Centennial Annual Meeting – Sold Out! AJC’s Centennial Meeting is now officially at capacity, with 1,500 participants already registered. Watch AJC’s Web site as we will update daily from Washington with printed materials, photos and video. President George W. Bush, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres will address in person the gala dinner on May 4 celebrating our 100th anniversary.
 Haaretz Dialogue with AJC Executive Director In the run-up to the Annual Meeting, David Harris is the online guest of Shmuel Rosner, Washington correspondent for Haaretz. Visit www.haaretz.com to find the exchange with Harris under Rosner’s Domain. The first questions went live earlier this week, and the exchange will continue through the weekend.
AJC Study: Young Jewish Adults to Reshape U.S. Jewry A pioneering AJC study offers an incisive portrait of how the Jewish community in the U.S. will look later this century. “Young Jewish Adults in the United States Today: Harbingers of the American Jewish Community of Tomorrow?” focuses on the 1.5 million Jews, currently 29 percent of the U.S. Jewish population, who are between the ages of 18 and 39. “Understanding the Jewish community of tomorrow is imperative if present-day Jewish organizations are to remain relevant,” said Ambassador Alfred Moses, Chair of AJC’s Centennial Committee. The study, conducted for AJC by Ukeles Associates, Inc., will be released tomorrow at a luncheon program in New York.
Special U.S. Envoy for UN Human Rights Council AJC is urging the U.S. to appoint a Special Envoy to the new UN Human Rights Council. “The appointment of a Special Envoy would recognize the fact that a large number of very important decisions will be made by the new Council during its first year of operation,” AJC wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. AJC expressed in the letter to Rice support for the U.S. commitment to work cooperatively with other UN member states to make the Human Rights Council strong and effective. AJC also welcomed U.S. pledges to vote only for states with genuine commitment to human rights and expressed hope that "other states will make similar public pledges." Click for news release.
Hamas Government Responsible for Tel Aviv Terror Attack While the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the April 17 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, AJC asserted that the Hamas-led Palestinian government bears the ultimate responsibility. “The political ascendancy of Hamas, which denies Israel’s very right to exist, fosters today’s culture of hate and violence that encourages terrorism, including firing rockets from Gaza into Israel and murderous suicide bombings,” said AJC. Click for statement.
AJC Radio Message: Terror in Tel Aviv In his national radio commentary on the CBS radio network, Harris spoke about the Palestinian terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Islamic Jihad, which carried out the attack, and Hamas, which now heads the Palestinian government, “both seek Israel’s destruction,” says Harris. “They have both turned religion on its head. Instead of religion being a force for good, they’ve created a force for evil.” Click to listen.
AJC Sponsors Israel Seminar at Jewish High School AJC is co-sponsoring a week-long seminar on Israel for graduating seniors at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School in New York City. Students began the week with a crash course in Israeli history and advocacy based on portions of IKAR – Israel Knowledge Advocacy and Responsibility – AJC’s high school Israel studies curriculum. David Harris will address the students tomorrow, charging them with the challenge and responsibility of becoming Jewish leaders and effective Israel advocates today.
Changing Auschwitz Name In a letter to UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura, AJC has endorsed a Polish government proposal for UNESCO to call Auschwitz the “Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.” The proposal to change the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation comes in the wake of increasing media references around the world to Auschwitz and other Nazi German camps in occupied Poland as “Polish concentration camps.” AJC also wrote separately to Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Meller. Click for news release.
Welcome Decision to Deport Sami al-Arian AJC welcomed the agreement between the U.S. Justice Department and Sami al-Arian, in which the former University of South Florida professor admitted to aiding a terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad. He will be deported from the U.S. “Sami al-Arian’s admission of providing material support to a terrorist organization is vindication of the U.S. government’s vigorous efforts to bring him to justice,” said Yehudit Barsky, director of AJC’s Division on Middle East. “The Justice Department has sent a clear message that support from U.S. soil for acts of terror that take place abroad will not be tolerated.”
AJC Interreligious Director at State Department Interfaith Event David Rosen, AJC’s international director of interreligious affairs, addressed an interfaith event, “Three Faiths, One God,” hosted by the U.S. State Department. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes spoke about the importance of interfaith dialogue. Rosen was joined by Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University; the Rev. Clark Lobenstine, executive director of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington; and Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, an American University professor and former Pakistani diplomat currently engaged in interfaith dialogues.
New Orleans Thank Yous AJC this week received letters of appreciation from Rabbi Andrew Busch of Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Rabbi Donald M. Kunstadt of Congregation Sha’ari Shomayim in Mobile, Alabama, and William J. Johnston, Jr., of the First United Methodist Church in New Orleans. They thanked AJC for generous donations from AJC’s Katrina Relief Fund that will help the three houses of worship rebuild.
Honoring Polish President David Harris delivered the keynote address at a luncheon in Washington honoring Aleksander Kwasniewski, president of Poland from 1995 to 2005, with the Jan Karski Award. The event was hosted by the Jan Karski Institute for Tolerance and Dialogue. Click for the text of Harris speech.
UN Watch Campaign to Block Jean Ziegler AJC’s Geneva-based affiliate UN Watch has played a key role among non-governmental organizations in protesting the Swiss nomination of Jean Ziegler to a new UN post dealing with human rights. Ziegler, who had served for six years as the UN expert on hunger and was notoriously anti-Israel, was the subject of a thorough UN Watch report last year.
In the Media
The New York Times and International Herald Tribune published letters by AJC President E. Robert Goodkind on Hamas, responding to an editorial after the Tel Aviv suicide bombing. Read the New York Times letter and the International Herald Tribune letter.
Haaretz published a letter by David Harris about AJC history. Read letter.
The Dallas Morning News published a letter by Dallas Chapter Director Darrel Strelitz on the April 17 Palestinian bombing in Tel Aviv.
The San Francisco Chronicle published a letter by San Francisco Chapter Director Ernest Weiner and Board Member Arthur L. Roth on Darfur.
The Wall Street Journal quoted David Harris in an article about the trial of two former AIPAC employees.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Atlanta Chapter Director Sherry Frank in an article about a proposal to establish a sister cities relationship between Atlanta and Ramallah.
Religion News Service published a column by Rabbi James Rudin on the AJC’s 100th anniversary.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a letter from Seattle Chapter Director Rabbi Anson Laytner on the so-called Israel lobby.
The Forward’s Masha Leon devoted wrote in her weekly column about the New York Chapter’s Diplomatic Seder.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published an essay by Steven Bayme, “Intermarriage and Jewish Leadership in the United States.”
The Sun-Sentinel published a two-page feature with photos on AJC at 100, with a focus on the Palm Beach County Chapter and long-time director Bill Gralnick. | 
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