News Releases 2016
“The Attempted Identity Theft of the Western Wall (Kotel) By UNESCO Executive Board will incite more religious-inspired violence against Jews"
In a letter to UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, (follow link below) the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, and its Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, denounced an outrageous resolution passed by the current UNESCO Executive Board that recast the Western Wall (The Kotel) as “the Burka Plaza."
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=8776547&ct=14843093¬oc=1
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, together with Montenegro Jewish community founding President, Jada Alfanderi, thanked Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic for his 2013 endorsement of the exhibition, “The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land.”
“Today's launch closes a circle,” stated Samuels, recalling how Đukanović proudly told him that “Montenegro had no dark page in its relationship with the Jewish people” and immediately agreed to become the Exhibition’s first co-sponsor at its June 2014 opening at UNESCO in Paris.”
[BREAKING NEWS: Our Centre is delighted at the response to its letter and the consequent dismissal of the delinquent employee.]
"Your Ministry and the Crisis Centre Contractor, IPG Belgium, must now vet every member at the hotline to ensure that this outrageous behaviour not be repeated and underline the fundamental empathy required in their task. Even part-time employees or interns should each sign an enforceable commitment to eschew all forms of discrimination in their work".
Read more: Wiesenthal Centre to Belgian Interior Minister:...
Speech by Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Centre's Director for International Relations, to the rally.
21 March, Friends - supporters of Israel, both Jewish and Gentile. I see among you many Christian friends and members of our Centre.
I spent much of the year 2000-2001 at the then Human Rights Committee, now renamed “Council,” here in Geneva.
Read more: Wiesenthal Centre Co-organizes Protest Rally in...
Wiesenthal Centre to German Justice Minister "We support the Appeal of 56 Holocaust Survivor Organisations on Behalf of Protagonist for Survivor Restitution now Pending Trial"
"If this so-called disciplinary trial moves forward, it will wreak havoc on years of German judicial measures to assuage history... discouraging and intimidating humanitarian behaviour in the image of 'the righteous Gentile'"
Paris, 7 March
In a letter to German Federal Justice Minister, Heiko Maas, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, noted "the Centre's long role in pursuing Holocaust victim indemnification claims", and expressed "outrage to learn that Judge Jan-Robert von Renesse - a major protagonist for Jewish restitution - is now pending trail for, ostensibly, 'harming the reputation of German courts' for his work on behalf of survivor claims".