(JTA) — The U.N. General Assembly will hold an informal meeting on the worldwide rise of anti-Semitism.
Thirty-seven nations called for the Jan. 22 meeting in a letter sent to General Assembly leader Sam Kutesa on Oct. 1, more than three months before last week’s hostage situation at a Paris kosher market, The Associated Press reported.
“We have a great deal of work to do to move this issue from the headlines to the history books,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, said Monday.
Israel, the United States and all of the nations in the European Union were among those that signed on to the proposal. Others included Rwanda, Uruguay, Canada and Australia, AP reported.
The U.N. meeting will feature speeches by representatives from several countries. French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy, who is Jewish, will deliver a keynote address.
The deaths of four Jews at the kosher Hyper Cacher market in Paris last week is the latest in a string of high-profile anti-Semitic killings in Europe, including outside the Jewish Museum of Brussels last summer and a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, in 2012.
