Consular Representatives Speak to ADL Board

Representatives from the consulates of France and Denmark, countries that have experienced recent violent anti-Semitic crimes, spoke at ADL’s February board meeting, reassuring board members that their countries abhor anti-Semitism and will use the full measure of their abilities and laws to fight it.

Board members first saw stirring video statements from both countries’ prime ministers, then Danish Honorary Consul Anna Thomsen Holliday told the board, referring to the murder of a Jewish man outside a Copenhagen synagogue, “the attack on the Jewish community of Denmark is an attack on all of Denmark.”

French Vice Consul Chun-Mee Chaline, who thanked Regional Director Martin Cominsky for allowing her to light a candle at the Lowenstein Lecture after Jews were killed in a kosher supermarket in Paris, said while the numbers of anti-Semitic acts fluctuate in every country, in France, “each act of anti-Semitism to us is intolerable.”

The consular officials were introduced by ADL International Affairs Committee Chair Cheryl Lipshutz, who thanked them for their strong stands against anti-Semitism, and both representatives promised their governments would continue to speak out against and fight anti-Semitism in France and Denmark.