Anyone driving near Jerusalem’s government district cannot miss it. On a triangle-shaped lot bordering the Knesset, the Israel Museum and government ministries (did anyone say “location, location, location”?), a magnificent addition to the capital city’s landscape is taking shaper under a jumble of cranes, earthmovers and other heavy machinery: The National Library of Israel building.

In the scintillating promotional material posted on the library’s web site, the futuristic design is described as follows: The building’s curved, elevated and cantilevered form necessitates a contemporary take on the cut Jerusalem limestone found throughout the rest of the city …Openings and carvings, whose shapes are derived from a projection of erosions on ancient stone walls, are designed to minimize solar heat gain on the windows behind. The pattern is reminiscent of culturally specific imagery and text but remains abstract in origin. The mineral surface continues to the vitrine legs below…Uncommon in contemporary Jerusalem, the wood brings a human scale and detail to the pedestrian experience while linking the building to timber traditions important to the local vernacular from ancient to early modern times…Our design responds to the context and reflects the ambitions of the National Library of Israel. It is open and transparent but grounded in the traditions of great libraries and the city itself. As in the past, books will remain at the center…”

The National Library’s new building – which, like the Knesset and other monumental projects in Israel, is being funded by the Rothschild Foundation – is ambitiously slated to open in 2020.

But this institution has its foundation 108 years earlier in a historic decision by members of the B’nai B’rith Jerusalem Lodge to establish a library in Jerusalem that would be the home to the huge fountain of Jewish wisdom contained in its great written tomes. Led by visionary and pragmatic figures like David Yellin, Zeev Hertzberg, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Yosef Meyuchas and Yehiel Michel Pines – all leaders of the “New Yishuv” -  who were inspired by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Jerusalem Lodge (est. 1888) succeeded where two earlier attempts had failed to establish a sustainable library in the cradle of Jewish renaissance then stirring in the Land of Israel – Jerusalem – after libraries had been established by B’nai B’rith lodges in Jaffa and Tzfat (both chartered by the Jerusalem Lodge). Founded to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World and the Spanish Inquisition, the library in Jerusalem was named for the great Jewish statesman and scholar Don Isaac Abravanel, who led the convoy of denuded Jews out of the Spanish kingdom. It opened with 947 books donated by lodge members and other Jewish residents of Jerusalem. Two years later, 2,000 books from a defunct library established earlier by Eliezer Ben Yehuda – the father of modern Hebrew – were gifted to the B’nai B’rith Library, and in 1895, Dr. Josef Chasanowich augmented the collection with his private corpus of 10,000 Jewish books, sending them from Bialystok to Jerusalem. The library was officially renamed “Midrash Abravanel ve’Ginzei Yosef” (Abravanel Seminary and Yosef Archives”). In 1899, Theodor Herzl, in the name of the Zionist Congress, sent Chasanowich a congratulatory letter and a donation towards the library, to which Chasanowich remained committed. By 1886, the rented quarters had become cramped and the lodge began to plan a purpose-built facility which opened in 1902 to great fanfare. The building, which sits on B’nai B’rith Street in the center of the historic district surrounding Prophets Street, is still owned by the Jerusalem Lodge. In 1920, the collection was transferred to the World Zionist Organization and subsequently (in 1925) to the Hebrew University, at which time it took on the name Israel National and University Library. The next year, it opened in its new venue as the Israel National Library.

Leading historians have long recognized the role of the B’nai B’rith Library in the development of Jewish culture and education in Jerusalem and as the foundation of the National Library. Writing in The Book of Jerusalem, Yosef Salmon writes “…the ‘B’nai B’rith’ library…served at the time also as a community center for the New Yishuv in Jerusalem and eventually became the National Library…”. Dov Sidorsky, writing in Libraries and Books in Eretz Israel at the Close of the Ottoman Period, notes “The ambition to establish ‘the treasury of Jewish books’ in the city, which is a center for Judaism, indicates the primary purpose of the library and was a guiding light of the board of the B’nai B’rith library…” Writing in “New Jerusalem at its Beginning”, Yehoshua Ben-Arie writes, “Behind the idea of combining the two libraries in Jerusalem and the addition of Sirkin’s books to the ‘B’nai B’rith’ library in Jerusalem stood Zionist ideology about creating a national library in Eretz Israel.” Finally, writing in “Prophets Street, Ethiopia Neighborhood and Musrara Neighborhood”, David Koryanker writes “In 1892…the third attempt [to establish a library] … was crowned with success at the initiative of B’nai B’rith …The establishment of the library – the nucleus of the National University Library – was the fruit of a determined decision by Jerusalem intellectuals and Hovevei Zion in the Diaspora, who believed that a library is one of the important symbols of national renaissance…’”
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The significant contribution made by the B’nai B’rith Jerusalem Lodge and subsequent B’nai B’rith lodges established in Jaffa, Zichron Yaacov, Tiberias and elsewhere at the end of the 19th century, to the Jewish renaissance in Eretz Israel, even before the establishment of the Zionist Movement, is indeed well-documented. These contributions include the establishment of the first Jewish settlement in the Jerusalem area (Motsa), the first Hebrew-speaking kindergartens and adult education in Jerusalem, hospitals and civic institutions. They also made clandestine missions to Jewish communities throughout the Levant with the purpose of drawing them into the modern era and harnessing their support for Jewish renaissance in Eretz Israel and fought the discriminatory decrees of the Ottoman authorities against Jewish immigration and property ownership. Many of their initiatives were designed to counter the Christian mission to the Jews, very active at that time. They laid the veritable building blocks upon which the “state in the making’ was founded at a time when Jerusalem’s Jewish population stood at a mere 15,000.
 
Together with Jerusalem Lodge President Zvi Rotenberg, and with the support of B’nai B’rith President Charles Kaufman, we are currently engaged in an effort to ensure that B’nai B’rith’s critical role in the founding of the National Library will be recognized in the permanent exhibit that will be a major feature of the new building, and we are seeking other opportunities to bring this proud history to the fore. As President Kaufman concluded in his letter to Library chairman David Blumberg: “This important legacy is too precious for us to ignore and I am sure that you too wish to strive for historical accuracy and recognition for the accomplishments of those who came before us.”
 
Ma’ase Avot Siman L’Banim (The actions of the fathers are a signpost for the children – Rambam).

​Alan Schneider is the director of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, which serves as the hub of B'nai B'rith International activities in Israel. The World Center is the key link between Israel and B'nai B'rith members and supporters around the world. To view some of his additional content, click here.

​Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, many Israeli political leaders have doggedly held to the position that the Palestinian Authority (PA)/PLO and its leading faction Fatah – all headed by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) -  remain Israel’s best and perhaps only partner for reaching a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. They excuse contrary evidence – including the launching and condoning of deadly waves of terrorism, the continuous diplomatic offensive and the promotion of violence and rejectionism in the Palestinian media and school system – as mere symptoms  of the lack of agreement between the parties and argue that these irredentist actions would end as soon as a final status agreement is signed and the “Occupation” ended. An opposing view contends that continued Palestinian rejectionism, incitement and delegitimization poison any chance for reconciliation between the two peoples for generations into the future and insist these come to an end before any further concessions are made towards further Palestinian independence and statehood.
 
A recent report entitled “The Palestinian Authority and Hamas: Promoting Terror in Tandem” lends support to the second approach and points to a growing trend: incitement led by Hamas to terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria – alongside the PA and Fatah’s institutional embrace of terrorism.
 
Here are some examples:

• Following the most recent wave of terrorism in Judea and Samaria, Fatah praised and applauded the terrorists who carried out attacks, including those in Barkan and Ofra. The Palestinian Authority ignored the fact that the victims were innocent civilians, accusing Israel of "killing civilians" in retaliation, although the only ones killed were the murderers themselves.
• Palestinian representative to the UN Riad Mansour, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, the President of the Security Council and the President of the UN General Assembly, wrote that "in recent days, a number of residents have been punished and murdered by the Israeli occupation forces. This is part of military operations aimed at avenging Palestinians following the killing of three Israeli soldiers. In just 24 hours, the occupation forces executed four Palestinian residents: Ashraf Nalwah, Salah al-Barghouthi (the terrorist who participated in the attack in Ofra), Hamdan al-A’aracha (carried out a vehicular terrorist attack) and Majed Matir (carried out a stabbing in Jerusalem)” – (parentheses added – A.S.)
• A statement issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs insisted: “The death of the three Palestinian residents, the martyrs, by the hand of occupation forces last night and this morning is proof that their soldiers have become machines of war and execution above the law, receiving their orders from the political echelon in Israel”.
• At the same time, the Fatah movement in the West Bank called on the Palestinian public, in an official announcement issued in light of the events, to escalate the clashes on Friday, Dec. 14, in all areas as an act of “loyalty to the martyrs”.
• Messages of support for and glorification of terrorists are widespread on Fatah’s official social media accounts.
• Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen held a meeting in his office in Ramallah with the mother and brother of Arab-Israeli prisoner and member of the Fatah Central Committee, Karim Yunis, who has been imprisoned in Israel since before the Oslo Accords for the abduction and murder of Avraham Bromberg in 1980 and who faces life imprisonment. Abbas told the prisoner’s family: “The issue of prisoners is at the top of the agenda among Palestinian leadership, which invests every possible effort, together with institutions and the international community, to bring about their release from Israeli prisons."
• On Nov. 13, Joad Jamil Hoshea, from Yata (south of Hebron) was released after serving 16 years in prison for belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement, and carrying out attacks against Israelis. The released prisoner received a particularly festive reception, which was covered by state-owned Palestinian television, and he was also visited by various elements from the Palestinian leadership and from the Ministry of Education.
• On Nov. 29, the minors Shadi Farah and Ahmed al-Za'tari, both 15, were released from detention. They were arrested in December 2015 on suspicion of planning a stabbing attack in Jerusalem. Immediately after their release, the children became ‘national heroes’ and received praise and appreciation from the Palestinian leadership and all the media outlets of the establishment.

 
Any renewed effort to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians – whether directly or with the assistance of foreign bridging efforts – will have to tackle the effects of 25 years of intense incitement and embrace of terrorism since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and its various components as a first requisite step to reconciliation.  The launch of the administration’s peace plan might have been postponed due to the recently-announced early Israeli elections, but when it is picked up again, identification with murderers and terrorists will have to be the first things dropped by the PA if it is to stand any chance of success.

Yesterday’s massive reception in Jerusalem at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs in honor of the visiting delegation from the U.S., here to help inaugurate the new American embassy in Jerusalem later today, was a celebration of new heights in U.S.-Israel relations reached under the Trump-Netanyahu partnership. Not only were the speeches rendered — by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin —  mutually supportive, but there were moments of candid camaraderi, such as when the prime minister recognized White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, saying that he has known him for “105 years and there is a special bond between our families” — that must convince any observer that this is no normal diplomatic relationship based solely on state interests, but one that bores down to the kishkes of both governments.

The relocation of the embassy to Israel’s capital should give Israel’s enemies (Iran and Hezbollah) and detractors (the EU and U.N.) good reason for conjecture about what coordinated steps they might face as they continue to threaten joint Israeli-U.S. strategic interests.

The relief felt by most Israelis who have carried the 70-year old burden of this unique boycott by the international community against its capital and other hurtful diplomatic anomalies was reflected in the words of Netanyahu, who set the tone for the event:

“I call on all countries to join the U.S. in moving their embassies to Jerusalem. Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it’s the right thing to do…Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it advances peace, and that’s because you can’t base peace on a foundation of lies. You base peace on the foundations of truth, and the truth is that not only has Jerusalem been the capital of the Jewish people for millennia and the capital of our state from its inception, the truth is that under any peace agreement you could possibly imagine, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital.

It took President Trump, a President Trump to enunciate this simple, basic truth. And once enunciated, that truth will propagate…

And to achieve peace, we have to do one other thing: We must confront the enemies of peace, and I thank President Trump for his decision to confront Iran rather than to appease it…With all due respect to those sitting in European capitals, we here in the capitals of the Middle East — in Jerusalem, in Riyadh and elsewhere — we’ve seen the disastrous consequences of the Iran deal. And so when President Trump decides to pull out of this deal, to walk away from it, we know that when he walks away from a bad deal, he’s doing a good thing for our region, for the United States and for the world.”

While the U.S. will not be alone in Jerusalem — Guatemala will reopen its embassy here on Wednesday (after opening its embassy in Jerusalem in 1959 and moving it to Tel Aviv about 20 years later) and Paraguay will relocate next week — a signal that the going will still be tough, which was reflected in the dearth of foreign ambassadors who accepted the Foreign Ministry’s invitation to honor Israel and the U.S. with their presence at the reception. Of EU states, only Romania, Hungary and the  Czech Republic — three countries that blocked an EU draft resolution condemning the U.S. move — and Austria were present, alongside a number of African and Latin American states. Even countries famous for their friendship with Israel such as Germany, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus — the latter two who held their fourth summit with Netanyahu just last week in Nicosia — stayed demonstratively at arm’s length.

Besides the upbeat atmosphere of the whole affair — that included a great performance of Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold” by an Ethiopian vocalist and ended with Netta Barzilai’s winning Eurovision song “Toy” — the reception engendered particular pride for me and anyone affiliated with B’nai B’rith. A special exhibit on former U.S. President Harry Truman was displayed in the expansive reception hall. Guests were able to view the pen used to sign the de jure recognition of the State of Israel, which occurred on January 31, 1949. They were also able to view the famous photograph from that occasion showing Truman with the only three invited guests: B’nai B’rith President Frank Goldman, B’nai B’rith Executive Vice President Maurice Bisgyer and B’nai B’rith Kansas City member Eddie Jacobson.  
It was Jacobson — Truman’s WWI comrade-in-arms and lifelong confidant — who, acting at the request of Goldman, successfully appealed to the president to meet with World Zionist Organization President Dr. Chaim Weizmann when the State Department was lobbying Truman to rescind U.S. support for the U.N. Partition Plan in favor of a U.N. mandate over “Palestine.” This was anathema to the Zionists who viewed this looming threat as the possible end to the Zionist endeavor of the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. Truman agreed to see the ailing Weizmann — who was ushered in through the back door of the White House secretly, and lodged at a hotel under the alias “Frank Goldman” — and his impassioned appeal to the president to maintain U.S. support for partition won the day.
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The rest, as they say, is history.

​Alan Schneider is the director of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, which serves as the hub of B'nai B'rith International activities in Israel. The World Center is the key link between Israel and B'nai B'rith members and supporters around the world. To view some of his additional content, Click Here.

As director of B’nai B’rith’s “embassy” in Jerusalem, I am acutely aware that the relocation of the American embassy to Israel’s capital — slated for this coming Monday — has special significance for our organization. It was at the September 1980 International Convention that B’nai B’rith International decided — perhaps the first by any U.S.-based Jewish organization — to establish a “permanent and official presence” in Jerusalem. This was B’nai B’rith’s  robust refutation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 478 that just weeks earlier had called on all 13 member states with embassies in Jerusalem at the time (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela, the Netherlands and Haiti) to withdraw their diplomatic missions from the city.
 
The U.N.’s excuse for this assault was passage of the Jerusalem Law by the Knesset in July of that year which declared Jerusalem to be Israel's "complete and united" capital, declaring it a violation of international law. At its height, Jerusalem boasted 16 embassies — the above plus Ivory Coast, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kenya. But since 2006, Jerusalem — the Jewish capital since the days of King David and never declared the capital of any other people, despite having been occupied by many — has been bereft of any embassies and official recognition as Israel’s capital.
 
Jerusalem was long the seat of B’nai B’rith in Israel. It was where the Jerusalem Lodge — the first lodge to be established in the Land of Israel — was inaugurated in 1888 (nine years before the founding the Zionist movement by Theodore Herzl) and undertook some of the most significant civic projects at the time: sending clandestine missions to establish lodges in Jewish communities across the Ottoman Empire; founding the first library in the Land of Israel; setting up the Committee of the Hebrew Language and battling Christian missionaries by providing alternatives to Christian education and medical services, among others. But leadership — both in Israel and internationally — recognized that the U.N.’s affront could not be left unanswered, and the B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem was founded.
 
Since then, successive chairmen and directors have implemented its role as the organization’s public affairs arm in Israel and permanent and official presence in Jerusalem. One of our declared goals was, indeed, to encourage countries to move their embassies to the city or establish new one’s here, instead of in Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan. While we cannot claim success in this endeavor, the World Center did submit a white paper to the Foreign Ministry that identified strategies for attracting embassies to the city, although this never seemed to be a priority for Israeli governments faced with a multitude of bi-lateral and multi-lateral diplomatic challenges throughout its 70 years.
 
Finally, on Monday, this will change as President Donald J. Trump makes good on a 23-year promise by Congress and successive presidents. By also recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital de jure, Trump will blaze new, significant ground that was not engendered by the presence of embassies in the past. All praise for these courageous steps, long-awaited by the people of Israel, is deserved. The move has already had a ripple effect — albeit modest at first — with Guatemala and Paraguay following suit. The fanfare of Monday’s events will undoubtedly convince other countries that the rightful place for their legations is in Jerusalem — at least 10 are reportedly considering an imminent move —  and this will have a positive effect on this fascinating, but challenging city.
 
Certain questions remain about the full significance of the embassy move as U.S. State Department officials insist that the administration will continue long-standing policy not to note “Jerusalem, Israel” in official U.S. documents, but only “Jerusalem.” There is also the cloud cast by the long-awaited U.S. proposal for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that according to news reports, will call on Israel to relinquish control of four Arab neighborhoods in favor of the creation of a capital for “Palestine.”
 
These questions will undoubtedly be dealt with after sometime after Monday — perhaps even far in the future. But in the meantime, we will bask in the knowledge that Jerusalem has begun the long journey to its rightful place among the great capitals of the world.  

​Alan Schneider is the director of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, which serves as the hub of B'nai B'rith International activities in Israel. The World Center is the key link between Israel and B'nai B'rith members and supporters around the world. To view some of his additional content, Click Here.

​Over two years of planning and hard work culminated on the evening of Nov. 7 when a whole-day program at the Knesset to mark the adoption of the Balfour Declaration on Nov. 2, 1917 ended on a note of success. The B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem — leading an initiative on behalf of the Balfour Centenary Committee — was the first to raise the specter of the impending, but still distant, historic milestone with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein at a meeting in his bureau back in 2014 — but not before pro-Palestinian organizations had already started their campaign to pressure the British government to rescind the Declaration. This petty stunt got zero traction with Prime Minister Theresa May who declared that Her Majesty’s government would “mark the centenary with pride”— which it in fact did, both in Israel and in the UK.
 
Our committee felt that the right place in Israel to reflect on the various aspects of the historic event and on the current state of UK-Israel relations was the Knesset, and were pleased to receive immediate support from Edelstein who endorsed a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, an international conference and a Knesset plenary session all dedicated to the Balfour Centenary.
 
While the excitement around the centenary was somewhat eclipsed just a month later when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and adopted a new global strategy that no longer sees the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as the main cause of Middle East turmoil, the positive buzz left by these events persists: that Israel’s legitimacy, while constantly challenged, is firmly anchored in diplomatic convention going back 100 years and in the profound Jewish cultural-religious connection to this land going back thousands of years. These sentiments were borne out in many of the presentations made on Nov. 7.
 
The scope of this blog does not allow me to summarize all the many excellent speeches made during the day by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Head of the Opposition Isaac Herzog, Lord Jacob Rothschild and others. I would though like to share some of the poignant remarks made in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the most restricted of the sessions held that day.
 
Committee Head MK Avi Dichter opened the hearing, noting that the principal statement in the Declaration — that “His Majesty’s Government view with farvour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” — represented the beginning of modern Jewish history.
 
Lord Stuart Polak recalled the rarely-remembered end of the Declaration that states: “…nothing shall be done which may prejudice the …rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Polak argued that while some 170 U.N. resolutions, 13 U.N. agencies and billions of dollars have supported the Palestinian cause since 1948, nothing has been done in support of the 850,000 Jews forced out of Muslim lands after Israel’s creation who should have been protected under the terms of the Declaration that were later incorporated into international law.
 
Labour MK Joan Ryan, chair of Labor Friends of Israel, said she believed that in light of Israel’s progressive values and international humanitarian aid “Labour’s founding fathers would have felt their support for Zionism more than justified.”
 
Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum, chair of the Balfour 100 Committee in Britain, said that despite apprehensions the Balfour Centenary events in Britain were successful because it brought back to life the sense of shared purpose that Great Britain and the Zionist movement enjoyed 100 years ago, during the First World War period and shed light on the shared value, shared purpose and shared language that bind the two counties today.
 
Celebrated British historian professor Simon Schama interjected a more cautionary tone, noting that on the American and British campuses he teaches at, “Zionist is a title of honor one has to fight for.” He argued that in the context of Jewish history the “public knows only about the Shoah and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but has no sense of the richness of Jewish history, its complexity and above all its connection to some of the great epic moral dramas of the history of the world — particularly the epic of homelessness and not just about the decency and virtue of our political position and the right to our defense.” He argued that the Balfour Declaration succeeded in part, because there was an “educated sympathy” by its protagonists toward the destiny of the Jewish people. “That sympathy is under siege today and we have to think creatively how to fill the world with the story of the Jews.”
 
B’nai B’rith International  CEO and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin expressed regret at the ongoing campaigns to erase both the intent and promise of the Balfour Declaration that prevail at the U.N., with that body’s 1975 “Zionism Equals Racism” resolution only the tip of the iceberg. Restating B’nai B’rith’s passionate support and devoted partnership with the State of Israel, Mariaschin said that “As we commemorate the Balfour Declaration as a monumental act of decency whose purpose was to recognize the injustices of the past and the legitimate right of the Jewish people to live in peace and dignity in its own nation, there are those who engage in global campaigns to turn the clock back in order to deny our people that right.”
 
The Balfour Declaration has engendered one hundred years of debate around the motivation, timing, relationships and interests that led to the decision taken by the British Government led by former Prime Minister Lloyd George. The policy shift taken by Trump will also inevitably be the source of vociferous debate into the future. In both cases, the responsibility lies with the leaders of the Jewish people and the State of Israel to make the most of these declarations and work with friends to ensure they will provide their intended benefits.

Nearly 15 years ago, the World Center proposed a resolution to the 2003 B’nai B’rith International Board of Governors meeting that convened in Baltimore calling on the organization to honor Jewish Holocaust rescuers. The resolution that past read “BE IT RESOLVED THAT B’nai B’rith International authorizes the B’nai B’rith World Center to engage in identifying and honoring Jews who performed extraordinary actions to save other Jews during the Holocaust, and asks that they further define the scope of any involvement and activity by B’nai B’rith International.”

Over the years since that resolution, the search for Jewish Holocaust-era rescuers has become a major area of activity for the World Center and a personal passion.

In order to properly honor those heroes, the World Center and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust—of which the World Center is a founding member—launched their joint “Jewish Rescuers Citation,” through which some 170 Jewish heroes have been recognized for their courageous actions rescuing Jews across Europe during the Holocaust.

One of the modus operandi of the citation is that it must be presented to the rescuer him or herself or, in the case that the rescuer is no longer alive, to a relative.

Sometimes, this condition is difficult to meet, particularly in the case of some of the more obscure rescue efforts.

One such effort is the case of Dr. Asaf Atchildi, a medical doctor born into the Jadir community of Samarkand—a religious community of Jewish origin, originally forced into accepting the Muslim faith for the sake of appearance. Atchildi found himself in Paris during the German occupation, attending to the Juguts—Jews of Bukharian origin in France. With the assistance of Georgian expatriate politicians living in France, an Iranian diplomat and other players, Dr. Atchildi succeeded in building a web of contacts and relationships among the German and French bureaucracy that ensured the survival of the Jugut community and other non-Jugut Jews who were surreptitiously added to the list of Juguts. Atchildi, who, at his wife’s urging never registered as being Jewish, was in constant danger of being found out and deported.

Our committee had no doubt that the now deceased doctor deserved the Jewish Rescuers Citation but we were unable to find a relative to receive it. We knew from testimony he gave to Yad Vashem that while in Paris he had two daughters. We could not find either in Israel or in Paris. I then resorted to the radio program “Search Bureau for Missing Relatives,” anchored by Izzy Mann, a B’nai B’rith World Center Journalism Award winner, who immediately promised to broadcast Atchildi’s fascinating story to garner information from the public at large and also to set loose his bevy of volunteer researchers to find Atchildi or his close kin. Izzy was able to find some significant leads to distant relatives in Israel and within three weeks these led to a breakthrough: we found Dr. Atchildi’s one surviving daughter, Dora Aftergood (90), at the Jewish age home in Vancouver and her son David in Calgary. B’nai B’rith Canada has agreed to stage a major event to present the citation posthumously to Dr. Atchild—closing the circle opened 70 years earlier when he ensured the survival of over 300 Bukharian and other Jews in occupied France.
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The World Center remains committed to this important project that helps discredit the mistaken notion that Jews did nothing to rescue fellow Jews during the Holocaust and that the notion of Jewish solidarity was nowhere to be found during those terrible times.

Despite an astounding array of conventions, covenants, directives, framework decisions, case law and other existing legal instruments meant to ensure human rights and freedom from discrimination in the European Union, Jews continue to face high levels of anti-Semitism in nearly all of the 28 EU member states.

I had the privilege of participating recently in the 10th Israel-EU Bilateral Dialogue on Combating Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia at the invitation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (MFA) in Jerusalem earlier this month. The forum was established to allow Israelis and representatives of the European Commission—the government of the European Union—to discuss their ongoing work in combating antisemitism, exchange experiences and compare best practices. Participants included high-ranking European Commission and Israel Foreign Ministry officials, experts and practitioners in the field of education and social media.  

The meeting occurred after the failed attempt by the 57-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to adopt the long-awaited Working Definition of anti-Semitism. Researchers, lawmakers and law enforcement practitioners have long complained that the lack of a generally agreed-upon definition of anti-Semitism—even if not legally binding—has helped confound efforts to combat the issue. So long as there was no definition, one man’s anti-Semitism could arguably be another man’s legitimate, albeit judgmental, opinion about Jews or Israel.

READ: A Potential Breakthrough in Defining Anti-Semitism

The definition proposed to the OSCE—only one sentence long with no mention of the State of Israel—goes on to provide 11 illustrative examples, most of which reference different manifestations of anti-Israel prejudice as forms of anti-Semitism: “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust;…Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor; Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis; Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis...” – while adding the clear caveat that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The definition was adopted in May by the 31-member International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (encompassing European states plus the U.S., Canada, Argentina and Israel), but due to an obstructionist role played by a single member, the Russian Federation, the definition did not pass muster at OSCE, leaving states wanting to do utilize this new tool in the fight against anti-Semitism to adopt it individually as local legislation. The UK’s new prime minister Theresa May has committed Great Britain—faced with an alarming 61% increase in anti-Semitic crime over the past year—to being the first country to formally adopt the definition as law.

Despite the palatable disappointment at the OSCE vote, the Israel-EU dialogue provided a useful opportunity for officials to restate the Union’s commitments to counter anti—Semitism. Daniel Braun, the deputy head of cabinet for Věra Jourová, the European Union's commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, declared that combating anti-Semitism is not the responsibility of the Jewish community alone but an assault on fundamental rights that affects all people and not only minorities. Paul Nemitz, director for fundamental rights and rule of law, said that the Holocaust is part of European citizenship and that everyone, not only Jews, suffer from the effects of anti-Semitism, adding that the dialogue on combating the issue must continue irrespective of the state of the political dialogue between Israel and the EU.

The dialogue also provided a platform for an exchange of views on best practices, latest research and technological advances in combating anti-Semitism and also for a reality check on the efficacy of some long-held axioms.

For example, the EU has put much hope—and funding—into education and youth action as a means of tackling radicalization and anti-Semitism. Indeed, the concluding sentences in the extensive 10-year review on anti-Semitism in the EU, published last month by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, states that “Education is essential to prevent intolerant attitudes. Through education that fosters socialization, tolerance, universal values and encourages critical thinking, children and young people can bring change to their families and communities, and ultimately to the broader society.” This was reflected in the message of Katharina Von-Schnurbein, coordinator for combating anti-Semitism, who said that to change attitudes in the long term, EU member states need to tackle hate through education by working among teachers and principals. Braun also said that tolerance education must involve the whole spectrum of Jewish history in Europe, not just the Holocaust, which has been the focus of EU efforts until now. He was concerned by reports of anti-Semitic acts in schools and universities in Europe, adding that newcomers to the continent are bringing anti-Semitic attitudes with them and that it is Europe's responsibility to inculcate its basic principles of respect and tolerance into these newcomers.

But putting this approach into question, Dr. Eyal Kaminka, director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, argued that in the current hyper-charged atmosphere at many schools across Europe today, it is doubtful that meaningful change could be affected in schools since, as reported by many of the European teachers his school trains in methods for teaching the Holocaust, they are unable to implement any Holocaust curriculum in the face of student’s raucous objections, fanned by attitudes of Holocaust denial at home. Kaminka called on the EU officials to review the telling testimonies he has compiled of teachers across Europe that reflect the true face of intolerance and anti-Semitism in the classroom.

Perhaps the most hopeful news at the dialogue came from reports on implementation of the new Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online reached this May between the Commission and four major IT platforms: Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social media is widely recognized as the principal platform for the promotion of anti-Semitic attitudes today. Under the Code, the IT companies must put in place a clear and effective process to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content. Von-Schnurbein said that the Code establishes that the internet is no longer a legal black hole—, as it has been since its inception some 15 years ago, but that standards of incitement and illegal hate speech apply there too as it does in the print and broadcast media, terminating the privilege IT companies had claimed until now that they are not responsible for 3rd party content.
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Although much hope was put in the Code, Von-Schnurbein expressed disappointment at the findings of the first review of implementation undertaken in October that indicated that only 28% of flagged entries have been removed by the platforms, a percentage she admitted did not meet expectations.  When the fact that the flaggers are all vetted and paid for by the IT companies themselves, the percentage of takedowns pales even further (takedowns of flagged offensive material from non-vetted sources is even lower). 

This led a number of participants in the dialogue to express incredulousness at the IT company's continued insistence on using manual flagging while objecting to the institution’s use of more uniform and reliable technological solutions for automatic removal as they already do to generate individualized advertising and content. As reported recently by Digital Trends, Google recently made improvements to its algorithm that will prevent Holocaust denial websites from appearing in search results. This improvement in the algorithm was made after Google came under fire for enabling neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denying websites to rank high up in search results for questions such as: "Did the Holocaust happen?"  

Some of the most advanced technology available to cleanse the web from hate speech has been developed in Israel. One of these is Spot.IM—a fully automated tool that monitors the comments sections in online media outlets for hate and verbal violence, identifying individuals who prowl the internet hoping to spark violent discourse or aggravate them. The platform, now used by over 5,000 active news sites and online magazines in the U.S., Israel and Europe—automatically filters their activity up to and including blocking them and deleting their entire comment history.

Israel is also in the process of falling in line with the U.S., Canada, Australia and the UK after a new legislation, the Removal of Terror-Inciting Content from Social Media bill, dubbed the “Facebook bill,” passed first muster last week in the Cabinet. Under the bill, courts will be empowered to order social media companies to remove posts that the authorities consider “a criminal endangerment to personal, public or national security." Although in the past year, 71% of 1,755 requests made by the Justice Ministry to providers to remove content were met, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that while internet companies were cooperating with the government in cleansing the web of content that violates defamation, adoption, Holocaust denial, incitement and anti-terrorism laws, "it is important that this cooperation be required, and not according to their whims.” The bill would apply to posts that “call for an act of violence or terrorism" and demands that posts are removed from visibility in Israel.

The Jewish community in general and B'nai B'rith in particular, along with other watchdog agencies, have a responsibility to ensure that the Commission keeps up pressure on the providers to make the Internet and social media a safer environment. In fact, speakers at the dialogue expressed that the dedication and commitment exhibited by Jewish interlocutors on this issue could be duplicated among other targeted minorities in Europe. This is a distinction I believe many of us would be only too happy to concede.

The U.N. and its system of “specialized agencies” is famous for barring down indiscriminately on the world’s only Jewish state—Israel—and serving as a kangaroo court to heap abuse on the only country in the Middle East that boasts democratic elections, peaceful transfer of power and an independent judiciary that ensures equality for all citizens. According to figures compiled by Fiamma Nirenstein, a journalist and former Italian parliamentarian, the U.N. Human Rights Council has adopted 135 resolutions from 2006 to 2015, of which 68 have been against Israel; the General Assembly has approved 97 from 2012 to 2015, of which 83 have been against Israel; and UNESCO adopts ten country-specific resolutions every year, and all of them against Israel.  

This travesty continues despite the U.N.’s abysmal failure, since its establishment in 1945, to achieve its chief goal to “maintain international peace and security.” The number of deaths attributed to the 100-year old Israeli-Arab conflict are estimated at some 120,000—compared to the grotesque number of deaths attributed to other wars, massacres, slaughters and oppressions are upward of 200 million in the 20th Century. Still, the U.N. system continues to undermine its credibility by finding new and imaginative ways to attack Israel, serving as one of the chief enablers of anti-Semitism—a term which today includes, by most versions, anti-Israel bias.

The most recent series of tainted resolutions have come from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is headquartered in Paris. In October, the Executive Board voted three times on resolutions that have denied the Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest site—the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The resolutions, promoted by the Palestinians (which became a full member state at UNESCO in 2011), the Arab bloc and others, were allowed to pass—with diminishing majorities—by the feckless abstentions cast by many member states. This included Christian-majority countries that ostensibly have a vested interest in maintaining the Judeo-Christian historical narrative of the late Second Temple period in the cradle of Christianity.

​These resolutions were so outrageous that they even elicited a rare written condemnation by UNESCO Secretary-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria and expressions of remorse by the presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Italy at their country’s vote. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi went as far as to tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a subsequent telephone conversation that: “To say that the Jewish people have no connection to Jerusalem is like saying that the sun creates darkness.” Renzi promised to vote against such resolutions in the future, and to act to convince other European governments to adopt his position.

All of these efforts by world bodies whittle away at the legitimacy of Israel's presence in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the region, but they have little impact on the ground. These resolutions in fact are so outrageous that they have provided Israel with a perfect cover for keeping out recurrent committees of investigations that the U.N. has tried to send here—usually populated by "experts" whose anti-Israel bona fides are quite evident— in an effort to ignite an already flammable situation.

​The UNESCO resolutions could in fact be credited for the record number of Jewish visitors to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount during the Sukkot holiday. On Oct. 23, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) called on all Israeli Jews to converge on the Western Wall for the Priestly Blessing. On a Facebook post he said: "This year, we’ll come, in our masses, to Jerusalem, to the Western Wall, to the Priestly Blessing. This Wednesday…we’ll all be there. We’ll send a clear message—nobody will separate us from our holy places.”

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, responded to the UNESCO decision by saying that, "In all of world history I don't know of an 'occupying power' whose land is full of the relics of its ancestors. The holiness of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall for the Jewish people goes back many generations. It does not need anyone's approval. It is ridiculous to deny the (archaeological) discoveries that are occurring all the time. The millions of worshipers who come to pray at the Western Wall in front of the Temple Mount are the Jewish answer to UNESCO."

And as if in perfect timing, two major archaeological discoveries that reinforce the Jewish narrative and connection to Jerusalem came to light just as the international community sought to deny it. On Oct. 27, compelling evidence of the breaching of Jerusalem’s so-called “third wall”—which was said to have surrounded the city during the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.—was announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The new archaeological find included scores of ancient ballista and sling stones that the Romans fired from catapults at the Jewish guards stationed on top of the tower to defend the wall.

​The excavation directors described the find: “This is a fascinating testimony of the intensive bombardment by the Roman army, led by Titus, on their way to conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple.” And a day earlier the IAA displayed an unprecedented document containing a reference to Jerusalem from the First Temple period.
Written in ancient Hebrew script and dating back to the Kingdom of Judah during the 7th century B.C.E., the rare relic—a shipping document made of papyrus—was seized from now-jailed Palestinian antiquities plunderers in a complex IAA unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery operation. The papyrus was pillaged from a remote Judean desert cave and represents the earliest extra-Biblical source yet found to mention Jerusalem in Hebrew writing.

While UNESCO's words might not yet have caused any physical harm, they do undoubtedly provide the grist for ongoing Palestinian efforts to engage in widespread damage to the physical elements of Jewish patrimony in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel. Those archaeological finds provide incontrovertible evidence of Jewish primacy in the Holy City from the time of King David and beyond.

As an avid hiker in the less traversed mountains and valleys of Judea and Samaria, I am confronted with this sad reality on a regular basis in all areas under Palestinian control: plundered Jewish burial caves, mikvas and wine presses. Nowhere is this destruction more prevalent than on Temple Mount controlled to this day by the Muslim Waqif (Holy Trust). In an article released on Oct. 27 at an IAA conference in Jerusalem spotlighting major archeological finds over the past decade, Yuval Baruch, IAA Jerusalem Region director, describes the vast destruction caused by the Waqif in 1999. Heavy machinery was used on the Temple Mount to dig out an entrance to "Solomon's Stables," which turned it into the largest mosque in Israel. In 2007, the Waqif dug a channel for laying electrical cables on the mount.

The debris from the first incident—dumped unceremoniously in the Kidron Valley—is still yielding artifacts that corroborate the biblical story. One of the most significant discoveries was presented by experts just last month—geometrically patterned marble floor tiles believed to have covered the porticos atop the Temple Mount during the Second Temple period. The tiles are so vivid, intricate and novel in design that you can still read the Talmudic teaching that “whoever has not seen Herod's building has not seen a beautiful building in his life.”

The second incident was approved and overseen by Baruch and yielded some of the only First Temple artifacts to be found in situ on Temple Mount. But other senior archaeologists fault IAA for what they argue is a continuing pattern of non-intervention in the Waqif's design to damage and destroy vestiges of Jewish presence on and around Temple Mount. They fault the state for allowing the Temple Mount artifacts to remain buried due to considerations of expediency (i.e. that such digs would cause turmoil in the Muslim world).

While confronting—with considerable success—the diplomatic war against the Jewish people's chronicle in Jerusalem, the State of Israel must do more to ensure that our physical patrimony is not eliminated under the same motivation. If Israel is unable at this time to engage in a comprehensive expert and vetted archaeological dig on Temple Mount—something which is long over do—due to political, diplomatic and other temporal considerations, it must ensure that these artifacts remain in situ until future generations will have the fortune to do so.

​Bambi won the World Center award for an issue of Eretz Acheret—a bi-monthly magazine she founded in 2000—dedicated in its entirety to the relationship between Israel and American Jewry. Published under the motto (in Hebrew) "A journal in the service of the community,” Bambi wrote in her editor's column in the inaugural October 2000 issue that Eretz Acheret "will follow those Israelis who seek to expand the limits of their identify and to that end are ready to listen to voices it is difficult for them to hear." Indeed, Eretz Acheret quickly became the principal platform for constructive demands for social, religious and nationalist revision in Israel on everything from land policy and minority rights to Israel-Diaspora relations and avant-garde Judaism. Writing in Makor Rishon, contemporary and senior columnist Amnon Lord wrote that Bambi, compared to other journalists (religious and non-religious alike) stood out for her sense of responsibility towards the State of Israel. She represented an old-school journalism that "linked Judaism to Israelism, to [form a] culture with roots but open to the world… [She] understood that losing the Left would be a wound on a national level that Israel could not allow itself."
 
Under the typically provocative title "Two States for Two Peoples? American Jewry and Us," Bambi opened the winning edition of the magazine by taking issue with the conclusions reached by most of her own contributors. Ever the optimist about the trajectory of Jewish destiny, she wrote: "Most of the writers in this issue are not optimistic about the communal-cultural future of American Jewry and do not believe that it has enough internal strength to revitalize. But perhaps they are mistaken. Perhaps the direction of this flow can be changed through a concentrated Israeli and all-Jewish effort. And perhaps history will surprise again, as it always does, and exhibit a completely different picture from that seen by the writers in this magazine."
 
Reflecting on the topic of her winning entry, Bambi said in her captivating acceptance speech, "The fundamental problem of the Jewish people abroad at this moment is related to questions of identity and belonging. This is the result of weakness at the core, including the big core that lives in Israel. This core, that feels fully dedicated to the future of the people, is still not strong enough to deflect the extremist forces that insist that authentic Jewry must be defined entirely by Halachic parameters that predated the Shoah, the foundation of the State of Israel and the mass immigration to Israel that we are witness to…What should Jewish identify be after all we have been through? Should these monumental events effect the nature and content of Jewish identity from now going forward? I believe so."
 
The jury considerations at the time included the following: "We found, above all, that the editor, Bambi Sheleg and the crew she leads, is equipped with an impressive—even a surprising—amount of personal, public and professional courage, above and beyond what is found in journalism in general and in our topic of discussion in particular."
 
With a tradition of co-opting appropriate award winners onto our jury, Bambi accepted, without hesitation, our invitation to serve subsequently on the award jury, and did so with great diligence until her death, participating in the jury's meeting in late May to determine the 2016 award winners, even though she was already terminally ill. No one on the jury, including myself serving as secretary, got any inkling from Bambi that anything was awry while the deliberations went on for over two hours or, following the ruling, when Bambi made some very wise proposals for revising and improving the award structure in the future. At the meeting, Bambi also shared her frustrations with the financial challenges posed by maintaining an intellectual print journal, including the need to constantly seek and retain donors, which led her to move Eretz Acheret solely to a web version in 2012 after 66 ground-breaking print issues.
 
Bambi even volunteered to compose the detailed jury considerations for one of the winners, Times of Israel Diaspora editor Amanda Borschel-Dan, which she did. Unfortunately, she contacted me just days before the July 7 award ceremony to say that she was not feeling well and requested that one of the other judges present the considerations she had prepared on behalf of the entire panel. In retrospect, this communication should have set off some warning bells, but I remained oblivious until I heard the tragic, shocking news of her passing on national news—as did nearly all of her close friends who, according to her wishes, were kept in blissful ignorance about her medical condition. Only Yair and their children, who devoted themselves to her care for the past 18 months, knew the true gravity of her condition. I take some solace in knowing that Bambi valued our journalism award project so much that she made this very great effort to fulfill her volunteer undertaking, even when she was gravely ill, lending her considerable stature to the award.
 
It is fitting that Yair immediately accepted our invitation to take Bambi's place on the jury as a way of maintaining her legacy into the future.
 
May the memory and work of Bracha "Bambi" Sheleg be a blessing for us all.