Leading Jewish Group Seeks to Keep Holocaust Programming Away From UNESCO

"A major Jewish human rights group and other organizers of an annual Holocaust essay competition moved this year's event from its usual venue at UNESCO headquarters in the French capital to the Paris Memorial to the Shoah - as a result of the body's recent anti-Israel resolution.

Simon Wiesenthal Centre-Europe (SWC), the Association Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance (VL-V), the Russian Holocaust Centre (RHC) and new partner Yad Vashem France decided against holding the Russian University Holocaust Essay Competition at its original location, due to the anti-Israel resolution, adopted by UNESCO's Executive Board in April, ignoring Jewish ties to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

'There are six million reasons to keep Holocaust programming away from UNESCO at this time,' said VL-V Treasurer Edouard Fridman...

The UNESCO resolution, adopted on April 15, condemned Israel for its actions in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as referring to the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism - as the al-Aqsa Mosque/al-Haram al Sharif and the area around the Western Wall as al-Buraq Plaza."