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Euroasian Jewish News
15 International conference of Jewish leaders / EAJC Participation.
03.05.2008
Washington, USA, April 29 - May 3 2008
The 15-th International conference of Jewish leaders was held as a part of annual convocation of American Jewish Committee on April 29 - May 3. AJC, which counts more than hundred years, is one of the leading American Jewish organizations and held its yearly events in form of a large international forum organizing plenary sessions and section meetings inviting prominent active politicians from every part of the world. Official opening of the conference was marked by the speech of the US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, and at the gala reception in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary there spoke Prime Minister of France François Fillon and Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The list of participants of this conference included hundreds of Jewish representatives from 47 countries. The largest delegations were from the USA, Canada, Israel, and Germany. Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) delegation with EAJC General Council President Joseph Zissels as its head consisted of the representatives of Jewish organizations and communities of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus', Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and the Ukraine.
Intense week-long program reflected urgent problems of relations between the Jewish Diaspora and the state of Israel, modern challenges to the construction of Jewish life in different countries, memorial events of the Holocaust, approaches to interfaith dialogue and other vital problems.
Special time was given to Israel's place in the modern world and situation of the former Soviet Jews in three continents. A special session was dedicated to this last issue where a film was demonstrated about the 40th anniversary of international fight for Soviet Jewry rights. After the AJC Executive Director David Harris's report, in which he stressed personal merits of participants of the meeting, there spoke experts from Germany, Israel, and the USA, who told the meeting about position of the Jewish emigrants from the former USSR in their countries which became new home for most of them.
During the Washington conference J.Zissels negotiated with D.Harris new text of the EAJC-AJC partnership treaty, also spoke with National Conference for Soviet Jewry Executive Director Mark Levin, and discussed prospects of opening a Jewish museum in Chernovtsy with a number of representatives of Jewish scholarly and museum centers. Notably, negotiations with Karl Rince, Executive Director of the famous YIVO ended with an agreement on cooperation in future museum and in planned anniversary conference on the problems of the Yiddish language, which is being organized with the EAJC support in Chernovtsy, where the first conference on that topic has been held 100 years ago.
EAJC Public Relations and Media Department
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