The newly established Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism (CSAS) at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is seeking to raise some $10 million for research and training programs.
According to Dr. Yehuda Bauer, the Holocaust expert and historian, who organized the CSAS and is its academic chairman, the institution will not only conduct research into the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, its causes and roots, but will also provide training, in a special program, on how to combat anti-Semitism.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here, Bauer said that the Jewish people along with Christians have to fight anti-Semitism all over the world. “Anti-Semitism is a Christian problem as much as it is a Jewish one,” Bauer said, noting that anti-Semitism has brought havoc and disruption to society as a whole, unravelling the social and economic orders of entire countries.
Bauer pointed out that anti-Semitism is presently on the rise all over the world. He said, however, in response to a question, that “nobody can foretell whether a Holocaust against the Jewish people would take place again.” He added that on outbreak of anti-Semitism “that would endanger the Jewish people” cannot, however, be ruled out. He said that centers of anti-Semitism are the United Nations, the Soviet Union and, increasingly, the European countries.
A DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THE CENTER
One of the driving forces behind the CSAS is Vidal Sassoon, the Jewish celebrity and businessman, who has been touring the United States with Bauer, helping to raise funds for the CSAS. Sassoon, who was also interviewed by the JTA, said that he faced anti-Semitism when he was growing up in a London Jewish neighborhood. He said that when he met Bauer in Jerusalem more than a year ago he was introduced to the idea of establishing the CSAS. “The idea appealed to me and started to work for it,” Sassoon said.
His connections in the entertainment world have proved extremely helpful. In the first few months he succeeded in raising about $1.5 million by giving a party which was attended by some of the best known personalities in American show business, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Sassoon believes that the CSAS has a special mission to the non-Jewish world on the issue of anti-Semitism. “We must reeducate Jews and non-Jews alike that anti-Semitism is a disease that has to be eliminated,” he said. “We have to break an image, the image of the Jew in the Christian mind, and stress that Christianity cannot live through hate.”
The director of the CSAS is Dr. Shmuel Almong Others associated with it are well known scholars and experts, including Dr. Dov Kulka, Prof. Shmuel Ettinger and Yehosafat Harkavi.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
