The International Council of B’nai B’rith has appealed to the United Nations to intercede on behalf of the approximately 4000 Jews remaining in Syria before they are “consumed” by the harassment of the Syrian regime.
Representatives from 40 countries at the Council’s annual meeting at the B’nai B’rith building here accused Syria of “plain violation” of the UN Genocide Convention which outlaws “serious bodily or mental harm” against any ethnic or religious group. Syria is among the 75 signatories to the Convention.
Maurice A. Weinstein of Charlotte, N.C., the Council’s retiring chairman, declared: “the Damascus regime’s efforts to reduce Jews to a state of total economic helplessness together with its imposition of curfews, the use of special identity cards, police interrogation and other anti-Jewish measures, are brutal demonstrations of Syrian violations of the Convention.”
Dr. William A. Wexler, a past international president of B’nai B’rith and chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was elected to a three-year term to succeed Weinstein.
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