News Releases 2020
“This trial must be just and exemplary, with no ambiguity regarding the aggravating circumstances of antisemitic hate... Our Centre will be monitoring the proceedings.”
Paris, 14 July 2020
In a letter to French Minister of Justice Éric Dupont-Moretti, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed satisfaction that “the perpetrators of the stabbing and arson of child Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll, will be judged for their antisemitic hate crime and that her family, we hope, will be able to find closure.”
“We hope UNESCO will take the necessary measures for Israel to return.”
Zoom, 9 July 2020
This annual essay competition, co-organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre-Europe (CSW-Europe), Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance (V&L-V) and the Russian Holocaust Research Centre (RHC), selects five student laureates who, each year, present their research projects at UNESCO in Paris.
Due, however, to the pandemic, this 16th year meeting took place through Zoom.
The winners are from Krakow (Poland), Baranovichi (Belarus), Barnaul, Kemerovo and St. Petersburg (Russia).
From left to right, top to bottom: Shimon Samuels (SWC Director for International Relations), Sheila Ryan (CSW-Europe, Paris), Daria Pavlovskaya (Baranovichi), Sofya Shestakova (Kemerovo), Rabbi Stephen Berkowitz (Barcelona), Harriet Tamen (New York), Vadim Kantorov (Paris), Ilya Altman (RHC, Moscow), Galina Lochekhina (Krakow), Alex Uberti (CSW-Europe, Paris), Sofia Klenova (Barnaul), Richard Odier (V&L-V and CSW-France, Paris), Jens Streckert (German Delegate, UNESCO), Maria Frolova (St. Petersburg), Maria Gileva (RHC, Moscow), Amb. Alexander Kuznetsov (Russian Delegation, UNESCO), Graciela Vaserman Samuels (UNESCO), Evelyne Monas (V&L-V, Paris), DCM Yaron Gamburg (Israeli Embassy, Paris), Martha Langer (CSW-Europe member).
Paris, 6 July 2020
This week, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) was to have convened in Fuzhou, China. The Wiesenthal Centre, as the only Jewish organization accredited to that body, each year lobbies against Palestinian theft of Jewish heritage.
Due to COVID-19 and financial strictures, the WHC was cancelled. In its place, the 58 member-State Paris-based representatives convened at the UNESCO Executive Board, bringing along its biannual anti-Israel baggage.
In the absence of the United States and Israel, the Wiesenthal Centre reports from the field.
Letter by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Jerusalem Post
3 July 2020
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/isis-threat/letter-asks-eu-to-focus-on-isis-volunteers-returning-to-europe-633799
The letter, sent by The Simon Wiesenthal Center, asks the EU to stop focusing on Israel and instead focus on ISIS jihadists.
A member of ISIS waves the group’s flag in Raqqa (photo Reuters).
The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, in which Director for International Relations of the center, Dr. Shimon Samuels, suggested that the EU should stop its focus on Israel, and instead turn its attention to a Turkish ratline that is allegedly bringing former ISIS volunteers into Europe.
“Stop fixating on Israel and turn your attention to a dangerous reality: now in their mid-20s to mid-30s, having stoned women charged with adultery, chopping the hands of thieves and decapitating hostages, they are escorted home to theatres near us all.”
Paris, 3 July 2020
In a letter to European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, suggested that “he stop fixating on Israel” and turn his attention to a dangerous reality: “the Turkish ratline network that brought European volunteers to ISIS (in Arabic Daesh) is now bringing them home as qualified Jihadists.”