Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 22, 2011. (Courtesy U.N.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“Obviously Iran is No. 1, 2 and 3 on the agenda,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations.<\/p>\n
However, Iran’s nuclear aspirations are not the only item with that country, adds Daniel Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International. In meetings with diplomats, he will press not only on Tehran\u2019s nuclear pursuits but also its domestic human rights abuses as well as support for international terror and Syria\u2019s repressive Assad government.\u00a0\u201cThis is a regime that has a bloody record wherever you look,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Other top issues for American Jewish groups include the Palestinian push for non-member state status, anti-Semitism in Venezuela, the efforts of some European countries to ban religious ritual circumcision and kosher slaughter, Holocaust restitution claims and urging the European Union to place Hezbollah on its list of terrorist groups.<\/p>\n
In recent months Israeli officials have been speaking publicly about how international sanctions against Iran are not working quickly enough. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted that that a preemptive military strike is needed to set back the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is they\u2019re still moving forward\u201d with the nuclear program \u201cand the can keeps getting kicked down the road,\u201d said Michael Salberg, the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s director of international affairs. \u201cWell, we\u2019re coming to a cul-de-sac in that road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salberg said the ADL will push in its meetings with diplomats for clarity on \u201cwhat time and space for diplomacy and sanctions really means.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Wednesday, but Jewish response will be delayed because he is speaking on Yom Kippur. Netanyahu is slated to speak to the world body the next day.<\/p>\n
On Monday, political, Jewish and other leaders are planning to be on hand for an 11 a.m. news conference to denounce Ahmadinejad’s appearance at the United Nations. Ahmadinejad has called Israel \u201ca cancerous tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not saying he doesn\u2019t have the legal right to be here, but we\u2019re saying let the world know how offensive he is and what he stands for,\u201d said Hindy Poupko, director of Israel and international affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.<\/p>\n
The New York JCRC runs Iran 180, which is coordinating the news conference. The effort is dedicated to demanding, as the group puts it, \u201ca 180 by the Iranian government on their pursuit of nuclear weapons and the treatment of their citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran 180 also is visiting area college campuses with its #UNwelcome campaign, which includes a large effigy of Ahmadinejad. Students are urged to handcuff themselves to the puppet and disseminate photos of it on social media sites.<\/p>\n
Ahmadinejad\u2019s visit is prompting other Jewish activism as well.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Manhattan demanding that the Warwick Hotel, where Ahmadinejad is staying, deny the Iranian leader a room. In a statement, the group said the room should be given to Stuart Hersh, a Shurat HaDin client still owed a $12 million judgment against Iran after he was injured in a 1997 Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Hoenlein also hopes to draw attention to the plight of some 800,000 Jews who lived in Arab countries at the time of Israel’s founding in 1948 and subsequently fled their homes. A program at the U.N. on Monday on the topic drew about 300 people, including a number of ambassadors and other diplomats, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think history is not competitive and acknowledging the truth of others\u2019 history doesn\u2019t denigrate yours; there\u2019s no reason to oppose this,\u201d Hoenlein told JTA. One effort, he said, will be to ask the U.N. to establish a documentation center on the plight of the Jewish refugees.<\/p>\n
There also will be a push to end U.N.-sponsored groups considered hostile to Israel, such as the Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could go through a list of people looking for statehood, but only for the Palestinians do they have this special arrangement,” Mariaschin said. “They have conferences, photo exhibits, publications and it\u2019s time to shut that down.\u201d\u00a0Mariaschin said such efforts only delay Arab-Israeli peacemaking due to their biased message.<\/p>\n
Also on the mind of Jewish groups in their meetings will be the efforts of some courts and legislators to ban Jewish ritual circumcision and kosher slaughter of animals.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, in a ruling that outraged Jewish and Muslim groups, a court in Cologne, Germany, said that a non-medical circumcision of a minor was a criminal offense. Germany’s government has spoken out against the law and is working on legislation to counter it. The state of Berlin passed a law affirming the legality of circumcision but restricting its exercise to doctors.<\/p>\n
Several other European countries, including Holland, have seen efforts to ban shechitah, kosher ritual slaughter, due to claims that it creates unnecessary suffering for the animals.<\/p>\n
If governments are “serious about the strength of democracy, freedom of religion has to be a foundational principle,” Salberg said, “and efforts to ban ritual circumcision and slaughter violate that fundamental right.\u201d<\/p>\n
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