OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and Other Forms of Intolerance

^{OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism andOther Forms of Intolerance
"Education on the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism"
Remarks by Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center}

^{I could not help but wonder, in preparing these remarks, what the millions of men, women and children gassed atthe death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek during the Nazi Holocaust would think of this auspicious gathering? I’m afraid they would not believe that a mere sixty yearsafter the Shoah, fifty-five nations have gathered once again to discuss Anti-Semitism, to once more confront the oldest form of hatred, hatred of the Jews which refuses to die.Even the greatest of the haters, Hitler himself, could only dare predict in his final will and testament that it would take a few centuries to rekindle Anti-Semitism.}

^{What shall we say to the remaining survivors of the Holocaust? That a mere six decades later, Anti-Semitism hasa home again in France, England, Belgium, Holland, Germany and throughout Europe and Eurasia, and especially in the Middle East. Despite the fact that throughout history Jews havebeen an endangered species, encountering crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms and the Shoah, they still cannot escape being the favorite target of every bigot andextremist.}

^{As always, there are those eager to deflect the truth by shifting the blame to the victims themselves as wasthe case in the 1930s when Nazi storm troopers blamed the Jews with their slogan, "The Jews stabbed Germany in the back." Today, once again, the perpetrators insist that it isIsraeli policy that is responsible for all these attacks. While it is legitimate to criticize a government’s policy - any government, it is quite another matter when thatcriticism spills over into a message of collective hatred of an entire people and an attack on Judaism itself. It is especially the case when that message of hate is delivered byteachers, spiritual leaders and writers who should be role models for tolerance, whose words are then carried by satellite and the Internet and transmitted around theworld.}

^{Like the words of Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis who delivered a sermon broadcast on Palestinian television, for whichhe was subsequently condemned by Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, that said in part, "The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world…Jews are responsible for all wars andconflicts…Do not ask what Germany did to the Jews but what the Jews did to Germany…" is that hate or politics?}

^{Or the words of a Nobel Laureate carried around the world, who wrote, "Contaminated by the monstrous…certitudethat there exist a people chosen by G-d…trained in the idea that any suffering…inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which theysuffered…the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound and keep it bleeding to keep it incurable, as if it were a banner…Israel in short is a racist State by virtue of Judaism’smonstrous doctrines, not just against the Palestinians but against the entire world which it seeks to manipulate and abuse." Those are not the words of hope and moderation thatone has a right to expect from religious leaders, teachers and men of letters.}

^{What can be done to expunge this hatred, to prevent this conference, however well intended, from ending infailure? For let us be clear, the enemies we face, are not just the enemies of the Jews, they are the enemies of Western civilization as well. If they rose to power today, theywould first purge the Jews, and then tomorrow would begin ridding themselves of anybody that they perceive as different. We all have a stake in the war against hate and we allmust be on the frontlines in an effort to defeat it.}

^{But the decisive battle for a more humane world must be waged and won in the classroom, where teachingtolerance must take center stage, and where a student’s education must be anchored in the principles of human dignity and mutual respect. As a Holocaust survivor speaking to ateacher’s seminar once implored: "Dear Teachers: I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers, childrenpoisoned by physicians, infants killed by nurses. So I am suspicious of education. My request is - help your students become human. Never produce… educated Eichmanns." Theterrorists, who brought down the twin towers and those who blew up the trains in Madrid or the buses in Jerusalem, deliberately murdering thousands of innocent civilians were nottaught those basic tenants of humanity. As Rene Dubois once put it, "Human diversity makes tolerance more then a virtue, it makes it a requirement for survival."}

^{That is why we built the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the New YorkTolerance Center, and why we are building the Center For Human Dignity in Jerusalem, to give a permanent address to the principles of human dignity and mutual respect, becausethese core issues will be the dominant themes of the 21st Century. Millions of people from all walks oflife have visited the Museum of Tolerance, where we have trained well over 100,000 police and schoolteachers nationwide in diversity and anti-bias training through our Tools ForTolerance Programs, helping them meet unprecedented challenges in serving an increasingly diverse, rapidly changing society. Where our permanent installations include, not onlymajor exhibits on the Holocaust, but a multimedia social laboratory on our contemporary world, dealing with hate and man’s inhumanity to man in such places as Bosnia, Rwanda, andthe Sudan, and confronting the global issues of international terrorism, AIDS, and the exploitation of women and children.}

^{The Museum of Tolerance’s primary focus is on young people – recognizing their potential as responsiblecitizens, as well as revealing the peril of ignorance and hatred to their future. Utilizing state of the art teaching technologies, the Museum of Tolerance and the innovative NewYork Tolerance Center are powerful educational resources for positive youth development and empowerment. Specialized, age-appropriate programs and activities expand on the coreexperience and challenge students to assume greater personal responsibility in recognizing and rejecting all forms of discrimination and in dealing more sensitively withothers.}

^{The profound impact this institution makes on the lives of thousands of students and front line professionalseach year is measured in program evaluations and expressed in letters and comments. For example:}

^{A policeman from Riverside County said, "This was a life-changing experience for me."}

^{A student from Chapman University wrote, "I realized that I have the power to stop hate. Hate is weak when itstands alone, but strong when it is united. I have the ability to keep it from growing."}

^{And a US District Court Judge from Minnesota left a National Institute Against Hate Crimes and Terrorism at theMuseum of Tolerance saying: "I strongly believe that I am a better person, and therefore, will be a better judge as I approach these important and complex issues."}

^{Furthermore, these experiential learning opportunities have spawned numerous practical initiatives, from grassroots efforts to new legislation, for the betterment of communities throughout the country.}

^{Recognizing that learning – and living – the lessons of tolerance spans a lifetime and bridges generations, theMuseum of Tolerance reaches out to the broad community with acclaimed public programming, landmark exhibitions, conferences and symposia on pressing social issues and global humanrights concerns, and a distinguished Arts and Lectures Series with important filmmakers and authors.}

^{Here are some suggestions for the OSCE:}

• ^{Encourage the establishment of a major museum/resource center in every country to help educate and focuspeople on these vital issues.}
• ^{Establish an OSCE lending library of films and DVDs on the Holocaust in various languages for distribution toschools and religious centers.}
• ^{Create a poster series on the Holocaust for distribution to all OSCE member states.}
• ^{Hold a future conference at a location that houses such a major facility in order to encourage discussion andhelp stimulate new ideas for other OSCE delegations.}
• ^{Post an OSCE compliance record sheet that would track each country’s implementation record.}

^{The task is overwhelming. But as Ethics of the Fathers teaches us, "It is not for us to completethe task, but neither are we free to desist from it." And as Albert Einstein reminded all of us, the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil,but because of those people who don’t do anything about it.}

^{We have the ability to make of our world an oasis of tolerance and a safer place for our children andgrandchildren.}

^{OSCE Conference on The Media and Anti-SemitismWorkshop
Remarks by Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center}

^{Cordoba, Spain
June 8, 2005}

Last month, the world commemoratedthe 60 anniversary of the defeat of Nazism. Shortly after the Holocaust, its major perpetrators were broughtto Nuremberg to stand trial. Those in thedock were not only generals and admirals who had conducted Hitler’s war of annihilation, but bankers and economists who had plundered Europe’s economy, amongst them newspaper editors and publishers whose words tore into the flesh of innocent peoplelike bullets.

Every day, during the twelve-year history of the Third Reich, JosefGoebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, and Julius Streicher, Publisher of the infamous Der Stuermer newspaper, each with his own audiences, served up daily potions of hatethat helped sell Hitler’s need for a “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Goebbels committed suicide and avoided the court’sjudgment. But to Julius Streicher, Justice Lawrence handed down the death sentence, charging him with incitement to commit murder andextermination. The judgment at Nurembergmade it clear that words have consequences and those who author incitements to hate-based violenceand crime bear responsibility.

What should be the responsibility of the media be in today’s battleagainst Anti‑Semitism, when almost everyday, particularly in the Middle East and at times in Europe, there appear Anti-Semitic articles under the guise of freedom of thepress?

Clearly, the safest guarantee of a free society is to have avibrant, aggressive and free press that serves a check and balance against abuse by the government or by the more powerful groups in society. But on the other side of the spectrum, there is also a need to speak out when the media validates lies and becomes the perpetrator and advocatefor distortions when it seeks to manufacture the truth, rather than to search for it, and when it has an agenda and then looks for the facts to fit that agenda.

It is precisely the blurring of those lines that led France’sVersailles Court of Appeals last week to rule against three reporters and directors of that nation’s most respected newspaper Le Monde saying they committed “a racist defamation”by publishing an article which said of the State of Israel, “One has trouble imagining that a nation of refugees, descendants of people who have suffered the longest period ofpersecution in the history of humanity…would be capable of transforming themselves into a dominating people…and with the exception of an admirable minority into a scornful peoplefinding satisfaction in humiliating others.” The court ordered the newspaper to publish a condemnation of the article because itconstituted incitement.

We live in a different world. In today’s world, you don’t have to attend a rally to become a bigot. Or to be present at theorchestrated giant rallies that the Nazis organized atNuremberg to be imbued with hate. Today, when a newspaper article or television broadcast appears in a foreign country and is instantly transmitted via satellite,cable and the Internet into the homes of millions of people throughout the world, you can become a bigot and Anti-Semite in your own living room, watching via satellite theIranian produced television series, Zahra Blue Eyes, depicting Israelis kidnapping Palestinian children and transplanting their organs to Jewish children, or the Syrianminiseries, Al Shattat (The Diaspora) about the alleged secret Jewish government that controls the world.

Or reading the words of Portuguese Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago:“the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound and keep it bleeding to keep it incurable, as if it were a banner…Israel in short is a racist State by virtue of Judaism’s monstrousdoctrines, not just against the Palestinians but against the entire world which it seeks to manipulate and abuse.”

Or the Lithuanian Newspaper, Respublika, who published a series,“Who Rules the World?” And answered, “The Jews.”

It is simply unconscionable that sixty years after the Holocaust, inspite of numerous films and books on the subject, that Anti-Semitism is again in vogue in Europe and around the world.

In such a world, the media has a special role to play in exposingthe lies and defending truth. They can help by debunking the myth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by interviewing Holocaustsurvivors involved in promoting tolerance, highlighting schools that commemorate Yom Hashoah, put the spotlight on political leaders who aren’t doing enough to stop to hate, focusattention on institutions in Europe and around the world that are promoting tolerance, cover the tensions in the Middle East fairly and objectively without hurling Anti-Semiticslurs comparing Sharon to Hitler, or the Israeli army to the Nazis.

What is at stake is nothing less then the future of civilization,and the future of our children and grandchildren. History has taught us that we have paid a grave price for indifference. There can be no bystanders in this battle.

As Edmund Burke reminded us, “The only thing necessary for evil totriumph is for good men to do nothing.”