Somewhere on a ship in the Persian Gulf. That’s where Rabbi Joel Newman will lead a seder this Passover. He’ll also lead seders, throughout the Passover week, in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, bringing the holiday to Jewish personnel in the U.S. military. The seder provides servicemen and women the opportunity to “vote with their… More ▸
It was December 1992 when Jewish activists gathered across from the site of the future Holocaust museum for the first of many calls for U.S. intervention in Bosnia. Eyewitnesses were coming forward with stories of war crimes, mass murders and systematic rapes in the war-torn former Yugoslavia. This week, a coalition of groups, including 19… More ▸
It is a bitterly cold day, but the Jewish Community Center of Sarajevo exudes a warm glow. Little more than a year after the U.S.-brokered Dayton agreement led to a cease-fire between Serbs and Muslims in this war-ravaged country, the community center and the people who run it still play a vital role in the… More ▸
Within a few weeks, the last Bosnian Jewish refugees in Croatia will be resettled in permanent housing, according to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “The relatively speaking `massive displacement’ of Jews from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia is now a chapter of the past,” said Yechiel Bar Chaim, the JDC country director for Croatia…. More ▸
Donors around the world should move away from rescue efforts and toward the rebuilding of Bosnia, the hosts of a recent Paris gathering stressed. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in conjunction with the Sarajevo Jewish community’s humanitarian aid society La Benevolencija, sponsored the one-day conference here last week. Both La Benevolencija and the JDC… More ▸
Bosnian Serb authorities have expelled a famed French Nazi hunter from their self-proclaimed capital of Pale after he traveled there in an effort to persuade their leaders to surrender to an international war crimes tribunal. “They obviously got my message, which was too strong for them,” said French lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, who had gone to… More ▸
With Israel and Syria talking peace again, the prospect for deploying U.S. peacekeepers to help monitor an agreement could hinge on the success or failure of the United States’ mission in Bosnia. Experts say a successful Balkan peacekeeping venture with minimal casualties could facilitate congressional approval for U.S. participation in a multinational monitoring force on… More ▸
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel joined President Clinton on Wednesday to support the deployment of U.S. peacekeeping troops to Bosnia. Wiesel, who had long urged that world to stop the atrocities in Bosnia, called the peacekeeping roll “an act of morality” that “will be remembered in history.” “It is with a… More ▸
A little-noticed provision of the emerging peacekeeping mission plan for Bosnia requires U.S. soldiers to apprehend indicted war criminals. “It will be the responsibility of the Implementation force to apprehend war criminals,” said Samuel Berger, deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. As the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as the… More ▸
When President Clinton asks members of Congress to support sending 20,000 U.S. troops to enforce a peace agreement in Bosnia, he will have overwhelming support from the organized Jewish community. “As Jews we have a special responsibility and cannot be absent from this next chapter,” said Hyman Bookbinder, a longtime Jewish communal activist who is… More ▸
