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B’nai B’rith Delegation Participates in Zionist General Council Meetings in Israel

10/25/2018

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​An eight-member B’nai B’rith International delegation participated in meetings of the Zionist General Council that convened this week in Hadera, Israel under the title “Building One Nation.”
 
The meeting was launched in the Druze village of Hurfeish with a salute to the Druze minority for its contributions to the state, and included the adoption of wide-ranging constitutional amendments and discussion of the significance of the Declaration of Independence and new Jewish State Law for the future of the State of Israel.
 
Incoming Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog addressed the body, noting: “The Jewish people are on brink of a disaster; simple mathematics show that in two generations, only a fraction of the current Jewish population of the United States will remain Jewish.”
 
Herzog argued that to confront the crisis in Jewish identify, the gates that have made access to Judaism arduous should be opened, warning that separation between Israeli and American Jewry would be a disaster for the Jewish people.
 
The meetings also included panel discussions on Israel-Diaspora relation with Members of Knesset and with chairman of the Zionist Federations, among them Honorary B’nai B’rith President Richard Heideman, who is chairman of the American Zionist Movement.
 
Heideman called for a less vociferous discourse when representatives of the various political parties and organizations that make up the World Zionist Organization convene at meetings of the Zionist General Council. Members of the B’nai B’rith Delegation included B’nai B’rith International Executive Board of Directors member Ira Bartfield; B’nai B’rith Europe Board member Valerie Achache; B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Board Member Dr. Baruch Levy; B’nai B’rith Israel mentor Michael Natan; B’nai B’rith Israel President Dani Gratz; former Young Leadership Network Chair Elana Heideman; Batsheva Schwartz, young delegation member; and B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Director Alan Schneider, who coordinates B’nai B’rith activities at the National institutions (WZO, JAFI and KKL).
 
During his remarks, Herzog also congratulated B’nai B’rith International on its 175th anniversary.

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​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.

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Stars and Stripes Align over Jerusalem: Personal Reflections on the U.S. Embassy Relocation

5/15/2018

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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.

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​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.

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U.S. Embassy Relocation has Special Significance for B’nai B’rith

5/11/2018

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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.  
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​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.

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Revisiting the Jerusalem Embassy Decision, Three Months On

3/28/2018

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In December, the White House announced that it was recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and would aim to move the United States Embassy there.   

I happened to be in Jerusalem that very day, and was with an Israeli government minister and a group of senior international religious leaders as several of us listened live, over dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Old City walls, to the announcement in Washington, D.C. Soon afterward, I took a scenic route through the picturesque Yemin Moshe quarter in order to get a view of a laudatory message beamed near the Tower of David in honor of the decision.  

The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jewish organizations, B’nai B’rith included, greeted the White House decision with strong praise. In principle, the U.S. move stood, any foreign grumbling aside, on about as firm a ground as it comes: If the Jewish state cannot legitimately claim its capital in Jerusalem, where can it? And if the Jewish people cannot look to Jerusalem as a focal point, no people can really lay claim to any city, anywhere. 

As Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s would-be first president, once told a British dignitary who asked why Zionists — Zion, of course, being another name for Jerusalem — would not settle for a different place, he responded that Jews were in possession of Jerusalem when London was still a marsh. Separately, it was Winston Churchill who said, “You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it is they who made it famous.”    

King David established Jerusalem as Israel’s seat of government some three millennia ago, well before the other major faiths cherishing the city came into being. The Temple Mount has served as the perennial epicenter of the Jewish world, the place toward which Jews pray daily and have looked with longing for thousands of years. Jews have never had any other capital, and no other nation ever made the city its own capital. As even the diplomats stationed in Tel Aviv know, Jerusalem has served since Israel’s founding as the site of practically all the country’s foremost national institutions: the Knesset, the president’s residence, the prime minister’s office, the Supreme Court and nearly every government ministry. And it is precisely under Israeli sovereignty that Jerusalem, for all its fissures, has remained diverse and a place of religious freedom rare in the annals of the city. 

Indeed, in contrast with the pre-1967 era, when Jews were expelled and attacked from Jerusalem’s ancient center, and barred from their holiest of places, some of which were ravaged and desecrated, Israel has with negligible international acknowledgment gone to the unparalleled lengths of maintaining the Temple Mount under Islamic clerical administration, thus preventing non-Muslims from praying openly there.  

And so, as a Jew, Jerusalem has always been at the center of my consciousness — and I have always believed, in keeping with very broad, long-standing communal consensus, in the utter irreplaceability of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.   

But I, like a fair number of others, received the news of the American “recognition” decision with a bit of misgiving. Would there be negative implications to the decision’s having been made by the U.S. at a time of exceptionally acute political divides? Would the embassy actually move in the foreseeable future (and to what part of the contested city)? Would the decision have any practical impact on strengthening Israel’s hold on Jerusalem in eventual final-status peace negotiations? Might there, in the nearer term, be an international diplomatic backlash that would undercut, rather than cement, the status of the city as Israel’s capital? Would U.S. warnings about “taking names” of countries lashing out in response have any effect on efforts to rally United Nations condemnation of the Jerusalem recognition? 

And, not least, would the decision provide a pretext for yet another wave of deadly Palestinian terrorism against Israelis?  

Now, to be sure, it was clear from the outset that global alarmism about the recognition decision was both highly overblown and hypocritical. After all, few objected, let alone predicted or justified any violent Israeli response, when the U.N. prematurely recognized a “State of Palestine,” when some European and other states did likewise (even in some cases exchanging embassies with the Palestinians), when the Vatican signed an agreement with “Palestine” that seemed to assign it oversight of Jerusalem, when Iran and various Arab governments deed all of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and when Russia independently announced recognition of two capitals in Jerusalem. Widespread media reports of the White House “reversing decades of U.S. policy” omitted all nuance and context — particularly the fact that the U.S. Congress had more than two decades earlier overwhelmingly recognized Jerusalem’s status as capital, while urging the relocation of the American Embassy there, and that both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates had repeatedly pledged to fulfill this bipartisan commitment. Moreover, there is surely some truth to the administration’s argument that more than 25 years of denying Israel’s capital had not prevented the Oslo peace process from grinding to a halt. 

And one can only describe as chutzpah the fact that a U.N. General Assembly resolution adopted to berate the U.S. decision was sponsored by Yemen — a country torn between those merely belligerent toward Israel and those so belligerent that their official flag reads, “Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse to the Jews” — and Turkey, which, even as the motion itself demanded that countries desist from establishing diplomatic facilities in Jerusalem, said that it planned to open its own embassy to the Palestinians in the holy city.  

As to my initial misgivings, it appears that the U.S. plans to actually expedite the opening of an embassy in Jerusalem, at least in temporary facilities, this May. At the same time, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to indicate that its recognition would not prejudge the contours of any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.   

The U.S. decision has been panned internationally, but two countries, Guatemala and the Czech Republic, have echoed the American recognition, with the former also planning to locate its own embassy in Israel’s capital. While the General Assembly reprimand, with a pro-Palestinian automatic majority in that body, did advance (following a failed effort in the Security Council, where the U.S. has veto power), U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s pledge of consequences for those denying America’s right to make sovereign diplomatic decisions did at least shift the voting considerably, relative to that on a rote prior U.N. resolution on Jerusalem. Even Arab states essentially limited their protests to rhetorical ones — and the popular Palestinian response was relatively subdued, notwithstanding the open fanning of flames by both Hamas and Fatah. 

We can only hope that senseless, self-defeating Palestinian violence will not reignite in May, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding.  

At a most fundamental level, though, while there may be no perfect manner or timing to assert what is right amid daunting threats and complex circumstances, the assertion of Jerusalem’s centrality to Jews and of Jews’ centrality to Jerusalem has never been as necessary as it is today. Where once this bond was universally recognized and even celebrated — among Christians as well, who trace the origins of their faith to a Jew in Jerusalem, but also Muslims — today a whitewashing of Jewish religious identity and national history, and thus of Jews’ basic rights and legitimacy as a people, is underway with unprecedented brazenness. 

Too many influential Islamic figures not only deny Jews an entitlement to pray at the Temple Mount but that the historic temples ever existed there, all archeological and other evidence to the contrary. And a dominant Muslim bloc at the U.N. has had even UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — engage in this bigoted revisionism through resolutions that belittle (with parentheses), call into question (with quotation marks) or erase entirely the original Jewish names of the Mount as well as the Western Wall and other sacred sites.  

Passover is one of the three yearly pilgrimage festivals when, in ancient Israel, all Jews would ascend to the Temple Mount — and when Jewish families worldwide continue to culminate their Seder with the exclamation, “Next year in Jerusalem!”   

During this holiday, it is especially fitting to welcome any contribution to restoring acknowledgment of the holy city as the beating heart of the Jewish people, and of the world’s only Jewish state.  

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​David J. Michaels is Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs at B'nai B'rith International, where he began working in 2004 as Special Assistant to the Executive Vice President. A Wexner Fellow/Davidson Scholar, and past winner of the Young Professional Award of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, he holds degrees from Yale and Yeshiva University. Click here to view more of his content.

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jerusalem post: trump's jerusalem decision and its latin american, caribbean impact

1/19/2018

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This article by B'nai B'rith International's Special Advisor on Latin American Affairs Adriana Camisar originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

U.S. President Donald Trump did the right thing when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Jerusalem has been central to the Jewish people for 3,000 years and the capital of the State of Israel since 1949. And it will remain the capital of Israel under any peace agreement, even if the definitive boundaries of the city are subject to negotiation.

Trump was also complying with US law, as the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 called for the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In addition, last June, the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem that called upon the president and all US officials to abide by the provisions of the Jerusalem Embassy Act. Therefore, this was a legitimate, sovereign decision by an American president. In this regard, the UN General Assembly resolution adopted on December 21 that opposed this decision was presumptuous, to say the least.

An analysis of Latin American and Caribbean votes, though, shows an important number of countries did not oppose the US decision.

In fact, of 19 Latin American countries, nine did not support the resolution: Guatemala and Honduras voted against; Argentina, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama and Paraguay abstained; and El Salvador was suspiciously absent.

With regard to the 15 members of the Caribbean community, also known as CARICOM, seven did not support the resolution: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago abstained; and St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia were absent.

Before the General Assembly vote, both Trump and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the US would cut off financial aid to any countries that voted in favor of the resolution. This message was heavily criticized by the press and in diplomatic circles.

After the vote, many commentators said the strategy did not work. When it comes to Latin America and the Caribbean, this is not quite true. Let’s analyze each case: Guatemala and Honduras, which voted against the UN resolution, both have long-standing relationships with the State of Israel that have become even stronger in the last few years. Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales, it is worth noting, recently announced his decision – which could be followed by other countries in the region – to follow the US example and move the Guatemalan Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The abstentions of Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Paraguay, on the other hand, can be mainly explained by the general worldview of these governments and their fairly good relations with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to strengthen ties with Latin America and his recent historic trip to the region – in which he visited Argentina, Colombia and Mexico and met with Paraguay’s president while in Argentina – could have had an impact, too.

But there is no doubt the administration’s message had an impact on the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, two countries that have consistently voted for every anti-Israel resolution at the UN CARICOM members that did not to support the resolution against Trump’s Jerusalem decision – with the exception of Haiti – usually vote at the UN against the US position on Israel. The fact that they were either absent or abstained from this resolution is striking and shows the administration’s message had a strong effect on this group of countries.

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A​driana Camisar, is an attorney by training who holds a graduate degree in international law and diplomacy from The Fletcher School (Tufts University). She has been B'nai B'rith International Assistant Director for Latin American Affairs since late 2008, and Special Advisor on Latin American Affairs since 2013, when she relocated to Argentina, her native country. Prior to joining B'nai B'rith International, she worked as a research assistant to visiting Professor Luis Moreno Ocampo (former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court), at Harvard University; interned at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs; worked at a children's rights organization in San Diego, CA; and worked briefly as a research assistant to the Secretary for Legal Affairs at the Organization of American States (OAS). To view some of her additional content, click here.

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