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(Washington, D.C., March 25, 2021)--Leading up to Passover, B’nai B’rith’s Project H.O.P.E.—Help Our People Everywhere—collected and distributed food to Jewish seniors and Jews living in poverty who would otherwise be unable to access the ritual foods of Passover. Project H.O.P.E. works with community family service agencies and local Jewish social services to provide and deliver food packages to communities in need across the United States.
In the Chesapeake Bay Region, Project H.O.P.E. partnered with the Jewish Social Service Agency of Montgomery County, Maryland to distribute baskets of kosher-for-Passover food to more than 500 needy families in the Washington, D.C. area on March 21. The baskets were assembled by students at the Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Maryland. Volunteers from synagogues in Maryland and Virginia, along with B’nai B’rith members, delivered the baskets. Project H.O.P.E. in the Liberty Region in Philadelphia has been serving communities for 24 years. On March 21, the project partnered with Jewish Relief Agency (JRA) to provide packages of food to those in need. B’nai B’rith volunteers picked up the packages from the JRA distribution center and delivered them to the most vulnerable in the community. On March 24, the New York Metropolitan area Metronorth Region Project H.O.P.E. distributed Passover meals to some 110 seniors experiencing isolation, illness or food insecurity. The project worked with the Mid-Island Y Jewish Community Center (YJCC) in Plainview, New York, the Ruderman Family Food Pantry and a local caterer to create and distribute the meals. In the Great Lakes Region, Project H.O.P.E. donated funds to the Yad Ezra Food Bank, which provides kosher food to people facing food insecurity in Southeast Michigan. The donation also included B’nai B’rith COVID-19 relief kits, each containing a cloth face mask and travel-sized hand sanitizer, which have been distributed around the country as part of B’nai B’rith’s pandemic relief efforts. Project H.O.P.E. has served vulnerable communities since the late 1960s, when it was created by B’nai B’rith Brooklyn leaders, and has expanded to encompass regions across the country and hundreds of volunteers. Year after year, Project H.O.P.E. fulfills the B’nai B’rith tenets of helping those in need and connecting them with the Jewish people. B’nai B’rith International has advocated for global Jewry and championed the cause of human rights since 1843. B’nai B’rith is recognized as a vital voice in promoting Jewish unity and continuity, a staunch defender of the State of Israel, a tireless advocate on behalf of senior citizens and a leader in disaster relief. With a presence around the world, we are the Global Voice of the Jewish Community. Visit bnaibrith.org. (Washington, D.C., March 24, 2021)--B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
B’nai B’rith condemns the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its passage of four anti-Israel resolutions—more than those targeting any other country in the world—as part of its rote, institutionalized discrimination against the world’s only Jewish state and the Middle East’s only democracy. Three of the resolutions fell under the council’s Item 7—the only permanent agenda item dedicated to excoriating a single country, Israel—while the fourth was moved to a different item in a ploy to attract more support. The resolutions’ subjects were the Syrian-claimed Golan Heights, Palestinian self-determination, Israeli settlement communities and “accountability” for purported rights violations. The latter resolution gratuitously singled out Israel—which has led the world in inoculating its residents of all backgrounds, and which under bilateral agreements is not responsible for Palestinian health care but has provided assistance nonetheless—for a call to “ensure non-discriminatory access to vaccines” for COVID-19. Over recent weeks, B’nai B’rith leaders around the world have conferred with numerous ambassadors and other diplomats at the council and made official interventions before the body. One such intervention, noting the forthcoming 20th anniversary of the U.N.’s World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, asserted that “delegitimization, demonization and double standards do not amount to criticism, they amount to bigotry.” B’nai B’rith had brought the largest multinational Jewish delegation to the Durban conference, which became notorious for manifestations of anti-Semitism but remains celebrated by the UNHRC. No council member boasted a perfect record on the unjust anti-Israel resolutions. However, we commend those countries—including Cameroon, the Czech Republic, Malawi, the Marshall Islands and the United Kingdom—that mostly opposed the motions. Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Togo and Ukraine were also among those that opposed or abstained on key resolutions. We decry those countries, particularly likeminded states such as Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland and Uruguay, that failed to consistently stand up for principle and fairness at the council. B’nai B’rith will continue to lead Jewish communal engagement at the U.N., as it has since 1945. B’nai B’rith International has advocated for global Jewry and championed the cause of human rights since 1843. B’nai B’rith is recognized as a vital voice in promoting Jewish unity and continuity, a staunch defender of the State of Israel, a tireless advocate on behalf of senior citizens and a leader in disaster relief. With a presence around the world, we are the Global Voice of the Jewish Community. Visit bnaibrith.org. (Washington, D.C., March 22, 2021)--B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
We are outraged by the vicious, violent attack on a 20-year-old pregnant Jewish woman in Stamford Hill, London. The assault adds to a disturbing trend of a rise of attacks on Jewish women in the area, and of anti-Semitic incidents around the world. CCTV footage shows a man follow the woman into an alley, then proceed to throw a black pillowcase or bag over her head and hit her several times. The woman was rushed to the hospital with minor injuries and is “OK but traumatized,” according to a source in the local Jewish community as reported in local accounts. This is the fifth assault on a Jewish woman in the area in just the past month. We commend police for swiftly launching an investigation and hope the perpetrator will soon be brought to justice. The attack again brings attention to the need to do more as a society to combat anti-Semitism and violence against women. B’nai B’rith International has advocated for global Jewry and championed the cause of human rights since 1843. B’nai B’rith is recognized as a vital voice in promoting Jewish unity and continuity, a staunch defender of the State of Israel, a tireless advocate on behalf of senior citizens and a leader in disaster relief. With a presence around the world, we are the Global Voice of the Jewish Community. Visit bnaibrith.org. (Washington, D.C., March 3, 2021)--B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
We are outraged by outgoing International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s announcement that she is opening an investigation into allegations of “war crimes” by Israel. It does not suffice that the prosecutor is also open to probing Palestinian war crimes. There is no moral or legal equivalence whatsoever between Israel, a democratic state seeking responsibly to protect the lives of its diverse civilian population, and Palestinian terrorist groups openly committed to indiscriminate atrocities and the very destruction of the Jewish state. As we have previously affirmed, the Court has no jurisdiction in the Palestinian areas, and “Palestine” is not a state and thus not one that can bring legal claims—something made fully apparent in the Palestinians’ own ongoing pursuit of statehood and refusal of sovereign obligations in the meantime. Additionally, Israel’s legal system—certainly unlike that of the Palestinians, all the more so in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip—is internationally renowned for its independence and capacity to investigate and respond to criminal offenses. This by itself removes any place for the ICC to scrutinize Israeli personnel. Above all, the acquiescence of the prosecutor to politicize the ICC and exploit it as a propaganda tool not only batters the standing of the court and distracts it from truly grievous and systematic crimes around the world, but also intolerably stands to handicap law-abiding nations’ abilities, rights and fundamental duties to combat the brutal asymmetric warfare of terrorist organizations. Such infringement cannot stand, and democratic countries will be obligated to do whatever possible to protect service-members engaged in entirely legitimate and necessary defensive activity. We demand that the ICC discontinue any prosecution of the single most humane military in a most dangerous region. B’nai B’rith International has advocated for global Jewry and championed the cause of human rights since 1843. B’nai B’rith is recognized as a vital voice in promoting Jewish unity and continuity, a staunch defender of the State of Israel, a tireless advocate on behalf of senior citizens and a leader in disaster relief. With a presence around the world, we are the Global Voice of the Jewish Community. Visit bnaibrith.org. |
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