B’nai B’rith International Strongly Condemns Anti-Semitic Remarks by Chilean Senator

B’nai B’rith International extends its sympathies to the family of the young gay Chilean man who died this week from injuries he sustained at the hands of neo-Nazis a few weeks ago. This unfortunate event has reinvigorated the much-needed national debate about the necessity of passing anti-discrimination legislation, which is still pending in the Chilean Congress.

“We continue to urge the Chilean Congress to pass the pending anti-discrimination legislation, as we did when this young man was attacked,” said B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs. “The Chilean Jewish community, as the broader community, has waited too long for passage of this law. We join them in urging legal protection from discrimination for all of Chile’s citizens.”

As evidenced by Chilean Senator Eugenio Tuma Zedan’s remarks, it is more important than ever that such legislation passes. In a shameful statement, Tuma recently implied that the Jewish community was to blame for the delay by saying, “If there was generosity so that everybody could benefit and not only the Jews, the law would have been approved a long time ago.” His remarks are not only misguided, but highly offensive and blatantly false.

“Tuma’s remarks are outrageous. The pending legislation would provide protection for anyone who might suffer from any type of discrimination,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “The Chilean Jewish community has long advocated for legislation that would protect all victims of discrimination and bigotry without any distinctions. Hopefully, the Chilean Congress will soon pass this much-needed law.”

In the United States, B’nai B’rith International supported the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was passed in 2009 and will continue to speak out against discrimination and hate crimes worldwide.

Aliyah, immigration to Israel, is at a critical crossroads: The number of individuals moving to the State of Israel is at an all-time low. Additionally, Israeli citizens are emigrating, leaving the Jewish homeland to settle in other countries. In the spring edition of B’nai B’rith Magazine, read about the factors influencing these recent trends.

Author Uriel Heilman delves into the history of aliyah, the demographics of those immigrating to and emigrating from Israel, and some of the ongoing efforts to draw people to Israel. While the outlook for aliyah may be uncertain, Heilman provides a clear picture of the current landscape.

Heilman suggests that fewer individuals immigrate to Israel because the threat of anti-Semitism is less acute than in the past. Jews can live in many countries throughout the globe and need not seek out the Jewish homeland to live safely and without fear. Economic concerns, and greater employment opportunities elsewhere, have caused some Israelis to leave and some recent immigrants to make their aliyot short-lived.

Yet, the Jewish state has historically drawn its strength from the immigration. B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin uses his own family’s narrative to explain the significance of aliyah to Israel. With Jews coming from all over the world, he writes that aliyah has imbued Israeli society with vitality and multiculturalism.

Elsewhere in the issue, B’nai B’rith Magazine Editor Eugene L. Meyer captures the re-emerging Jewish community of Berlin. After the Holocaust, a once-thriving Berlin Jewish population had all but disappeared. But the renaissance of Berlin’s Jewish community has meant an increase in the number of synagogues as well as classes in Hebrew and Jewish culture. The center of the city even includes a Holocaust memorial as a reminder of the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews.

B’nai B’rith Magazine Contributing Editor Dara Kahn describes the 32 Postkarten project, a website created by Torkel Wächter after he discovered 32 postcards stowed away in his father’s attic in Stockholm. The postcards chronicle Wächter’s father’s correspondence in German with his family during World War II. On the website, Wächter released the postcards in “real time,” 70 years after they were written.

Also in this edition of the magazine, writer Jan Lee tells the story of the chueta Jews of Mallorca, descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition. And just in time for Passover, read an article on a distinctive charoset recipe from Curaçao.

To read the magazine, click here.

B’nai B’rith International welcomes the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States directing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide on the constitutionality of a case regarding whether Americans born in Jerusalem may cite Israel as their birthplace on their U.S. passport.

Ari Zivotofsky and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky, parents of their Jerusalem-born son Menachem, have fought for years to convince the U.S. State Department to allow their son to designate Israel as his place of birth on his passport, citing a 2002 law passed by Congress. Though the law was signed, it was never implemented due to State Department concerns that indicating “Israel” as the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem would amount to an official U.S. statement about Jerusalem’s status.

B’nai B’rith was one of 10 major Jewish organizations to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the family.

“There’s no reason why Israel cannot be named as one’s country of birth. Omitting this fact changes a fundamental part of one’s identity,” said Allan J. Jacobs, president of B’nai B’rith International. “By only allowing a child to name a city, not a country, as a birthplace, is denying that child the right to have a country of origin. It should not be up to the U.S. government to determine what cities fall within the borders of a given country.”

The March 26 8-1 decision overruled lower court decisions that had argued this case does not fall under the jurisdiction of the judiciary because the courts are not responsible for determining foreign policy. State Department policy states that passports of American citizens born in Jerusalem can only identify “Jerusalem” as their place of birth, not “Israel.”

“A passport is a document of identity, not a foreign policy manifesto,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “Americans born in Israel—whether in Jerusalem or elsewhere in the country—have the right to acknowledge Israel as their birthplace.”

B’nai B’rith International is deeply disappointed with remarks that Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, made at a Palestinian refugee youth conference in Brussels. Ashton drew a connection between Mohammed Merah’s shooting of three students and a rabbi in Toulouse, France, and deaths in Gaza.

Soon after, she apologized, claiming her words had been distorted and misinterpreted. While her apology and efforts to clarify her statement are welcome, the remarks were nonetheless ill-advised, ill-timed and unacceptable, especially as she neglected to address that the shooting in France was an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Ashton highlighted various recent tragic killings to demonstrate that killing children anywhere is reprehensible. However, she inappropriately compared the accidental deaths of Palestinian children to the premeditated murder of Jewish children in Toulouse and deliberate acts of terror against Israeli civilians in Sderot. What she failed to say was that the Palestinian terrorists, by launching rockets across the Israeli border, often use Palestinian civilians as human shields behind whom they launch their rockets.

Ashton told the Brussels gathering: “We remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances—the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today…when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world.”

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s landmark 2004 Berlin Declaration stated: “unambiguously that international developments or political issues, including those in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, never justify anti-Semitism.” Merah’s intentional killing of Jewish victims represents a stark repudiation of this cherished principle. The Toulouse tragedy is a sober reminder that the problem of anti-Semitism remains a momentous challenge in Europe.

B’nai B’rith International is extremely concerned about Medicare, Medicaid and domestic spending proposals outlined in the new House budget blueprint released yesterday by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that would shift burdens to the elderly, poor and low-income families.

The budget proposal, much like last year’s, would shift a disproportionate share of Medicare costs to fixed-income seniors and cut nearly one-third of Medicaid spending which funds long-term care for those seniors. An independent analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities attributed two-thirds of the savings in last year’s budget proposal to cuts in programs that provide critical lifelines for American seniors and low-income families. With this new House budget plan, all domestic discretionary programs from housing to meals programs would face drastic cuts.

“The proposals would shift costs to Medicare beneficiaries while cutting programs that make critical investments for the poorest Americans who are least able to absorb these cuts. We shouldn’t be asking those with the fewest resources to give first,” said B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs.

Deficit reduction is certainly necessary, and the levels of deficit reduction in the plan are not much higher than in many other proposals in the last three years from various commissions, the president and many others. However, the problems with this budget are the choices made and the priorities those choices represent.

This proposal focuses almost entirely on spending cuts rather than the more balanced, but still problematic blend of spending cuts and revenue increases found in half a dozen other recent proposals.

The budget deal reached last year included harsh spending caps and reductions over the next 10 years if the parties couldn’t reach a deal to blend spending and revenue on their own. This plan would reduce the pain on the defense side, nearly exempting defense from those “sequester” cuts, and paying for that with enormous new cuts to the domestic side, placing untenable pressure on the programs for low-income families and seniors. This violates the spirit of the previous sequester that was designed to encourage all parties to negotiate broader revenue and spending solutions by the budget deal last year.

This budget would also rely on the participation of private plans which, historically, have not saved Medicare money. Because healthier beneficiaries would be more likely to move into cheaper plans, leaving the sickest with traditional, increasingly unaffordable fee-for-service Medicare plans, it would shift the impact of rising costs onto these people.

“Because this proposed plan would be based upon a system of vouchers for Medicare beneficiaries, and because the cost of these vouchers would be tied to GDP, not to the way health care costs rise, Medicare will cover less and less over time, ” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “We must ensure any new budget does not harm those in greatest need, including the poorest elderly, many of whom have spent down their life savings and are in nursing homes.”

As a steadfast advocate for access to quality and affordable health care as well as protection for seniors B’nai B’rith International will continue to monitor budget proposals from both the executive branch and the legislative branch to ensure any new budget plan does not disproportionately affect seniors.

B’nai B’rith International denounces proceedings yesterday at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. The U.N. body continued to perpetuate its anti-Israel bias as it debated creating a “fact-finding mission” on West Bank settlements and opened discussion of anti-Israel agenda Item 7.

“These are all just more indications of the inherent anti-Israel bias of this supposedly impartial entity,” said B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs. “Again and again, the UNHRC singles out Israel for supposed human rights violations while rarely addressing egregious violations of human rights by repressive regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

Five resolutions on Israel are scheduled to be presented to the council during this 19th session— four of them submitted by “Palestine,” which is not a U.N. member state. “The U.N.’s allowance of a non-member state to submit resolutions is a repeated example of pre-judgment by the world body, a member of the international quartet on Middle East peace, of final status issues to be settled by the parties to the conflict,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin.

In the context of Item 7, which singles out Israel for scrutiny during every regular session of the UNHRC, the council discussed a report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon—composed almost entirely of charges by Syria of Israeli human rights violation on the Golan Heights—and a resolution condemning Israel for those unsubstantiated violations.

Klaus Netter, B’nai B’rith’s representative at the United Nations in Geneva, delivered a statement to the council on this subject. In his intervention, he observed, “The farcical crocodile tears shed by the Syrian regime for the residents of the Golan point to the absurdity of giving a regime so soundly condemned for its human rights violations a platform in this Council to point a finger of reproach at the only country in the region where governments change as the result of democratic elections.”

Separately, Hamas official Ismail Al-Ashqar spoke at a side event to the UNHRC organized by a Sudanese non-governmental organization. Mariaschin said: “Hamas openly engages in terrorism. It is outrageous for the leader of a terrorist organization to be allowed access to the United Nation’s European headquarters in Geneva.”

Last week, B’nai B’rith sent a delegation to Geneva to meet with various high-level officials. B’nai B’rith, which has had representatives at the United Nations in New York since its founding in San Francisco in 1945, is the only Jewish organization with a full-time presence at the world body and at its agencies in Geneva, Paris, Vienna and Santiago.

B’nai B’rith International condemns the newest misappropriation of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the benefit of one side’s political ends. Today the council adopted five anti-Israel resolutions that circumvent the direct, unconditional negotiations toward a final agreement that the Quartet, of which the United Nations is a member, has urged.

The resolutions include the establishment of a commission to evaluate whether Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank has violated human rights. Other resolutions addressed “Palestinian self-determination,” charges by Syria of Israeli human rights violations in the Golan Heights and other hypocritical, biased issues.

“To condemn Israel as a human rights violator flies in the face of reality. The council, based on its very name, should instead be focusing on the myriad human rights violations that take place throughout the Middle East. Israel has done much to preserve human rights,” said Allan J. Jacobs, president of B’nai B’rith International.

The proliferation of these inherently biased “fact-finding missions” are, more likely than not, essentially completed before they start. They are disproportionately tasked with scrutinizing democratic Israel and they drain UNHRC resources and credibility as a body meant to focus on the most urgent human rights crises internationally.

“The body’s approach to settlements ignores the Jewish people’s incomparable historic roots in Israel, the state’s security needs and its proven readiness to negotiate peace based on a resolution of territorial issues while the Palestinians refuse to accept offers that would resolve this issue and the conflict as a whole,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “Israel has repeatedly offered to sit down in direct negotiations without preconditions to reach an eventual settlement. Isolating the settlements issue from all the other issues that would be discussed prejudges the outcome of an eventual peace agreement.”

Thirty six states voted in favor of investigating Israeli settlement activity. The only country to vote against it was the United States.

The UNHRC did, however, renew the mandate of its human rights investigator, Former Maldives Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed, for another year to investigate the human rights situation in Iran, which is widely believed to be one of the worst human rights abusers in the world. Incredibly, five nations voted against this resolution and 20 abstained.

Last week, B’nai B’rith sent a delegation to Geneva to meet with various high-level officials. B’nai B’rith, which has had representatives at the United Nations in New York since its founding in San Francisco in 1945, is the only Jewish organization with a full-time presence at the world body and at its agencies in Geneva, Paris, Vienna and Santiago.

B’nai B’rith International sent its annual leadership delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to address key issues facing the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), including its obsessive, one-sided focus and special rapporteur on Israel, the looming Iranian threat, Syrian human rights abuses and the need for direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians without preconditions.

The B’nai B’rith delegation met with ambassadors and other officials of 28 countries and held its annual reception at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, which various ambassadors and U.N. officials attended.

In their meetings, B’nai B’rith delegates explained to the diplomats and U.N. officials that the UNHRC will remain unable to live up to its promise of impartiality so long as it clings to Item 7, the decidedly anti-Israel permanent agenda that has long been a core tenet of UNHRC deliberations. The B’nai B’rith delegation reminded the ambassadors that discussions about the 193 member states occur under more general agenda items; Israel is the only country listed on the council’s permanent agenda.

B’nai B’rith delegates also focused on the biased mandate of the special rapporteur on the Palestinians and its current mandate-holder, Richard Falk, who uses his position to unfairly attack Israel and call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Jewish state.

“As the only international Jewish organization with a full-time office dedicated to U.N.-related issues, it is essential that we push for the council to treat Israel as it does every other member state and end its permanent obsession with condemning the Jewish state,” said B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs.

The delegation also addressed the Iranian threat to the global community.

“Not only does Iran repeatedly deny the Holocaust ever happened, it does so while simultaneously calling for the destruction of Israel and displaying brutal treatment against its own civilians,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “We took this opportunity, as a delegation to Geneva, to impress upon the international community the urgency of enacting the strongest possible sanctions against Iran, the world’s largest state-sponsor of terrorism.”

Also discussed was the Palestinian attempt to seek a unilaterally declared Palestinian state instead of agreeing to direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians without preconditions.

The delegation also discussed human rights abuses carried out by Syria, noting that while it accuses Israel of supposed violations in the Golan Heights, it engages in brutality against its own people on a daily basis. On Monday, Klaus Netter, a B’nai B’rith Geneva representative, will deliver a statement to the UNHRC when Item 7 is scheduled for discussion.

The B’nai B’rith delegation comprised Jacobs, Mariaschin, Director of U.N. and Intercommunal Affairs David Michaels, Senior Vice President Yves Kamami, Joelle Perelberg (Board Of Governors), Steven (Board of Governors) and Sandra Horowitz, Jacques Jacubert (B’nai B’rith France), David Matas (B’nai B’rith Canada Honorary Counsel), Ada Sadoun (B’nai B’rith France), Davor Salom (B’nai B’rith Serbia), Tony Swabe (London Bureau of International Affairs), Stephane Teicher (B’nai B’rith International UNESCO representative), Nuno Wahnon (B’nai B’rith International E.U. Affairs Director).

Our Geneva team also included: Klaus Netter (Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations main representative to United Nations in Geneva), Armand Azoulai (B’nai B’rith main representative to United Nations in Geneva) and David Hachuel.

B’nai B’rith International condemns today’s heinous shooting outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. Three students and one teacher at the Ozar Hatorah School were reportedly killed in the shooting by a man riding a motorcycle. Before fleeing the scene, the shooter reportedly entered the building and fired at other students and teachers. Press reports indicate that the dead were a teacher and his two sons as well as the daughter of the school’s principal.

B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs called the attack “a despicable act.” He continued: “Violence in any form is reprehensible, but for it to take place at a school is especially horrendous. Our hearts go out to the victims, and we pray for the recovery of those injured. The future of the Jewish community is dependent upon nurturing the Jewish identity of our young people. We are confident that this cowardly act will serve to strengthen the commitment of the French Jewish community toward that goal.”

Welcoming the statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the attack was “a national tragedy,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said, “We welcome the immediate response by the French government and President Sarkozy’s visit to Toulouse. We are hopeful that the authorities will make urgent efforts to capture the gunman then prosecute him to the full extent of the law.”

B’nai B’rith International, with members in 50 countries, including France, is an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, one of the leading voices for preservation and protection of human rights in Europe.

B’nai B’rith International marks the 20th anniversary of the Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires. On March 17, 1992, a powerful bomb exploded outside the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people, injuring 242, and hitting a nearby school and church. Iran, the world’s largest state-sponsor of terrorism, is widely believed to have been a principal actor in the planning of the attack. The perpetrators have yet to be captured and brought to trial.

“In 1992, Iranian terror was a surprise and shock. Today, many of Argentina’s neighbors—including Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba—have embraced Tehran by signing various agreements,” said B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs. He added, “With members and supporters throughout Latin America, B’nai B’rith is uniquely positioned to speak out against Iranian terrorism throughout the region.”

“Because of Iran’s long record of funding and supporting terror worldwide, their bellicose rhetoric threatening Israel and the West, and their goal of attaining nuclear weapons capability, this anniversary should serve as an occasion for the world community to enact the strongest possible sanctions against Iran,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said.

B’nai B’rith will join with the rest of the Jewish community in the March 16 commemoration at the site of the bombing, which will be led by Vice Foreign Minister of Israel Danny Ayalon and an Israeli delegation including many of the diplomats who survived the bombing.