The New Jersey Legislature on Thursday voted unanimously on a measure which affirms the historical connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and condemns efforts by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to deny Jews’ historical, religious, and cultural ties to Jerusalem.
Avi Posnick, StandWithUs Northeast Managing Director, testified at the hearing and expressed grave concern about UNESCO’s repeated attempts to erase Jewish history. “That is what UNESCO is doing by denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and other holy sites…Of all the attempts to destroy the Jewish people throughout history, the campaign to distort or erase the Jewish narrative is the most devious. ‘Temple denial’ is a prime example of anti-Semitism. By denying our history, they are attempting to destroy our destiny.”
After New Jersey legislators visited the 3,500 year old excavated City of David outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Jewish Federation’s Study Mission to Israel in March, 2018, and at the request of Ze’ev Orenstein (Director of International Affairs for City of David), Assemblymen Gary Schaer and Anthony Bucco, Jr. introduced the resolution.
New Jersey’s resolution is in response to numerous UNESCO moves to delete the deep Jewish connection to ancestral Holy sites in Israel. In 2017, UNESCO, the cultural organization of the United Nations, adopted its third absurd resolution denying Israel historical or legal claims to any part of Jerusalem. Previously, UNESCO passed other resolutions denying Jewish ties to the holiest of Jewish sites, including Cave of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, and Joseph’s Tomb.
I didn’t know that the State of New Jersey was authorized to deal in foreign policy.
Back in Europe, folks of Jewish persuasion in Eastern Europe were members of a religion and a nationality, which was landless, as were gypsies and other minority groups. My friends tell me that the shock of the Holocaust, as illustrated in the musical Cabaret, was that Jewish folks were well integrated into German society, and thought of themselves as Jews by religion and ethnicity, but definitely German by nationality.
Perhaps I’m wrong in the above perception, but Jewish folks, like everybody else, renounced old nationalities in favor of becoming Americans. I understand that there is, in addition to folks of Jewish religion, a set of non-religious folks of Jewish ethnicity, called, I’m told “secular Jews”. In America, religion is protected, while ethnicity is one’s own business under “pursuit of happiness”. The only folks that the US recognizes as dual nationality are Indian nations, and even that is internal. Mohawks and Navajos travel overseas on blue passports
Thank you NJ.
The US should stop funding the UN.