SWC Official Appointed Chair of ESLI Working Group

June 29, 2011

Mark Weitzman, SWC's Director of Government Relations has been selected as Chair of the Education, Research and Remembrance Working Group of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI). ESLI is an international organization that grew out of the Prague Conference and Declaration of 2009, and which is supported by over 40 countries.

ESLI's mission is to serve as a forum for states and organizations representing Holocaust victims, particularly regarding restitution and social welfare issues, and including Holocaust education. The appointment involves working with the State Department, which is one of ESLI's major funders. (ESLI's website can be found at http://www.shoahlegacy.org/organization.html)

Mr. Weitzman (pictured at a presentation to the UN last year) was also appointed to chair the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance’s (ITF) new Committee on Best Practices and Guidelines of the Joint Working Group on Holocaust Denial and Anti-Semitism at last week’s ITF meeting in Amsterdam. The task of this committee is to create an international data base of Best Practices in dealing with Holocaust Denial that will then be posted on the ITF website, making it the recognized international source for dealing with this issue.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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