Prestigious New York City Synagogue Declines To Host the UN’s Secretary-General at Annual Holocaust Remembrance Service as Tensions Spike Between U.S. Jews and the World Body

The UN’s secretary-general, António Guterres, is getting canceled by a prestigious New York City synagogue. Or so it seems from his lack of invitation to the annual Holocaust remembrance shabbat service at the Upper East Side’s Park East Synagogue on Saturday, the day after the UN’s annual International Holocaust Remembrance day. At the service, the senior rabbi, Arthur Schneier typically invites the secretary-general to give a major address.This year, for the first time, Mr. Guterres, did not make the cut. It is unclear whether Park East Synagogue declined to invite Mr. Guterres or disinvited him. Yet his absence from the storied Shabbat tradition this year signals how fraught the relationship has become between America’s Jewish leaders and the United Nations, where anti-Israel sentiment has intensified since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on the Jewish state.“Following the terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, and the subsequent rise of anti-semitism and the continued pain of the community, the Saturday service at Park East Synagogue will be focused on healing and the testimony of survivors,” the secretary-general’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, tells the Sun. “It will not be an event for the diplomatic community so, therefore, the Secretary-General will not be attending.” Mr. Dujarric acknowledged that it’s the first time Mr. Guterres will not be there. Instead, the Israeli consul general, Aviv Ezra, will speak at Park East’s service remembering the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the October 7 massacre.The shabbat will be led by Rabbi Schneier, a prominent voice in New York City’s Jewish community and in the national discourse on antisemitism. A Holocaust survivor and longtime human rights activist, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Clinton in 2001.The new guest list at Park East this year marks a change in attitude from last year, when the synagogue proudly touted “His Excellency,” Mr. Guterres, on its invitation to the same event. During his remarks, Mr. Guterres spoke of the conversion, expulsion, and annihilation of the Jewish people throughout history, and cautioned that “even today, antisemitism is everywhere.”Yet the organization Mr. Guterres is charged with representing is failing to heed his own warning. He and UN bodies constantly scold the IDF for attacking UN Relief and Work Agency facilities taken over by Hamas fighters. Meanwhile, the UN’s judicial organ, the International Court of Justice, has leveled charges of genocide against the Jewish state. Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, is the first envoy from Jerusalem to call for the resignation of a secretary-general, referencing Mr. Guterres’s statement that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Mr. Guterres will participate in the UN’s own Holocaust Memorial Ceremony on Friday, a tradition that was adopted by the General Assembly in 2005 during the tenure of secretary-general Kofi Annan of Ghana. Mr. Guterres will speak alongside invited speakers, including Holocaust survivors, Mr. Erdan, the current general assembly president, Dennis Francis, and the Biden administration’s envoy to combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt.

Prestigious New York City Synagogue Declines To Host the UN’s Secretary-General at Annual Holocaust Remembrance Service as Tensions Spike Between U.S. Jews and the World Body

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