"For 3500 hundred years, Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, founder and dean and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "Even when exiled, following the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E, and again by the Romans in 70 C.E, wherever Jews lived they directed their prayers and always faced Jerusalem, their eternal capital,” they added.
"Today, it is the capital of the modern State of Israel, where, unlike the years when Jordan controlled the Old City, the rights of all people of all faiths to pray at their Holy Sites, are steadfastly guaranteed by the democratic Jewish State,” said Hier and Cooper
"We urge President Trump to go forward and become the American president who will right a historic wrong by unequivocally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and hopefully move the US embassy to its rightful place in the near future,” they concluded.
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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).