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April 2020


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Top 3 ADL Actions Around the Globe


1


Connecting with Global Jewish Partners on the Impact of COVID-19

ADL held a series of high-level consultations with Jewish community leaders from around the globe on the impact the global pandemic is having on their communities and trends in antisemitism. ADL further shared with these international partners highly valued resources, including best practices in preventing
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Zoombombing and trends our experts have been seeing in the
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U.S.


To date, consultations were held with Jewish community leaders from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Ukraine and Venezuela, and we will continue to hold these discussions through the crisis.


ADL also held a series of leadership webinars, including: “The Impact of Coronavirus on Worldwide Jewish Communities,” which featured agency experts as well as one on “COVID-19's Impact on the Italian Jewish Community & Israeli Society” with Noemi DiSegni, President of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy and Carole Nuriel, ADL Israel Director.


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2


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Connecting Israeli Students and Survivors for a Meaningful Yom Hashoah Event

With the spread of COVID-19 preventing in-person gatherings and posing a serious health threat, especially to senior citizens, this year’s commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day was especially challenging, yet it also presented an opportunity to mark the day in new and innovative ways. Using videoconferencing technology, ADL’s Israel Office established an initiative aimed at making the memory and lessons of the Holocaust “live” for students stuck at home by bringing them into contact with quarantined Holocaust survivors. The series of six webinars, titled “
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Zoom In: Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Stories from Home ,” was presented in collaboration with The Testimony House and reached over 4,500 students, teachers and soldiers. ADL Israel Director Carole Nuriel writes, the experience was unexpectedly intimate, as “the technology enabled the students to ‘enter’ the survivor's home, bringing them and their personal story somewhat closer.”


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3


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Battling COVID-19, Iran Blames the Jews

Once again, the Islamic Republic of Iran is proving to be the number one state sponsor of COVID-19 related conspiracy theories blaming Jews and Israel. ADL’s Associate Director of Middle Eastern Affairs Shaya Lerner and ADL Washington Director for International Affairs David Weinberg coauthored an article for IranWire,
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Battling COVID, Iran Regime Makes Jews its Bogeyman , about the egregious antisemitic incitement perpetrated or enabled by the Government of Iran in relation to the global health pandemic. ADL also
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highlighted the incongruence of Iran holding a cartoon contest on COVID-19 at a time when the focus should be on saving lives, noting that some of the submissions were antisemitic.


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AROUND THE WORLD


Israel & Broader Middle East

ADL marked
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Yom Hazikaron , Israel’s Remembrance Day, and celebrated
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Yom Haatzmaut , Israel’s Independence Day.
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In a blog in The Times of Israel , ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt writes, during this global health crisis, “...as critics often remind us, Israel is far from perfect. It is a country full of contradictions, one with complex problems to solve and deep inequities to address. And yet its persistence and success is one more reason for us to cheer Israel’s existence on this particular Yom Ha’atzmaut.”


ADL
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welcomed the announcement of a new Israeli unity government and “the stability it brings to Israel. We wish the leaders well in dealing with this health crisis, ensuring security, maintaining democratic institutions and refraining from unilateral actions that would forestall possibility of mutual peace.”


ADL Israel and HIAS Israel
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sent a letter to Israel’s Minister of Interior asking that the Ministry release salary funds belonging to African asylum seekers in Israel. These funds, which are part of the so-called Deposit Law, amount to 20% of their salary. The letter asked that the full amount of the deposit be released, out of responsibility for a particularly vulnerable community during the COVID-19 pandemic.


ADL Israel
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condemned the use of Nazi rhetoric by some extreme Haredi individuals who were protesting Israeli police officers enforcing social-distancing regulations during the COVID-19 outbreak.


In a joint op-ed with Impact-SE's Marcus Sheff, Washington Director for International Affairs, David Weinberg
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argues that while Saudi Arabia's official textbooks are slowly changing, they still incite hatred and violence against Jews and other targeted groups.


In a
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letter to the editor of The New York Times, Deputy National Director Kenneth Jacobson provides some context omitted in a recent op-ed comparing COVID-era quarantines and the situation facing Palestinians in the West Bank during the Second Intifada.

Europe


ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt
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welcomed the
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new approach outlined by new UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, addressing the Party’s record on charges of antisemitism saying: “With just a few words, (he) has already shown more leadership in Labour’s fight against #antisemitism than we’ve seen in years. Hopeful Labour will act on these words and root out the crisis of antisemitism that’s plagued their party.”


Assistant Director of European Affairs, Dalia Grinfeld, facilitated a webinar with the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) about COVID-19 and antisemitism in Europe.


Dalia Grinfled participated in a panel discussion on "Dealing with antisemitism in the school context in Germany,” hosted by the Central Jewish Welfare Council of Germany (ZWST).

Latin America

ADL
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said an apology for a segment on an Argentinian news program which implied Jewish and Israeli involvement in the spread of COVID-19 “falls short as it does nothing to retract the bigoted content of this segment.”


SVP for International Affairs Sharon Nazarian conducted a webinar on Iran’s role in pushing conspiracy theories against Jews and Israel regarding the spread of COVID-19, for the Jewish community of Panama.


Liat Altman, ADL Director of Latin American Affairs, held a series of webinars on COVID-19 and antisemitism for the Jewish community of Chile, with Latin American Jewish Congress, Lazos, a young professional’s organization, Shevet, as group for Jewish professional, and the Jewish community of Rosario, Argentina.

Global

ADL condemned antisemitic attacks and trends globally including Holocaust analogies in
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Brazil , graffiti in Toronto,
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Canada , anti-Jewish conspiracies related to COVID-19 in
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France and
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Germany , the Zoombombing of a Yom Hashoah event by the Israeli embassy in
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Germany and another for
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European students , vandalism in
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Poland , the arson attack of a Jewish center in Arkhangelsk,
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Russia and a firebombing of a Jewish community center in
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Ukraine .


In India, the
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scapegoating of Muslims for the spread of the Coronavirus was condemned by Sharon Nazarian, Senior Vice President for International Affairs. She wrote: “Jews are all too familiar with such blood-libel accusations. India's government must do more to protect its Muslim and other minority citizens.”


ADL had endorsed a bipartisan Senate letter that was sent on April 24 encouraging additional funding for the State Department Office for the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). ADL emailed Senate offices to encourage signatures on the letter, which ended up
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being signed by 28 senators in total.


The release of four of Daniel Pearl’s kidnappers by a Pakistani court was
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condemned .


ADL joined a letter calling on members of Congress to intervene on behalf of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan.


SVP for International Affairs Sharon Nazarian sent Ramadan greetings to 16 ambassadors from Muslim-majority nations with whom ADL has worked in the last year.


ADL
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marked Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.


ADL joined a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo led by American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), and Catholics for Choice that urges the State Department to disband its problematic Commission on Unalienable Rights due to concerns about LGBTQ and women’s rights.


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