In 1941, when Berta was 18, her family of five fled Poland and crossed the Carpathian Mountains into still-unoccupied Hungary, where Jews were being persecuted but not yet hunted down.  One night the family was hiding, crowded together, in a sheep stall, when Berta’s father, fearing his children would be killed, cried, “For what did I bring you into the world?”  From her father’s desperation Berta took the conviction that sustained her for the next five years: “Better to be killed than to hide!”         

Berta made her way to Budapest in 1942, where she began working for the Zionist underground through the youth movement Dror Habonim.  She assumed a Gentile identity and the name Bigota Ilona and wore a crucifix around her neck.

[...]

In May, 1944, Rudolf Kasztner made a daring deal to provide trucks to Adolf Eichmann in exchange for the safe passage of Jews out of Hungary by train, to the neutral country of Spain and ultimately to Palestine.  The goal of Dror Habonim became getting Jewish children onto Kasztner’s train.

Meir Brand was one of those children.  He was born in 1936 in Bochnia, Poland, and his family was forced into the Jewish ghetto there in 1942.  After the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Meir remembered, “everyone knew the whole ghetto”—in Bochnia—“was going to Auschwitz.”  Soon afterward, “the whole family,” three sets of parents, “convened to decide what to do.”  They determined that one child of each set of parents would escape.

[...]

Meir, homeless like hundreds of other Budapest refugees, took shelter under the city’s bridges. 

Berta found him there after seven months—alone, frozen, and covered in blisters.  “Jude?” she asked.  “I am Dudac Josef!” he answered. 

"I didn’t trust anybody,” Meir remembered, “because I was under such strict instructions not to connect with anyone.”  Still, “I trusted Berta. Why, I don’t know.”  When Meir said he was Dudac Josef, Berta thought, “That means, ‘I am a Jew.’  Somehow I knew he was a Jew.  And I said, ‘I am Bigota Ilona.’”  About that moment, Berta later told Meir, “I looked you in the eye and said to myself, that’s it, you’re mine.” 

[...]

The train carrying Berta and Meir, with 1,684 passengers in all, was diverted to Bergen-Belsen.  There, Berta recalled, “I was with the halutzim,” while Meir was in a barracks with the other children.  Still very weak, he couldn’t clean himself or eat properly.  Berta devoted herself to his care, and nursed him back to health. 

Nazi war criminals are still receiving Social Security benefits from the U.S. government despite their past crimes against Jewish people, prompting outrage from numerous Jewish organizations.

“Nazi war criminals who once lived in the United States and faced investigation by the Justice Department continue to collect Social Security payments through a legal loophole, despite having left the country and renounced their U.S. citizenship,” B’nai B’rith International (BBI) wrote in a recent press release calling on Congress to change the law.

“Since moving abroad, these former Nazis have lived undisturbed lives, collecting additional entitlements from the governments of the countries in which they reside,” the group wrote. “B’nai B’rith urges these governments to cease providing benefits to such individuals and force them to stand trial.”

B'nai B'rith International was quick to respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, dedicating donations from the Disaster Relief Fund to our partner IsraAID, already on the ground.

Working with IsraAID, the First Lady of Sierra Leone Sia Nyama Koroma hosted a two-day workshop on stress management and self-care, chronicled on her official Facebook wall.
 
Participants were drawn from all sectors, including governmental and non-governmental health organizations, education, social and children's welfare, inter-faith entities and other non-profits. For many, it was an introduction to proven practices in psycho-social support and self-care in the aftermath of Ebola.

The workshop focused on self-care and secondary trauma, because those who give help often forget to take care of themselves and suffer in silence. IsraAid pledged to bring in 60 specialists from Israel over the next two years to train Sierra Leoneans to give psycho-social support.

According to a statement on the First Lady's Facebook page, Koroma has a background as a psychiatric nurse and felt personally connected to those suffering:

"Ebola is not only a health issue...for a young girl orphaned by the disease, Ebola means grief, stigma and discrimination at the hands of her neighbors. For a survivor, weakened and scared, but alive, Ebola means pain and a life of guilt, shame and rejection.

"For the thousands of survivors and health workers especially nurses, doctors, lab-technicians, drivers, cleaners, contact tracers, burial teams and community workers Ebola means betrayal and sadness, flashbacks and nightmares. 
And for all those who have lost family members and friends and who worry everyday about a disease that they cannot see, Ebola means fear and anxiety."

Click here to support our Disaster Relief efforts against Ebola!

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who called Israel’s conflict this summer with Hamas “a massacre,” was reelected in a tight vote.

[...]

Brazil, a country of some 110,000 Jews, pulled its ambassador from Israel during the conflict.

[...]

Also Sunday, in Uruguay, no candidate received the necessary majority in presidential voting, forcing a runoff next month.

[...]

In Uruguay,  with 99 percent of the vote counted, the ruling leftist coalition candidate, Tabare Vazquez, was leading with 47.1 percent of the vote, but was short of the 50 percent majority needed to win the presidency in the first round. He will face Luis Lacalle Pou of the center-right National Party, who had 30.6 percent of the vote, in the runoff on Nov. 30.

The Jewish community has a fluid dialogue with Vazquez and Pou.

Eduardo Kohn, the director of Latin American Affairs for B’nai B’rith, told JTA that both candidates have spoken before the Jewish community in the last two months. 

Kohn said they agreed that “Hamas is a terrorist group, and as any terrorist group must be faced and combated. Both agreed that there should be a peaceful solution between Israel and the Palestinians and the solution should be a two-state solution.”

The Bagel Brigade has been in action for two decades, working seven days per week, 365 days a year, collecting bread donated by supermarkets, bagel shops, etc. and distributes it to people in need in Los Angeles.

Their primary concern is to see that children do not go to school without breakfast and do not go to bed hungry. Their impact is illustrated in the infographic below.

The Bagel Brigade is always in need of donor stores and volunteers for pickup and delivery. Anyone interested in participating in The Bagel Brigade can contact the following numbers:

Jerry Magel: Administrator (818) 710-1299     
Frank Shapiro: Volunteer Coordinator (818) 376-0502 
Or email: info@bagelbrigade.org 

[...]

Yormark also oversees all facets of Barclays Center, including operations, event programming, sales and marketing. Under Yormark’s leadership, Barclays Center has redefined the arena customer service and culinary experience. Its more than 2,000 employees are trained by Disney Institute, the business advisory arm of The Walt Disney Company, and its BrooklynTaste food program features selections from 55 well-known restaurants and vendors in the borough.

In addition to the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center community initiatives, Yormark started the Yormark Family Foundation to help re-develop basketball courts at Boys & Girls Clubs in Brooklyn. He also sits on the board of the City Parks Foundation to help improve New York’s vital outdoor spaces.  

B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said, “It’s clear that, when discussing the sports entertainment industry, Brett and the Brooklyn Nets are at the forefront. Brett and the Nets are not only leaders and innovators, but have also demonstrated a commitment to the community that has resulted in an overwhelmingly positive impact on Brooklyn and its residents — exactly what B’nai B’rith looks for in a Distinguished Achievement Award winner.”

Just as the entire international community must rally to protect the fundamental rights and dignity of Christians in places like Iraq and Syria, Christian leaders and faithful, along with others, are morally obliged do the same for Jews in the Middle East. 

There can be no condoning or belittling the Islamist extremists doctrinally committed to the violent destruction of the Middle East’s democratic Jewish state.

Fortunately, so many Christians stand firmly with Israel and the Jewish people. But decades of anti-Israel animus, and centuries of anti-Judaism, have made a very significant imprint in the Middle East, and this moral disfigurement is not limited to components of the region’s Muslim population. 

If efforts for peace, and to protect Middle Eastern Christians, are to succeed, there must be recognition that “love your neighbor as yourself” applies to the people of Israel as much as to any other human beings. 

Some 1,000 attendees at the first IDC summit were joined by an array of senior Christian clergy from the region. A long list of Democratic and Republican members of Congress addressed the conference, including Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). 

Also in attendance: the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, and the Catholic archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, and prominent public figures including former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. 

The theme of the gathering was a unified appeal for the safety of Middle Eastern Christians—and for religious freedom for all—a cause broadly embraced by speakers and attendees at the conference.

Don’t Play Politics With Genocide

At the United Nations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asserted last month that Israel’s efforts to protect its citizens have amounted to “genocide.”

He did so, in language never remotely reciprocated by Israel, despite well knowing the nature of his current partners in Hamas, which had violently ended Abbas’s rule in Gaza, tossing his loyalists off buildings there.

In 1948, three years after the end of the Holocaust, two events represented a pivotal rejoinder to that most systematic of genocides. The State of Israel was founded – stemming a 2,000-year Jewish exile pervaded by persecution. And the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to help ensure that no people would again be subjected to massive violence of the most unprovoked, calculated and indiscriminate kind.

The world body’s adoption of the Genocide Convention was celebrated as a deeply hopeful achievement by Jews. Yale legal scholar Raphael Lemkin – a Jewish émigré who lost nearly his entire family to the Nazi atrocities – coined the term genocide in 1943, defining it as “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.” Later, he drafted the Genocide Convention.

While the Holocaust was a distinct event in history, the appeal “never again” must apply to other people as much as it does to Jews.

However, not every loss of life can be labeled genocide. If genocide means everything, it could, dangerously, come to mean nothing.

Some of the world’s worst violators of human rights have an interest in stripping the term genocide of its purpose and potency through misuse.

More generally, ours is an era of stridency and populism, too often lacking nuance. When it comes to the most grave of charges, though, context matters and details matter, concerning both intentions and actions.

‎Iran pledges Israel’s destruction while illicitly pursuing nuclear capabilities and sustaining the groups, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, responsible for perennially forcing Israeli counterterrorism. Despite this, some commentators condemn as overblown any comparison of the Tehran regime to those, historically, who made good on remarkably open threats of monumental aggression.

By contrast, the subjection of Israel to the most inflammatory of rhetoric has again over recent months been met with astounding silence.

Iran’s supposedly moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, accused Israel of a “huge genocide” in Gaza – this from the leader of a government enabling bloodshed in Syria that has claimed far more Arab life in three years than Israel has in sixty-six.

Not given pause by the absence of gas chambers or crematoria, Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Israel has “surpassed Hitler in barbarism.”

And in an interview with the BBC, Hamas’s official spokesman (who, separately, alleged that Jews use Christian blood in matzo) charged Israel with “Nazism.” The allegation was met with a bumbling response from the BBC’s normally opinionated interviewer.

All this is not without consequence. Singular abuse of Israel in international forums creates the distortion that Israel has one of the worst, not one of the best, records as a progressive society.

When 56 U.N. member states – including nearly all of the world’s foremost oil exporters – belong to the Arab and Muslim bloc, a Human Rights Council resolution on Gaza can assail Israel but not even mention Hamas.‎ And, of course, countries deemed to be perpetrating crimes like “apartheid,” genocide and Nazism – all-too-often interchanged – are expected to be dealt with accordingly.
If Israel has intended apartheid, it has proven mind-bogglingly inept, having created the freest and most pluralistic society in the Middle East in the face of relentless warfare.

And if Israel has intended genocide, it is among history’s most abysmal failures. Despite its military abilities, the population of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs has multiplied dramatically, even as the number of Jews, Christians and other minorities has tellingly plummeted elsewhere in the region.

After the genocides of the last century, there were among the victims no “victory” parades, as there were in Gaza after the latest hostilities. There was silence.

And during past genocides, there were no refusals of ceasefires by the beleaguered or pledges of new violence, as by Gaza’s factions – typically because the victims were not doing the firing.

Notably, despite the rush to equate Israel with Hamas in indiscriminate fire, males of fighting age appear to have been the most overrepresented group among recent Palestinian casualties in Gaza, the overwhelming majority of which went untargeted by Israel.

These facts, though, don’t suffice to penetrate international politics. Not in an age when a pop culture personality like Russell Brand can smugly invoke Israeli “occupation” in questioning Hamas’s categorization as a terrorist movement. No matter that Israel, which has supported a two-state peace, completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005 – and that if Jews lack even a right to exist in their historic homeland then Brand would hardly have a right to legitimately reside anywhere.

The British funnyman even likened Hamas to Gandhi – a comparison that might be worth discussing if not for Gandhi’s insistence upon non-violence, and the fact that Gandhi never aspired to the obliteration of Britain itself.

The continuing Arab-Israeli conflict has unquestionably claimed all too many lives, and those losses are heartrending. But not all loss of life constitutes murder, let alone genocide.

In the 1940s, in the face of a fascist onslaught, Britons and others responded, despite the heavy toll, not with complacency but with the necessary force.

Today, an array of countries is committed to combating such groups as Boko Haram, al-Shabab, Jemaah Islamiyah, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS.

As Palestinians again threaten to take Israel to the International Criminal Court over its struggle against fanatics deliberately operating among, and targeting, non-combatants, we must consider the implications of precluding counterterrorism by recklessly mislabeling it as genocide.

In order to combat the the Ebola crisis in West Africa, B'nai B'rith International pledged disaster relief donations to fund our partner IsraAID's efforts on the ground. 

The following letters of thanks to IsraAID come from Israeli Pres. Reuven Rubi Rivlin and Sia Nyama Koroma, First Lady of Sierra Leone, its contributions to the cause so far:

Prevent Hamas From Re-Arming Before Investing in Gaza

Will the reconstruction of Gaza also mean a serious effort to prevent the re-arming of Hamas? One without the other is folly.

And yet the international donor community seems to discount the imperative of seeking the prevention of Hamas re-arming before turning over piles of cash.

At the recent Cairo conference on rebuilding Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged more than $200 million in additional U.S. aid to help the Palestinians. Conference attendees pledged a total of $5.4 billion in aid, with about half specifically set aside to rebuild Gaza.

The money comes with seemingly few strings attached. Not even the most basic concessions were secured from the Palestinian Authority, such as a demand that it stop Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel or even a commitment to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Hamas, which runs Gaza, is designated by the United States, the European Union, Israel and a few other nations as a terrorist organization. The Hamas charter still calls for Israel’s destruction. Are these the people to be entrusted with billions in rebuilding aid?

On a per capita comparison, Palestinians are near the top of the list in terms of receiving international aid. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been under the control of Hamas. The aid pledged in 2014 in Gaza looks suspiciously like previous aid efforts.

Nearly seven years ago in Paris, a broad international coalition pledged more than $7 billion to the Palestinian Authority. As with other aid commitments, too little made its way to ordinary Palestinians. Instead, funds were misdirected and misused.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza, it left behind a working infrastructure to help give the new leadership a leg up on establishing self-sufficiency. This included commercial greenhouses—which produced a variety of produce and employed many local Palestinians—that were quickly “repurposed.”  The materials were looted, some of which were used to build rocket launchers and terror tunnels.

A month ago, the European Union floated an idea for monitors to watch goods coming into Gaza, particularly materials like cement, which can be used for tunnels and other elements of a terrorist infrastructure. But in 2006, EU monitors assigned to supervise crossings fled at the first sign of trouble, not unlike the recent flight of U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights, fleeing jihadist elements. Would new monitors fare any better? Without such oversight, it will be impossible to ensure aid is going to help the Palestinian people create an economically viable society and not the perpetuation of the terror-based hold that Hamas imposes on Gaza today.

It is reported that Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar noted after the conclusion of this summer’s violence that the terror group’s goal is to expand to the West Bank “the Gaza example of resistance.” These are the people the international community wants to provide money to rebuild Gaza?

The very act of committing such funds serves as another reminder of global myopia when it comes to Israel. The Jewish state is held to a singular standard on almost every issue affecting the conflict, while the rest of the world lives by other rules. Israel is routinely castigated for attempting to defend itself, however restrained and conscientious its approach, whereas no other country in a comparable predicament would ever have to endure such criticism. The Cairo conference is another example of the international community turning a blind eye to the regional threat posed by Hamas.

If Western leaders now wringing their hands over this situation don’t want to endlessly pledge funds to rebuild Gaza, they should be serious about preventing the re-arming of Hamas. Otherwise, the aid dollars won’t advance the peace process, and in fact, will set it back by ultimately allowing Hamas to acquire more rockets and weapons to fulfill its aim to destroy Israel.

The Cairo meeting on rebuilding Gaza also included not so subtle finger pointing at Israel.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself told attendees: “Yet we must not lose sight of the root causes of the recent hostilities: a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.”‎

There are some curious omissions in such a statement. Ban doesn’t focus on Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza or how Gaza has fared under its own chosen leadership. Ban gives no credit to Israel’s ongoing willingness to negotiate with the Palestinians. And he fails to condemn years-long Palestinian intransigence when it comes to bilateral negotiations.

Even as the Cairo conference was under way, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas continued his call on the United Nations to circumvent the negotiation process entirely and enforce an imposed agreement on his terms only.

The donors at the Cairo conference have their priorities confused. Without a serious plan to prevent the re-arming of Hamas, the conference will stand as yet another example of throwing good money after bad.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is the executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International. As the organization’s top executive officer, Mariaschin directs and supervises B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff around the world.

Shortly after releasing the statement, Sears reached out with a formal statement of its own, apologizing for the situation and vowing to do more moving forward.

Read highlights of the news coverage, below (video story begins at 3:45 mark):

On Sunday, Oct. 12, leaders of religions and communities in Uruguay gathered in Montevideo Cathedral to share a common message of peace and coexistence.

The keynote speaker was Montevideo Archbishop Daniel Sturla, leader of the Catholic Church in Uruguay, who said:
 
"Religious communities coexist in Uruguay, in harmony and mutual respect, and we all are building the country of today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, we can always find in some human hearts the will of discrimination and intolerance, to pay no respect to others. It is our duty to face these evils and overcome them building peace."

B'nai B'rith attended the event and was represented by Pres. Morris Segal, Chair of Interfaith Commission Ana Wilenski, Chair of Culture Commission Perla Lapchik and International Director of Latin American Affairs Eduardo Kohn.

B’nai B’rith International presented Brett Yormark, CEO of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center with its Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes the accomplishments of key community and corporate leaders from around the world.

The awards gala was held at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, and VIP guests included legendary Tel Aviv Maccabi players Tal Brody and Mickey Berkowitz, Brooklyn Nets All-Star Kevin Garnett, middle weight boxing champion Daniel Jacobs, emcee Sarah Kustok, Yormark and B'nai B'rith leadership.

Check out the gallery from the event and see social media postings from attendees, below:

B'nai B'rith celebrated its 171st birthday on Oct. 13, reviewing its first 17 decades at the forefront of Jewish advocacy in the United States and around the world.

Here is an infographic detailing the major achievements in the organization's history:

B'nai B'rith International was featured on JBS (formerly Shalom TV), announcing the recognition of Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn and Gyorgy (Yitzhak) Gyuri with the Jewish Rescuers Citation.

The pair posed as Gentiles during the Nazi occupation of Hungary, rescuing Jewish children orphaned by the Holocaust and securing their escape to neutral Switzerland.

The honors will be presented by the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jews who Rescued Fellow Jews During the Holocaust (JRJ). 

The story begins at the 4:44 mark in the video:

The arrival of Elie and Marion Wiesel was greeted with explosive applause by the German consular staff. Wiesel was led to the podium next to a window overlooking a breathtaking sunlit view of Manhattan with St. Patrick’s Cathedral nearby. 

Touting the presentation of the medal as “a humble gesture of my country showing gratitude for your lifetime achievements and relentless efforts to keep the memory alive of the worst crime in all of history—the Shoah– against the Jewish people,” minister Steinmeier declared: “With this order of Merit we want to honor the writer, the philanthropist, historian, professor, the outstanding Mentsch that you are!” During the presentation Marion Wiesel never took her eyes off Elie.

[...]

“Thank you for your words of kindness,” responded a contemplative Wiesel. “To receive a medal of recognition from Germany is not a normal thing in my life,” he said softly. 


“The past is here. The past is not absent from the present. We remember things that happened two thousand years ago as if they happened yesterday. Every day in our prayers we remember the good, we remember the bad. The choice, is always ours — ultimately.”

“An Israel Equal for All, Jewish or Not” (Sept. 28) presents a disjointed and unjust argument against Israel being a Jewish nation. The writer paints a misguided picture of Israel and misrepresents the historical imperative and religious identity of the Jewish people.

Patricia Marks Greenfield argues in the Washington Post that Israel should lose its Jewish identity and become a totally secular nation, presumably to save it and the region from turmoil.

This neatly mimics the Palestinian narrative that Israel is the cause of all troubles in the region.

Why does she single out Israel? According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 49 countries are majority Muslim.  Many of these nations are defined by their religions, where decisions about politics and social issues are first and foremost based on the foundation of religion.

When she writes of being in Israel during this summer’s rocket invasion from Gaza, Greenfield leaves out some important information: “I have a new understanding and respect for what Israelis go through in wartime.”  But she fails to note that such attacks on Israel occur every day, not just in “war time.”  The Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups, which vow to “wipe Israel from the map,” have consistently directed missiles into Israel.  

Israel is a democracy. It has a free press, independent courts, multiple political parties and offers equal rights for citizens. Under Israeli leadership, members of all religions can safely visit holy sites in Jerusalem—something Jews were denied when Jerusalem was divided.

By proposing “Gaza and the West Bank must inevitably become part of Israel,” she is suggesting a bi-national state. 

Her prescription is to take away its Jewish identity by having a single state. Of the 193 nations within the United Nations, isn't there room for one in which the Jewish people are a majority?


                                                                                                    Daniel S. Mariaschin
                                                                                                    B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President