After a meeting in June by representatives of the Israeli embassy to Lithuania and the Lithuanian Federation of Athletics Sports, the embassy undertook to support the largest disabled sports event in the nation’s history, the IBSA European Goalball (blind football) Championship, to be held July 8 to 11 in Kaunas.

“I have always been impressed by people who despite difficulties strive for the highest goals. Since the beginning of my work in Lithuania I have observed actively current events in the country and have striven for specific goals through my actions. Having communicated with representatives of the Lithuanian Federation of Blind Athletics and having learned about their extremely high achievements, achieved despite all sorts of obstacles and lack of funding, I realized we were on the same path. I believe in the inexhaustible powers and potentials of the human being, but I also understand that sometimes help, whether it be moral support or a financial contribution, is necessary,” Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon said.

The Goodwill Fund will hold a conference on June 30 concerning the work of the fund. The conference will include on its agenda organizational questions connected with the governance and effective functioning of the Goodwill Fund. Goodwill Fund directors LJC chair Faina Kukliansky and director of International Jewish Affairs for the American Jewish Committee Rabbi Andrew Baker (USA) will deliver reports at the conference. The board of directors of the Goodwill Fund state in the report of Goodwill Fund activities that strategy will continue to be honed and internal control mechanisms strengthened. The Goodwill Fund is successfully implementing the following international projects: The Bagel Shop (campaign to encourage tolerance and fight anti-Semitism), the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) in Europe’s project to preserve Jewish heritage and the third successful project with the YIVO Jewish research institute to preserve the past.

The public enterprise Goodwill Fund for Distributing Compensation for Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations was established at the end of 2011 after the Law on the Goodwill Compensation of Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations drafted on the initiative of the Lithuanian Government was passed into law. The fund was established by the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Fund (Lietuvos žydų paveldo fondas) with the cooperation of the LJC and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Under the law adopted, the state budget will pay out compensation of 128 million litas (3,450,000 euros) annually until 2023 to be used for financing Lithuanian Jewish religious, cultural, health, sport, educational and academic projects in Lithuania.

European Jewry is all in the same boat, and that boat is slowly but surely sinking. That, at least, was the impression from a roundtable conversation Tuesday at the Jerusalem Press Club with leaders from 25 of the continent’s Jewish communities.

During the hour and a half lunch in a picturesque hall overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, even those leaders who claimed their countries are without anti-Semitism today were pessimistic about the future of Europe. The obliviousness to a looming Nazi regime pervasive in 1930s Jewish communities was referenced, as were the increased Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) efforts that have taken over Scandinavia and elsewhere.

The 30-odd leaders were assembled under the banner “A Time for Action” for the fifthIsraeli Jewish Congress (Hakhel) Gathering and Solidarity Mission to Israel of senior European Jewish leaders. The IJC was founded as a conduit for Diaspora-Israel dialogue in 2011 by Russian businessman Vladimir Sloutsker, a former senator in the Russian Federation Senate.

Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation/ Vol. 15,  No. 18    June 18, 2015

• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed Iranian and foreign journalists on June 14, 2015, to mark two years since his election.

• Rouhani adhered to the red lines stipulated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei¹   concerning the scope of the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, asserting that inspectors would not be allowed to enter military sites.

• Rouhani thanked Khamenei for “outlining and defining the path, supporting the negotiating team, and maintaining domestic unity in Iran.”

• He added that no one in the world, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1), doubts any longer that Iran has the right to enrich uranium and that the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo will not be shut.

• Massoud Jazzayeri, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, reiterated that permission “will definitely never be issued for any kind of access to the military centers.”

• Hardline cleric Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami backed Rouhani and stressed the fact that the nuclear talks are advancing and that a renewal of relations with the United States is in no way on their agenda.

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It’s appalling to see how Israel is treated by a totally different standard than other countries in the international system. Of course, Israel deserves scrutiny, as does every other nation. But it also merits equal treatment — nothing more, nothing less.

First, Israel is the only UN member state whose very right to exist is under constant challenge.

Notwithstanding the fact that Israel embodies an age-old connection with the Jewish people as repeatedly cited in the most widely read book in the world, the Bible, that it was created based on the 1947 recommendation of the UN, and that it has been a member of the world body since 1949, there’s a relentless chorus of nations, institutions, and individuals denying Israel’s very political legitimacy.