NY Jewish Week - 03.05.2004

The Jewish Week

Groups Excluded From Anti-Semitism Conference

James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

A big U.S. delegation is getting set to attend next month’s European conference on anti-Semitism in Berlin.

But the delegation won’t include some of the groups that played the biggest role in convincing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to hold the meeting and to keep it focused on the single issue of anti-Semitism.

The American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith, the Anti-Defamation League and NCSJ, a top Soviet Jewry group, will be excluded from the official delegation, appointed by the White House.

The official reason: all three were part of the delegation to last year’s initial conference.

The Bush administration “wants to rotate” the membership in public delegations, said David Harris, executive director of the AJC. “We were not singled out; in an election year, they just want to touch as many bases as possible.”

But political factors seem to be at work, as well. The revised delegation is top-heavy with big Bush supporters, including Fred Zeidman, chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch — a prominent Democratic supporter of the President, will head the delegation.

Also in the group: representatives of the Orthodox Union and the United Jewish Communities.

“We’re disappointed,” Harris said. “Last year’s delegation had jelled; there was a lot of experience based on the first meeting.”

“The groups that put their resources forward to advance this conference will now just be observers,” said Mark Levin, the NCSJ director. “But we’ll continue to be actively engaged to ensure that the issue of anti-Semitism is addressed in the way it should be.”

Even though it won’t be part of the official U.S. delegation, “B’nai B’rith will bring a group to the conference,” said the group’s executive vice-president Dan Mariaschin. “And we’ll be actively involved in what comes next.”