Allan Bouquin · @disciple78
16th Apr 2021 from TweetCaster
This week in the Jewish world - Honorary WJC Vice President Isi Leibler remembered as passionate, committed to the future of world Jewry

April 16, 2021

Honorary WJC Vice President Isi Leibler remembered as passionate, committed to the future of world Jewry
WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said, “Isi Leibler was a World Jewish Congress stalwart for over five decades and an eloquent and indefatigable champion of Australian Jewry and the Jewish people worldwide." Read More...

WJC kicks off Plenary Assembly events talking about the threat of Iranian regime
The WJC Plenary Assembly takes place every four years and brings together delegates from WJC-affiliated Jewish communities and organizations in more than 100 countries around the world. It is the body that elects WJC leadership and sets policy for the years ahead. Read More...

WJC and UN University for Peace sign MOU strengthening ties
The document calls on the organizations to “utilize and leverage their existing resources and facilities for mutual benefit, and for the benefit of the activities’ beneficiaries,” as well as to “[cooperate] to create academic programs and modules of mutual interest.” Read More...

OpEd | Writing poetry helps me process the unspeakable evils of the Holocaust
Reflecting on his recently published work of poetry, WJC Associate Executive VP Menachem Z. Rosensaft writes, "conceptualizing my poems is often simultaneously a refuge and an escape. An escape from the realm of conventional human experience into a parallel internal reality. And a refuge where amorphous phantasmagoric thoughts and images emerge sufficiently from their nebulous twilight to allow me to express them, however inadequately, in words.” Read More...


Why it must be of profound concern to all law-abiding citizens when extremists march against the alleged "coronavirus dictatorship"
"The various groups that have come together in their opposition to the government’s coronavirus policy have fallen back on old antisemitic stereotypes," laments Central Council of Jews in Germany President and WJC Vice President Josef Schuster. Read More...

Top French court won’t prosecute Jewish woman’s killer because he was high on marijuana | Times of Israel
France’s highest court on Wednesday found that the killer of a Jewish woman was not criminally responsible and could not go on trial, provoking anger. The French Jewish community called the ruling a “miscarriage of justice.” Read More...

Netherlands antisemitism tally drops by 25% due to COVID-19 lockdowns | JTA
The annual report by the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, counted 135 incidents last year compared to 182 cases in 2019. But the 2020 tally is identical to the one for 2018 and the third-highest since 2010. Read More...

World Jewish Congress mourns the passing of Ady Steg
In addition to a meaningful career in medicine, Dr. Steg worked tirelessly on behalf of many Jewish organizations, first as president of the Union of Jewish Students in Paris (1948) and vice president of the World Union of Jewish Students (1949), later going on to become a leading member of the Fonds Social Juif Unifie, the Consistoire, and the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Read More...


OpEd | Honoring Holocaust Remembrance Day
“We will truly honor the memory of those who perished in the Shoah and those who survived, by being tolerant to those who are different, by race, ethnicity, gender or sexual preference,” writes former US ambassador to the European Union Stuart Eizenstat. Read More...

OpEd | Eichmann’s trial set the stage for more battles over the Shoah — including my own
“Eichmann is not the only reason that April 11th is an important date for me as a historian of the Holocaust; it also marks another, even more personal, legal milestone in that history... the 21st anniversary of the judgment in David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt,” writes Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt.” Read More...

War stories my father never told me: 76 years after liberation of Nazi ‘horror camp’ Bergen-Belsen, Canada’s role in airlifting survivors comes to light | Toronto Star
“Every picture has a story to tell” may be a cliché but it’s an apt description of the story that’s been revealed since I posted one of my father’s favourite Second World War photos on Facebook last fall. The photo is more than 75 years old now, but it has opened a window on a war experience my father and his colleagues preferred to keep closed," writes Karen Black. Read More...

The forger from Berne | Tablet
Between 1940 and 1944 a clandestine network of Polish diplomats and their Jewish partners in Switzerland created false Latin American passports that saved thousands of lives. Half of the documents were forged by one person—Polish Vice Consul in Berne Konstanty Rokicki. Read More...


Sirens blare as Israel comes to a standstill in remembrance of fallen soldiers and victims of terror
The traditional sounding of the siren is a call for all Israelis to pause and commemorate fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Watch Now...

President Rivlin thanks global Jewry for standing ‘side by side with Israel’ | Times of Israel
“We must remember that we are one, strong, big and diverse family. We have a shared destiny. A new Israeli and Jewish Hope must be based on unity and diversity, on mutual understanding and shared experiences,” President Rivlin said at an event celebrating Israel's 73rd Independence Day. Read More...

Pentagon chief declares ‘ironclad’ U.S. commitment to Israel during trip to Jerusalem | AP
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to Israel comes as the United States seeks to leverage Middle East diplomatic progress, includng several normalizion agreements between Israel and several Arab states. Read More...

PM Boris Johnson: ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate Israel | Jewish News
In a letter to Conservative Friends of Israel, the prime minister wrote that the probe into alleged Israeli war crimes “gives the impression of being a prejudicial attack on an ally,” stating unequivocally, “We do not accept that the ICC has jurisdiction in this instance, given that Israel is not a party to the Statute of Rome and Palestine is not a sovereign state.” Read More...

Israel may have reached a ‘sort of herd immunity’ from COVID, expert says | Times of Israel
Israel in recent months has significantly rolled back coronavirus restrictions by opening businesses, event venues and other activities, as morbidity levels have dropped amid the country’s world-leading vaccination drive. If confirmed, Israel could be the first country in the world to hit the milestone of herd immunity. Read More...


World Jewish Congress mourns the passing of Cardinal Cassidy
“With Cardinal Cassidy, we worked together, sometimes in divergence, lived as a part of our relationship, but we never accepted that the difference could stop the dialogue of our communities,” said World Jewish Congress Executive Vice President Maram Stern. “His passing must inspire us to move his legacy forward to the next generations engaged in Jewish-Catholic dialogue.” Read More...


Sweden’s Minister of Justice announces support for ban on Holocaust denial
Reacting positively to the announcement, Chairman of Sweden’s Central Jewish Council Aron Szugalski said, “As the eyewitnesses of the Holocaust leave us, it is of the utmost importance that society act with full force against all attempts to deny the worst genocide that has ever taken place. Therefore we welcome this important initiative.” Read More...

Germany marks 76 years since the Buchenwald concentration camp's liberation | DW
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended a commemoration ceremony at the German National Theater, accompanied by Thuringia State Premier Bodo Ramelow and the president of the state parliament, Birgit Keller. Read More...


France, Germany and UK raise concern over Iran’s nuclear plans | The Guardian
Following Iran’s decision to enrich uranium to levels for which there is no “credible civilian need,” the three European powers released a joint statement warning “This is a serious development since the production of highly enriched uranium constitutes an important step in the production of a nuclear weapon." Read More...


15 April 1945 | Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberated
The liberation received a great deal of coverage and exposed the world to the horrors of the Holocaust. Military photographers and camera crews followed British forces to document the conditions at Bergen-Belsen, sharing the images worldwide. Read More...

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