48 No. 58 JUSTICE he Association, in collaboration with Project Interchange (the educational institute of the American Jewish Committee) brought to Israel in March 2017, a delegation of twelve senior jurists from various European countries, including Germany, Albania, Lithuania, Italy, Latvia, Greece and Poland. This initiative is the result of the seminar held by the IAJLJ in Austria in November 2015 under the auspices of the Austrian Ministry of Justice. At that seminar, discussions were held with local official representatives from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior. One of our goals was to present the need to re-embrace the working definition of antisemitism, and to classify antisemitic hate crimes, and address this phenomenon accordingly. The seminar also included a historical introduction, and an overview of the rise of antisemitic incidents in Austria and the lack of proper enforcement and punishment. Given the success of the seminar, it was decided to follow up on this project with an educational legal seminar in Israel for European high-profile prosecutors and judges. As a professional Jewish association, we saw great importance in bringing leading jurists to Israel, since there is nothing like "feeling the ground" and seeing things from a local perspective, and not as they are presented in the media. For months, the Association invested great efforts in assembling the list of participants; it was necessary to identify them and examine their ongoing work. This was a difficult task in itself since people with high profiles such as theirs often have "less presence" online. We therefore contacted members of the IAJLJ abroad and other colleagues in order to learn about every potential candidate. At the same time, the Association, in collaboration with the AJC in Israel, designed an academic program that would be consistent with our goal: teaching the history of the Jewish people, antisemitism, the Israeli legal system and more. The jurists visited Israel for five full days, and the program included a meeting with Dan Meridor, a tour of the Knesset and a meeting with MK Begin and MK German, a visit to the Supreme Court and a meeting with Justice Neal Hendel, a visit to Ramallah and a meeting with the Palestinian Deputy Minister of Justice, meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, a lecture at the Ministry of the Diaspora, a meeting with a Kadi, a tour of the southern settlements around the Gaza Strip, including presentations from a retired IDF colonel and one of the members of our Board of Governors, Adv. David Benjamin. Together, they provided a military and a legal perspective of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The delegates had an emotional meeting with a Holocaust survivor, toured Yad Vashem and heard Prof. Yehuda Bauer. A reception with other IAJLJ members and representatives from other law firms was held at the Herzog, Fox & Neeman Law Firm in Tel Aviv, including a presentation. In between, there were also tours of the Western Wall Tunnel and an urban trip in Tel Aviv. Rabbi Andrew Baker (of the AJC) and I accompanied the delegation during its entire stay. The visit was extremely successful. The jurists were exposed to a new reality; they learned about the history of the Jewish people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they held in-depth dialogues with the people they met and they expressed interest in all the legal and historical aspects to which they were exposed. Throughout the experience, the members of the delegation were able to forge personal connections with each other, as well as with me. One of the sentences I still recall, after I made my speech before the delegates at the reception, in which I shared with them my personal story and the reasons why I work for the IAJLJ and the rationale that motivates me, is that "it was a memorable week and that Israel gained a new friend." To me, this is the core of the vision we had and what we sought to achieve. If we led foreign non-Jewish leading jurists to become friends of Israel, then we accomplished our purpose. n Ronit Gidron-Zemach is CEO of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. International Legal Forum Seminar in Israel, March 4-9, 2017 T Reviewed by Ronit Gidron-Zemach
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=