Jewish leaders call for boycott of Beijing Olympics By ERIC GORSKI â 17 hours ago A wide-ranging group of U.S. Jewish leaders plans to release a statement Wednesday urging Jews worldwide to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing China's troubling record on human rights and Tibet. The statement also notes China's close relationships with Iran, Syria and the militant group Hamas. So far, 175 rabbis, seminary officials and other prominent Jews have signed the declaration, which comes shortly before Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, organizers said. "We are deeply troubled by China's support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas," the statement reads. "Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today." Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, past chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, said signers are not alleging that the Chinese government is the equivalent of the Nazi regime, but that China, like Germany in 1936, is trying to use the Olympics as a public relations tool to deflect attention from its record. The declaration was organized by Greenberg and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of New York â both Orthodox Jews â and the Washington-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Several representatives of Judaism's major U.S. branches and large Jewish institutions signed on. They include Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Neil Goldstein and Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress; and Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, an association of Conservative rabbis. The statement seizes on Olympic organizers' plans for a kosher kitchen at the Olympic Village, where athletes stay. Greenberg characterized the move as an attempt to lure Jewish tourists by presenting an image of sensitivity. "I would say in principle, athletes and tourists and governments should all draw the same conclusion to this," Greenberg said. "Unless the Chinese make some significant corrections, they should not participate." Meyers said he hopes the declaration is interpreted as a call for Israel and Jewish athletes worldwide to boycott the games, although he doubts such a boycott will come to pass. "It would be good if that happened," Meyers said. "(But) I know Israel has political ties to China, and does business with China. It presents a somewhat awkward issue for Israel."
When do these Jews learn? I predict if there is world war III, Jews have to whine about another holocaust industry again after the war. lol
Some Jews are smart in some fields, definitely not in world politics. If they were smart enough, they would not need U.S. support to establish a new country Israel after wandering around the world for more than 2000 years. I thought today several millions of Jews have had enough enemies. keep up the enemy-making job, my Jew friends.
Jews have their own human rights issues to resolve in their own backyard. They should be the last to be condemning anyone else.
Seriously, if U.S. one day is no longer the sole superpower in the world, Israel will be wiped out from the map by its surrounding enemies if Jews don't learn from its past, if the Jews don't learn how to make fewer enemies.
All Jews around the world have human rights issues to resolve or just the Israeli government???? Neither China nor Israel is the backyard of any U.S. Jews or other groups for that matter.
To survive in this world, you got to learn to avoid making too many enemies esp. when you are not strong enough. This makes me think of Karma theory in "My Name is Earl". Anyway, I am not smart enough to teach Jews. But don't whine when bad things come back and haunt you.
You are whitewashing a whole group together. Why should a Jewish person in Miami or California be blamed for what Israel is doing? Would you say that all African Americans are to blame for what is happening in Darfur? Just make the point without claiming all are the same all around the world.