European Commission President visits Vienna synagogue
The Austrian Jewish community and the World Jewish Congress on Thursday hosted President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker for his first official visit to the Stadttempel (Seitenstettengasse Temple), the main synagogue in Vienna. Both the WJC and the Austrian Jewish Community expressed faith in the European Commission’s commitment to solving the problems faced by European Jews.
President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S Lauder, said: “We are honored that Mr. Juncker has chosen to take this time to visit members of the Vienna Jewish community and the World Jewish Congress at this historic house of worship, and we look forward to working closely together for the benefit of Jews both in Austria and in all of Europe.”
President of the Austrian Jewish Community, Oskar Deutsch, said: “This visit highlights the extraordinary relationship between President Juncker and Austrian Jews. Europe today faces a frightening rise in antisemitism – from the right, the left and Islamists – as well as populism. Today the security of Jewish communities is often at risk. During his tenure, President Juncker has taken these threats seriously and stated that while security is a core responsibility of the Member States, the EU commission will continue to take the initiative.”
“We hope that Mr. Juncker will continue to underscore this crucial message, and that he and his colleagues will engage frankly with the WJC on the critical issues facing Jews across the continent,” Deutsch said. “We are lucky that in Austria, we have found unprecedented awareness on the part of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and we have faith we will find the same level of sensitivity from the European Commission.” — From World Jewish Congress
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American Jewish Committee hails peace prize award to Yazidi survivor
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) has congratulated Nadia Murad, co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy against wartime sexual assault.
“Honoring Nadia Murad with the Nobel Peace Prize is an extraordinary recognition of a remarkable young person,” said AJC CEO David Harris, who has met Murad in New York and Berlin. “In an extremely dire situation, Nadia mustered the courage and resolve to escape from savage ISIS captivity and emerge as an articulate voice of clarity and empathy for the Yazidi people, indeed for all who are survivors of rape and other forms of sexual abuse in brutal, violent conflicts.”
In 2014, at age 21, Murad was taken captive by ISIS terrorists, who had carried out a vicious attack on her village as they captured large swathes of territory in Iraq. Held as a sex slave for three months in Mosul, where she was repeatedly tortured and raped, Murad managed to escape to the Kurdish region in Iraq, and then to Germany, where she was reunited with her sister and learned that six of her brothers and her mother had been murdered in Iraq.
The Yazidis numbered around 550,000 in Iraq before 2014. Some 100,000 have since left the country, and at least 3,000 are still missing.
AJC, the global Jewish advocacy organization, provided several humanitarian relief grants to assist Yazidi refugees in the Kurdish area of northern Iran and in Berlin.
AJC Berlin featured Nadia Murad at a moving ceremony on August 3, 2014, attended by diplomats, politicians, government officials, human rights activists and journalists, marking the first anniversary of the brutal invasion in Iraq by ISIS terrorists of the Yazidi ancestral homelands.
Murad, as well as other female Yazidi survivors of ISIS, visited AJC headquarters in New York, as well as several AJC regional offices in the U.S.
During her visit to Israel in July 2017, AJC Jerusalem hosted Murad for a meeting with a group of young women involved with AJC ACCESS, the organization’s young professional division.
“Brave individuals, even the youngest, are ultimately the most critical and impactful ones calling out as loudly as they can for urgent help. The Nobel Prize Committee heard Nadia Murad and has given an unparallelrf boost to her and the battle against those who continue to use sex as a weapon of war,” said Harris.
The other recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize is Dr. Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist and surgeon, who has long worked to treat thousands of women and girls affected by rape and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. AJC’s Jacob Blausteiin Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights supported a pilot project of Physicians for Human Rights in conjunction with Mukwege and his colleagues at the Panzi hospital to conduct forensic evaluations and documentation of sexual violence that provide evidence to hold perpetrators accountable for these crimes. — From American Jewish Committee
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