbed by Amnesty International’s latest attempt to slander Israel with the release of its report, “Trigger Happy.” The document reveals an extreme bias, as it paints an unfounded picture of Israeli brutality perpetrated against a helpless Palestinian people, unquestioningly blaming the Jewish state for many alleged wrongdoings in the region.  
 
Amnesty International’s accounting of the Israel Defense Forces’ operations in the West Bank features a lengthy list of accusations—a spectrum ranging from lack of government transparency all the way to unlawful killings—that pin the entire plight of the Palestinians solely on Israel. The report completely ignores Israel’s complex security issues and assigns absolutely no blame to the Palestinians, who have undertaken a campaign of terror against the Jewish state for decades.
 
The report follows a similar narrative Amnesty International has offered before, marginalizing the Palestinian Authority and Hamas’ abuse of power and portraying terrorists as innocent youths engaged in peaceful protest.
 
The report’s contention that Israel acts with “impunity” in carrying out its alleged wrongdoings belies the fact that Israel is a democratic country, with open elections, an independent judiciary, a free press and an active civil society. Israeli courts frequently overturn government and military policies, even in wartime.

Amnesty International’s report feeds the global campaign to demonize Israel and intensify its isolation in the international community. Amnesty is using its humanitarian mission as a shield, as it levels biased and politically charged accusations against the Jewish state.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith congratulates Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, on his unanimous election to oversee voting for the U.N. Human Rights Committee—the first Israeli diplomat to hold such a post.

The United Nations describes this committee as “the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its State parties.”

Israel has long been marginalized at U.N. bodies around the world.

We are encouraged that this nomination continues some recent positive in-roads that Israel has made at the world body.

In December, B’nai B’rith welcomed Israel’s invitation to join the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) at U.N. institutions in Geneva, ending the exclusion of the Jewish state from any regional group at the European hub of the world body, home to the Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Active at the United Nations since its inception, B’nai B’rith continues to have a full-time presence at U.N. venues around the world.

Planned Monument Ignores Hungary’s Alliance with Nazis

B’nai B’rith International leaders wrote a letter to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressing deep concern that a new Holocaust memorial ignores Hungary’s wartime complicity with the Nazi regime.

With the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Hungary’s Jews to Nazi death camps fast approaching, B’nai B’rith supports a decision by the Hungarian Jewish organization Mazsihisz to sit out planned commemorations if the memorial is unveiled as planned.

Read the full letter from B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin below:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
 
On behalf of B’nai B’rith International’s more than 200,000 members and supporters in over 50 countries, we write to express our deep concern about your government’s planned Holocaust monument in Budapest.
 
We strongly support the decision of Mazsihisz, the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities, to distance themselves from government-sponsored events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust.  We feel that the current design of the monument entirely ignores the active participation of Hungary’s own wartime government in the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust era. That such an important initiative would not reflect a serious effort to honestly and directly confront Hungary’s share of responsibility for the Holocaust is deeply disappointing.
 
Compounding this troubling matter are recent statements by Sandor Szakaly, head of the Veritas historical research institute. Mr. Szakaly referred to Hungary’s 1941 deportation of 18,000 Jews as an “immigration control procedure.” The gross insensitivity and ignorance of historical fact that his remarks reflect are cause for great concern.
 
These events have coincided with the ongoing rehabilitation and glorification in Hungary of pro-Nazi wartime figures such as Miklos Horthy and Jozsef Nyiro, whose views were not only fascist but openly anti-Semitic.  Any ideology or movement that promotes intolerance and elevates the Nazi legacy must be forcefully opposed.

Mr. Prime Minister, we strongly urge the Hungarian government to immediately cancel its plans for the new Holocaust memorial center. Only after Hungary begins a much-needed critical examination of its own role in the Holocaust and pays serious attention to the concerns of the Jewish community should it undertake such a project.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

A delegation of B’nai B’rith leaders met in Israel with Peru’s President Ollanta Humala, who was visiting the Jewish state. After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Humala said: “Peru wants to cooperate with Israel and become its most significant Latin American partner.”

B’nai B’rith commends Humala for his commitment to strengthening ties with Israel.

The B’nai B’rith delegation and Humala discussed the United Nations, Middle East peace and the recent admission of Israel as an observer at the Latin Pacific Alliance. The group also conferred about B’nai B’rith’s humanitarian aid in the wake of a 2007 earthquake in Peru as well as the Peruvian government’s poverty-reduction efforts.

Israel’s Ambassador to Peru Modi Ephraim, and Peru’s Ambassador to Israel José Luis Salinas Montes, also took part in the meetings with the B’nai B’rith delegation. The B’nai B’rith delegation included President Allan J. Jacobs; Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin; Millie Magid, Roslyn, N.Y.; and Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem.

B’nai B’rith has strong ties across Latin America. The B’nai B’rith lodge in Lima was founded in 1956.

B’nai B’rith leaders were in Israel for a Conference of Presidents annual leadership mission.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International is appalled to learn Denmark has banned religious, ritual slaughter practiced in both Jewish and Muslim communities. The Danish agriculture and food minister handed down the decision, saying animal rights supersede those of religious freedom.

This ban is profoundly concerning, as it restricts the religious freedoms of both the Jewish and Muslim communities. Additionally, kosher slaughter is in no way a violation of animal rights and is a humane practice, more so than other methods.

B’nai B’rith remains worried that as Denmark and a few other European countries have adopted bans on religious slaughter, a vital right and need of Europe’s Jewish minority is being eroded, along with the freedoms that other religious denominations enjoy.

We urge all European leaders, governments and societies to decisively reject a path of government coercion and imposition in religious life.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International deplores the Presbyterian Church (USA) for publishing and selling an “educational” document and DVD entitled, “Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide,” which promotes virulent hatred of Israel, as well as animosity toward the historic rights and fundamental sensibilities of Jews across the religious and political spectrum.

According to the church’s website, the guide—created by the denomination’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN)—draws on “compelling and diverse viewpoints from Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Israel, Palestine, the US, and around the globe.”

Despite the rosy terms in which the church describes the guide, its description is profoundly deceptive. The church conceals the actual nature of the publication­—engagement in vile revisionism of not merely Israeli, but Jewish history too—while exploiting fringe perspectives to legitimize polemics contrary to any understanding of genuine interreligious dialogue and peacemaking.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has supported and marketed a hateful and defamatory anti-Jewish publication, perversely obscuring Israel’s very right to exist alongside its neighbors. We hope that the members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will see through the distortion of facts and the politicization of “education,” and renounce this assault on truth, decency and intercommunal relations.

B’nai B’rith International sponsored and participated in Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations across Latin America in Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela during January. 

On Jan. 27 and 28, B’nai B’rith Mexico sponsored several events in and around Mexico City, including two Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies held in the Mexican Congress. A special session of the Foreign Affairs Committee was held honoring the life of Mexican diplomat Gilberto Bosques Saldivar, who saved hundreds of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France.

A special session of the Chamber of Deputies was also held, where German Ambassador Edmund Duckwitz addressed the room and acknowledged B’nai B’rith Mexico for its work in developing the program “Educating Not to Forget.”

B’nai B’rith also co-sponsored an event at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City.  B’nai B’rith Director of Latin America Affairs Eduardo Kohn and Board of Governors member Dan Tartakowski represented B’nai B’rith at all of the events in Mexico.

Brazil held its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Jan. 30. The event was sponsored by São Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin and was held in the city’s federal building with Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer as the event’s keynote speaker. B’nai B’rith Brazil was represented at the ceremony.

B’nai B’rith Argentina sponsored a Remembrance Day ceremony at the Ministry of Education, where the ministers of education, foreign affairs and justice addressed a crowd of politicians, diplomats and Jewish community leaders.

The Costa Rican Foreign Ministry hosted a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in San José with First Vice President Alfio Piva and Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo as the keynote speakers.

B’nai B’rith Panama joined Jewish community leaders and several ambassadors for a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Ombudsman Hall in Panama City. Lila Herrera, Panama’s ombudswoman, was the event’s host and keynote speaker.

B’nai B’rith Guatemala was in attendance for a Remembrance Day ceremony in Israel square, in Guatemala City. Congressmen addressed the crowd, filled with other legislative officials, ambassadors and members of the Jewish community.

In Ecuador, the Jewish community leaders, including those involved in B’nai B’rith, organized an interfaith Remembrance Day event with members of the Christian community. The ceremony was held at Santo Domingo de Guzman, a Catholic university in Quito.

In Peru, Jewish community leaders and local politicians gathered in Callao, a province just west of Lima, for a Remembrance Day ceremony, led by Israeli Ambassador Modi Ephraim.

On Jan. 27, the Uruguayan Parliament held a special session to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. Minister of Education and Culture Ricardo Ehrlich addressed the legislative body and his speech was broadcast across the country on TV and radio.

B’nai B’rith Chile organized a commemoration ceremony at the headquarters of the Chamber of Deputies on Jan. 27 with Minister of Defense Rodrigo Hinzpeter as the keynote speaker. Apostolic Nuncio to Chile Monsignor Ivo Scapolo, as well as a number of congressmen, also addressed those in attendance.

Additionally, the congresses of Paraguay and Peru commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day, also sponsored by the countries’ respective branches of B’nai B’rith. At each commemoration, members of the Jewish community participated in the ceremonies. 

The Venezuelan National Assembly paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust on Jan. 28, and a leader in the Venezuelan Jewish community, David Bittan, addressed the assembly, and thanked them for taking part in the day of remembrance. The event was broadcast on live television, radio and streamed on the Internet.