To: All WJC Affiliated Communities & Organizations
WJC Executive Committee
Dear Friends,
Last week the Foreign Ministry of Israel convened The 5th International Conference of the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism.
There were all together 1,200 participants from over 80 countries present over the 3 days in Jerusalem. Most of them were professionals dealing with this issue, but politicians, diplomatic representatives as well as press were also present.
Following you will find the statements adopted by the conference on Combating Cyberhate and Online Antisemitism and Combating Antisemitism in Europe – as well as my own closing statement of the conference.
The opening of the forum was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by the Minister of Education and Diaspora, Naftali Bennett.
The World Jewish Congress was represented by the Heads of our Representative Offices in Israel and Latin America, Sam Grundwerg and Claudio Epelman respectively, by the Head of the WJC Security Department, Omri Segelman and by me.
Over the course of the forum we had dozens of meetings with the Heads of various communities around the world as well as with academics and politicians. To name just a few of the meetings I myself had, I met with:
• Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Federal Republic of Germany, Heiko Maas
• Canadian Minister of State for Multiculturalism, Tim Uppal
• Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, Petrit Selimi
• Bulgarian Minister of Education and Science, Prof. Todor Tanev
Many of our Board members from the communities were there too and actively participated in the deliberations and I had the privilege of summarizing the forum on behalf of the WJC.
The very fact that so many people from various parts of the world traveled to Jerusalem to discuss the issue of antisemitism, speaks for itself.
I believe the participation and contribution of WJC’s senior staff was very important and meaningful to the participants of the forum as well as to the people in the Foreign Ministry. Many thanks also to the representatives of many of our member communities who attended the event.
Regards,
Conference Documents:
GFCA 2015 Statement on Combating Cyberhate and Online Antisemitism
GFCA 2015 Statement on Combating Antisemitism in Europe
Robert Singer Closing remarks