YDA Jewish Caucus » Other

Genocide measure passes in tight vote

ydajc — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:07:16 +0000

(JTA)

Seven of eight Jewish members on a U.S. congressional committee voted for a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide.

The non-binding resolution, which recognizes the World War I massacre of Armenians by Turkey as genocide, passed the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday by a closer than expected vote, 27-21. The resolution is likely to go to the full House.

The only Jewish member to vote against was Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who cited among other reasons Turkey’s close relationship with Israel.

The measure was expected to pass by a much wider margin but faced a last-minute lobbying blitz by the Turkish government and the Bush administration, which marshalled all eight living former secretaries of state to oppose it.

Turkey has threatened to downgrade military ties with the United States if the measure passed, and intimated it would do so with Israel, too.

The closeness of the committee vote suggests it will be more difficult to pass the resolution when it comes to the House floor. Turkey’s Jews have pressed U.S. Jewish groups to oppose the measure. U.S. Jewish organizations have held back from lobbying but some groups, including the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, have said a congressional resolution recognizing the genocide would be a strategic blunder.

Jewish congressmen who supported the resolution included the committee chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the only Holocaust survivor in Congress. Others, including Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Ron Klein (D-Fla.), cited Holocaust remembrance as a reason for their votes.

Poll: Third of U.S. voters link Israel, messiah return

ydajc — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:00:27 +0000

(JTA) lmost one-third of U.S. voters identify with Christian Zionism when it’s defined as Israel’s control of all the “Promised Land” as a condition for the messiah’s arrival.
The poll carried out earlier this month by Zogby International for the Council for the National Interest found that 16 percent of respondents strongly believed, and 15 percent somewhat believed, that “Israel must have all of the Promised Land, including Jerusalem, to facilitate the second coming of the messiah.”

Some 53 percent didn’t believe that statement and 16 percent weren’t sure. The council lobbies for cuts in U.S. assistance to Israel.

Shock at death of ‘peace champion’

ydajc — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 17:49:09 +0000

(BBC) Describing their devastation at the loss of their son, stabbed to death in the US, Alan Senitt’s family said the world had lost a champion of peace.

“We have lost a much-loved son and brother.

“The Jewish community as a whole has lost one of its bright young leaders and the wider world has lost a champion of peace and goodwill,” a statement read.

Religious Bodies Move To Probe Conditions At Kosher Meat Plant

ydajc — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 04:00:27 +0000

(Forward) Two key national bodies of Conservative Judaism have created a task force to investigate and respond to complaints of substandard working conditions at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, first described in a Forward investigation.

Separately, initial steps have been taken by national bodies of Orthodox Judaism to examine the validity of the allegations and explore possible responses. Sources among Orthodox leadership said the steps came in response to expressions of alarm from “members and constituents.”

In Wal-Mart’s Home, Synagogue Signals Growth

ydajc — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:03:15 +0000

(NY Times) Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display.

Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.

False Report Triggers Rush Of Iranian-Nazi Comparisons

ydajc — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:30:26 +0000

(Forward) It was not exactly up there with the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the effort to discredit the Iranian regime took an embarrassing turn this week with a false media report claiming that Tehran had passed a law requiring Jews and other religious minorities to wear special badges.

The report and a related column by Iranian opposition pundit Amir Taheri ran in the May 19 edition of the National Post, a Canadian daily, promptly setting off a media feeding frenzy.

Holocaust Remembrance Day – Never Again

ydajc — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:12:37 +0000

Today, April 25, 2006, we commemorate Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This year as we remember the 6 million Jews systematically murdered by
the Nazis during the Holocaust, we remind ourselves of the promise of
“Never Again.” After the world had sat by and watched the Holocaust
unfold, offering assistance too late we vowed that Genocide would
never happen again. But it is happening again.

As a people who know first hand the horrors of genocide, it is our
responsibility to never forget the Holocaust and to apply its lessons
to our own time. The people of Darfur are asking us to never forget.
As Jews, human beings, and global citizens: we must take action now.
Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel has said: “Now people
know. And so they have no excuse for their passivity bordering on
indifference.”

What is the Holocaust?

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi
regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin
meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany
in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and
that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were “life unworthy of life.” During
the era of the Holocaust, the Nazis also targeted other groups because
of their perceived “racial inferiority”: Roma (Gypsies), the
handicapped, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and
others). Other groups were persecuted on political and behavioral
grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and
homosexuals.

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million.
Most European Jews lived in countries that the Third Reich would
occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, close to two out of
every three European Jews had been killed as part of the “Final
Solution”, the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews
were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included tens
of thousands of Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or
physically disabled people were murdered in the Euthanasia Program. As
Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Nazis persecuted and murdered
millions of other people. More than three million Soviet prisoners of
war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or
maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish
intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet
citizens for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland. From the
earliest years of the Nazi regime, homosexuals and others deemed to be
behaving in a socially unacceptable way were persecuted. Thousands of
political dissidents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade
unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses) were
also targeted. Many of these individuals died as a result of
incarceration and maltreatment.

Before beginning the war in 1939, the Nazis established concentration
camps to imprison Jews, Roma, other victims of ethnic and racial
hatred, and political opponents of Nazism. During the war years, the
Nazis and their collaborators created ghettos, transit camps, and
forced-labor camps. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June
1941, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) carried out mass-murder
operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist party
officials. More than a million Jewish men, women, and children were
murdered by these units. Between 1942 and 1944, Nazi Germany deported
millions more Jews from the occupied territories to extermination
camps, where they murdered them in specially developed killing
facilities.

In the final months of the war, SS guards forced camp inmates on death
marches in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large
numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series
of offensives on Germany, they began to encounter and liberate
concentration camp prisoners, many of whom had survived the death
marches. World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender
of German armed forces in the west on May 7 and in the east on May 9,
1945.

Observance

Every year, since 1989, the Isareli Knesset (in cooperation with “Yad
Vashem”) performs the ceremony of “Everyone Has a Name” in which the
names of all of the holocaust victims are read out loud.

Jews in North America observe Yom Hashoah within the synagogue as well
as in the broader Jewish community. Commemorations range from
synagogue services to communal vigils and educational programs. Many
Yom Hashoah programs feature a talk by a Holocaust survivor,
recitation of appropriate songs and readings, or viewing of a
Holocaust-themed film. Some communities choose to emphasize the depth
of loss that Jews experienced in the Holocaust by reading the names of
Holocaust victims one after another–dramatizing the unfathomable
notion of six million deaths. Many Jews light a yahrzeit (memorial)
candle on this day.

Darfur
Up to 400,000 people have lost their lives in Darfur since the
government-sponsored genocide began in 2003. More than 2.5 million
people have been displaced; their livelihoods and villages destroyed
by government forces and their proxy militias. These forces have raped
many thousands of women and girls. The humanitarian crisis that forms
part of the genocide continues, as a government-engineered famine
begins to unfold.

This Sunday, April 30th thousands will march on Washington to rally to
stop Genocide. For more information visit www.savedarfur.org

Knowing Why Not To Bomb Iran Is Half the Battle

ydajc — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:26:13 +0000

(Forward) One of my teachers, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, used to say that going to war is not like asking a girl out on a date. It is a very serious decision, to be made on the basis of carefully crafted answers to even more carefully crafted questions.Some serious questions, then, about whether the United States should bomb Iran's nuclear installations.

Excerpts of Chairman Dean’s Remarks Before Jewish Council for Public Affairs

ashantifayshel — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 23:16:24 +0000

(JCPA) Today in a speech before the Annual Conference of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean detailed the weakness of the Republican party on matters of national defense, and forcefully detailed why Democrats are stronger in keeping America safe. Dean also discussed what the Democratic National Committee is doing to get democrats elected all across the country in order to restore honest leadership and open government, and contrasted the Democratic Party’s positive agenda for America with the Republican Culture of Corruption and the Bush Administration’s failed leadership.

Below are excerpts from Chairman Dean’s speech:

Rove’s Strategy on Security is a Loser for Republicans

“Karl Rove says that the Republicans are going to win on the issue of defense. I submit to you that if the issue is defense, the Republicans will lose because this is the weakest Administration on defense that we’ve seen in many, many years. What I mean is this. For five years this President has been in the White House. For five years North Korea continues to possess nuclear weapons. For five years this Administration has been in the White House, Iran moves closer every day to producing nuclear weapons. For four years, Osama Bin Laden has been on the loose and remains so. And today we see the specter, as reported in the Jerusalem post- of a company that is about to take over American ports, which actively continues today to boycott Israel.

“The Democrats have a better idea. First we will conclude the negotiations with the Chinese and the North Koreans to disarm North Korea. Secondly, under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Three, we will kill or capture Osama bin Laden and four, the authority and the control of the ports of the United States must be retained by American companies.

“We are not simply speaking about the United Arab Emirates — we are also speaking about the western ports which are controlled by companies controlled by the Chinese government. Foreign governments of any kind ought not to be controlling American ports, especially when the Coast Guard already recommended that they could not guarantee the security of the ports.”

“We will defend America.”

Jewish, Catholic Leaders Plan Muslim Dialogue

ydajc — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:19:33 +0000

(Forward) Seeking to build on the success of their own longstanding dialogue, Jewish and Catholic leaders have held several discussions in recent weeks about launching more intensive interfaith talks with Muslims.