French Jews urged to rally over UNESCO resolutions

The main Jewish groups in France urged members to rally in front of the headquarters of the country’s Foreign Ministry to protest its failure to oppose UN resolutions that ignore Jewish ties to Jerusalem, JTA reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee passed a resolution denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

On October 13, the executive board of the UNESCO passed a similar resolution which refers to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount only by their Arabic-language names.

France was among 26 countries that abstained from voting during the first resolution.

CRIF, the political lobby group representing French Jewish communities, was joined in a rare move by the Consistoire, French Jewry’s organ responsible for religious services, in organizing a protest rally for Thursday opposite the Quai d’Orsay in Paris in reaction to the passing of the two resolutions on Jerusalem.

“We were shocked by the anti-Israeli obsession of UNESCO and are now revolted by its disavowal of its own values,” CRIF President Francis Kalifat wrote Wednesday in his call for French Jews to rally outside Quai d’Orsay.

 

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