Simon Wiesenthal Center
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The Simon Wiesenthal Center (often abbreviated SWC), with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time. The Center’s multifaceted mission generates changes through the Snider Social Action Institute and education by confronting antisemitism, hate and terrorism, promoting human rights and dignity, standing with Israel, defending the safety of Jews worldwide, and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations."[1]
The Center is accredited as a non-governmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations, the UNESCO, and the Council of Europe.
The organization aims to foster tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action. The Center closely interacts on an ongoing basis with a variety of public and private agencies, meeting with elected officials, the United States and foreign governments, diplomats and heads of state. Other issues that the Center deals with include: the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, fighting against ODESSA networks; Holocaust and tolerance education; Middle East Affairs; and extremist groups, neo-Nazism, and hate on the Internet.
Name and leadership
The organization is named after Simon Wiesenthal, a former architectural engineer and an Austrian Jew who lost many family members in the Holocaust, and later pledged to hunt down Nazis and bring them to justice. He founded and headed the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. Simon Wiesenthal had nothing to do with the operation or activities of the SWC other than giving it its name.
The SWC is headed by Rabbi Marvin Hier, its Dean and Founder. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the Associate Dean and Rabbi Meyer May is the Executive Director. The organization publishes a seasonal magazine, Response.
Museum of Tolerance
The Center’s educational arm, Museum of Tolerance, was founded in 1993 and hosts 350,000 visitors annually. Some of the programs sponsored by the Museum include:
- Tools for Tolerance
- Teaching Steps to Tolerance
- Task Force Against Hate
- National Institute Against Hate Crimes
- Tools for Tolerance for Teens
New York Tolerance Center is a professional development multi-media training facility targeting educators, law enforcement officials, and state/local government practitioners.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance is one of many partner organizations of the Austrian Service Abroad (Auslandsdienst) and the corresponding Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (Gedenkdienst).
Moriah Films
Moriah Films, also known as the Jack and Pearl Resnick Film Division of the SWC, was created to produce theatrical documentaries to educate both national and international audiences, with a focus on contemporary human rights and ethical issues and Jewish experience. Two films produced by the division, Genocide (film) and The Long Way Home (1997 film) have received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[2]
Office locations
The headquarters of the Simon Wiesenthal Center is in Los Angeles. However, there are also international offices located at the following cities: New York, Miami, Toronto, Jerusalem, Paris, and Buenos Aires.
Through its national and international offices the Center carries out its above mentioned mission of preserving the memory of the Holocaust.
Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual
Between 1984 and 1990 the Center published seven volumes of Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, focusing on the scholarly study of the Holocaust, broadly defined. This series is ISSN 0741-8450.
Library and archives
The Library and Archives of the center in L.A. has grown to a collection of about 50,000 volumes and non-print materials. Moreover, the Archives incorporates photographs, diaries, letters, artifacts, artwork and rare books, which are available to researchers, students and the general public.
Located Ex-Nazis
In November 2005, the Simon Wiesenthal Center gave the name of four suspected former Nazi criminals to German authorities. The names were the first results of Operation Last Chance, a drive launched that year by the center to track down former Nazis for World War II-era crimes before they die of old age.
References in pop culture
The center is featured in the real life story-based Freedom Writers. An exterior view of the center is given, and there are scenes inside the museum, showing simulation entrances to gas chambers in death camps.
Official statements
 | This section possibly contains synthesis of material which does not verifiably mention or relate to the main topic. (July 2010) |
France
On March 8, 2007, the head of international relations for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Stanley Trevor Samuels, was convicted (and later acquitted in an appeal) of defamation by a Paris courthouse for accusing the French-based Committee for Charity and Support for the Palestinians (CBSP) of sending funds to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.[3]
In its filing of the suit, the CBSP labelled the accusations "ridiculous", stating that its charitable work consisted of providing aid to some 3,000 Palestinian orphans. The court ruled that documents produced by the Wiesenthal Center established no "direct or indirect participation in financing terrorism" on the part of the CBSP, and that the allegations were "seriously defamatory".[3]
The Wiesenthal Center appealed the court ruling, and the appeal was granted in July 2009.[4]
Iran
After a Canadian newspaper reported upon the 2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy (based on a report written by Iranian exiles on Iranian religious minorities being forced to wear badges identifying them to Muslims), the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Marvin Hier, wrote to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan urging the international community to pressure Iran to drop the measure. Iranian officials later denied the report.[5]
Ireland
In January 2004 the Paris branch of the center asked the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, to suspend the 'Irish Museum of the Year Award' given to the Hunt Museum in Limerick, until the conclusion of a demanded inquiry into the provenance of a significant number of items in the collection. He argued that this was needed due to the close ties of the founders, John and Gertrude Hunt to the head of the Nazi Party (NSDP-AO) in Ireland, among others, and British suspicions during the war of espionage activity on the part of the couple. The center also claimed, 'The “Hunt Museum Essential Guide” describes only 150 of the over 2000 objects in the Museum’s collection and, notably, without providing information on their provenance - data that all museums are now required to provide in accordance with international procedure.'[6]
This essentially accused the Hunt Museum in Limerick of keeping art and artefacts looted during the Second World War, which was described as "unprofessional in the extreme" by the expert Lynn Nicholas that cleared the museum of wrongdoing.[7][8] The claim was taken so seriously that the examination was supervised by the prestigious Royal Irish Academy, whose 2006 report is available on line.[9] McAleese, who had been written to by the center, then criticized a Dr. Samuels of the center for "a tissue of lies", adding that the center had diminished the name of Simon Wiesenthal.[10] The center said that it had prepared its own 150-page report in May 2008 that would be published after vetting by its lawyers, but had not done so as of November 2008.[11]
Israel
A branch museum in Jerusalem-—expected to be completed in 2009-—sparked protests from the city's Muslim population. The museum is being built on what Rabbi Marvin Hier described as "derelict land": a thousand-year-old Muslim graveyard called the Mamilla Cemetery, much of which has already been paved over. The complaints were rejected by Israel's Supreme Court, leading to a demonstration by several hundred people in November 2008.[12][13] On November 19, 2008 a group of US Jewish and Muslim leaders sent a letter to the Wiesenthal Center to halt the construction of the Museum of Tolerance on the site.
As of February 2010, the Museum of Tolerance's plan for construction has been fully approved by Israeli courts and is proceeding at the compound of Mamilla Cemetery. The courts ruled that the compound had been neglected as a spiritual site by the Muslim community, in effect not functioning as a cemetery for decades (while simultaneously used for other purposes), and was thus mundra, i.e. abandoned, under Muslim laws.[14]
United States
The Simon Wiesenthal Center opposed the construction of Park51, a Muslim community center, two blocks from Ground Zero. The executive director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Manhattan, Rabbi Meyer May said the center was insensitive. The Jewish Week noted that the Center itself was once accused of intolerance when it built a museum in Jerusalem on land that was once a Muslim cemetery, after gaining approval from Israeli courts[15] while neglecting to say the land was already considered mundra, i.e. abandoned, under Muslim laws and therefor it was no longer a cemetary. They also failed to mention that cemetaries are routinely relocated in Israel. Due to the length of human habitation (many thousands of years) and the size of the nation (very small), if cemetaries were not relocated there would be very little land for the living to use.
Vatican
The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed the news that the Vatican has demanded that Bishop Richard Williamson recant his views denying the Holocaust before being re-admitted to the Roman Catholic Church. Williamson was one of the four priests from the Society of St. Pius X who were excommunicated 20 years ago for taking part in the consecration of Bishops contrary to Canon Law.[16]
Venezuela
The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Hugo Chávez for various statements, including his January 2006 statement that “[t]he world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolívar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world...”[17] The Simon Wiesenthal Center omitted the reference to Bolívar without ellipsis, stated that Chávez was referring to Jews, and denounced the remarks as antisemitic by way of his allusions to wealth. Meanwhile, according to Forward.com, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela defended Chávez, stating that he was speaking not of Jews, but of South America's white oligarchy. The Wiesenthal Center's representative in Latin America replied that Chávez's mention of Christ-killers was "ambiguous at best" and that the "decision to criticize Chávez had been taken after careful consideration".[18] However, since the common usage of Christ-killers has always been used in reference to Jews and not the Romans (due to Rome becoming the first Christian nation), it is obvious Chávez was referring to Jews,[opinion] who are commonly accused of controlling the world's monetary and political systems.
See also
Notes
- ^ SWC Home > About Us
- ^ "Moriah Films". Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ a b Nazi-hunting centre convicted for defamation. Agence France Presse (March 8, 2007). Available here. Accessed 12 March 2007.
- ^ SWC news release.
- ^ Yossi Melman (19.05.06). "Iranian MPs deny report Jews will be forced to wear badges". Haaretz.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ http://www.ria.ie/pdfs/Hunt%20Museum%20Final%20Report%20June%2006.pdf
- ^ Associated Press(IHT September 2007)expert condemns Simon Wiesenthal Center's claims of Nazi loot in Irish museum Retrieved 29 September 2007
- ^ Lynn Nicholas links
- ^ Hunt Museum Evaluation Report, June 2006
- ^ RTÉ News - President criticises claims against museum
- ^ The Irish Times 7 November 2008, p.15.
- ^ Row over Israeli tolerance museum
- ^ Row over Jerusalem Muslim cemetery
- ^ A proper site for a Museum of Tolerance
- ^ Adam Dickter. Wiesenthal Center Opposes Ground Zero Mosque. The Jewish Week. 2010-08-06 [Retrieved 2010-08-30].
- ^ Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Vatican’s Call for Controversial Bishop to Recant His Denial of the Holocaust
- ^ Wiesenthal Center (2006), "SWC Condemns antisemitic statements by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - demands public apology", Wiesenthal Center
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|Access-date=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help). - ^ Perelman, Marc. Venezuela's Jews Defend Leftist President in Flap Over Remarks. Forward.com, January 13, 2006, Accessed 01 December 2008.
External links
- Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Response Magazine Online Archive
- Response - America Remembers: One Year Later, Remembering the Victims, Pondering the Lessons Also in the Issue: International Community & the Mideast; Tragedy of Palestinian Children; The Real Obstacles to Peace; Global Terror Update; Internet Used by Terrorists, Racists; Museum of Tolerance
- The Jewish Virtual Library entry for Simon Wiesenthal
- Haaretz 11/03/05