(JTA) — The United Nations General Assembly will hold its first-ever meeting focused on anti-Semitism.
The meeting, to be held Thursday, was organized in the wake of a series of anti-Semitic incidents, including the hostage crisis at a French kosher supermarket this month and the shooting last year at a Brussels Jewish museum.
Israel, the United States, Canada and all of the European Union states were among the 37 countries that called the meeting, according to a news release from Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy will deliver the keynote address. Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also will speak, according to AP, in addition to representatives of other countries.
“It says a lot that so many countries have partnered with Israel to raise this issue of antisemitism to the top of the U.N.’s agenda,” Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in the news release. We have a great deal of work to do to move this issue from the headlines to the history books.”
