Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of of the inauguration of the exhibition

Transcription

1 Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of of the inauguration of the exhibition People, Book, Land - The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land UNESCO, 11 June 2014 Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to welcome you to this cultural exhibition dedicated to the relationship between the Jewish people and the Holy Land, organised with the support of Canada, Israel, Montenegro and the United States of America. President François Hollande has commended this event in a message where he reaffirms the commitment of the Host Country to support UNESCO s work to make mutual knowledge of all peoples destinies a means to achieve a more just international order. UNESCO is the first United Nations agency to organise an exhibition on the relationship between the Jewish people and the Page 1-11/06/ :06:29

2 Holy Land, reaffirming the Organization s role as a universal platform for intellectual cooperation and intercultural dialogue. This exhibition is the result of long collaboration with eminent experts. It is an invitation to discover the history of the Jewish people on the Holy Land of the three monotheistic religions, Land of all the sons of Abraham in the words of Yitzak Rabin, a mosaic of cultures and peoples, whose history has shaped the history of all humanity. Jewish culture has given to the world some of its most universal figures, as you can see on these panels -- from Abraham to Einstein, from David to Spinoza, it has contributed to the advancement of all humanity and to the dialogue among cultures, in a continual process of mutual enrichment. No exhibition can exhaust all of its wealth and complexity, but each can shed light, and I am happy that the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, an NGO partner of UNESCO, is contributing its own, in this House where all are free to speak in respect of others. This idea resonates with the core values of UNESCO, founded on the conviction that mutual understanding and the moral solidarity of peoples are the only sustainable answer to racism and anti- Semitism. 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 2

3 This is why UNESCO advances the teaching of history, the sharing of knowledge, and the promotion of all cultures, including Jewish culture. I refer here to the safeguarding of the millennial sites of Masada and Beer sheba, as well as to the modern architecture of Tel Aviv -- tributes to Jewish history, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, which is a unique tool of international cooperation. I refer to our cooperation with youth NGOs like YaLa, or with Israeli artists like Ruti Sela and Mayaan Amir, who received a UNESCO peace award. Yesterday, we held a fascinating colloquium on Judeo-Spanish languages, led by the delegation of Spain One year ago, we held here, together with B nai B rith, a conference on Yiddish, a core aspect of Jewish culture. I am thinking also of Israeli know-how in water management and irrigation, which UNESCO shares with other Member States, and of the talent of scientists like Ada Yonath, UNESCO/L Oréal Laureate and Nobel Prize Winner, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board created by UNESCO. I am thinking of the fellowships co-sponsored by UNESCO/MASHAV, of our cooperation for gender equality with the Golda Meir Mount Carmel Centre and also with the Weizmann Institute of Science, and of UNESCO s SESAME scientific project in the Middle East these are just a few 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 3

4 examples of the influence of Israeli expertise and of Jewish culture within and throughout UNESCO. We work to harness this cooperation as a tool for dialogue and peace, and this helps us also to better understand the challenges facing the Jewish community today -- we are well aware of these challenges, and UNESCO stands resolutely by your side to tackle them. I say this with special emotion after the attack against the Jewish museum in Brussels, where 4 people were killed and which attacked an institution dedicated to Jewish history in Belgium this coming two years after the murder of Jewish children in Toulouse. I am concerned by the rise of anti-semitism, particularly in Europe, by violence against men, women, children, who are attacked and killed because they are Jewish. I am concerned because these acts of violence are not isolated, they are not the work of solitary wolves -- they draw on a social climate and discourse that endorses racism as normal along with hatred towards Jews. The role of UNESCO is to make this climate and discourse inoperative and to strengthen the intellectual and moral defences of resistance in all those exposed to it. We categorically condemn and reject all hate speech. 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 4

5 We do so through human rights education, and especially our global programme on Holocaust education, which is unique within the United Nations, and which provides means to prevent violence and to combat Holocaust denial and anti-semitism today. Our role is also to identify and to denounce anti-semitism in all of its forms, including contemporary ones, even the most insidious, because hatred towards Jews can take many guises -- economic, racial, social, religious and others -- which must be identified and combated. Ladies and Gentlemen, Understanding history, culture and heritage is a starting point for peace. This is the foundation on which we can build new forms of dialogue between peoples. This is the basis on which we can deepen mutual understanding and respect. This idea stands at the heart of UNESCO and this spirit guides all our action to promote respect and understanding, through the Slave Route project, through the History of Africa, through the Respect for All initiative, and through the project on the Different Aspects of Islamic Culture the first volume which we presented yesterday as well as through such projects as the Qhapac Nan 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 5

6 in South America and our leadership of the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures. I believe this spirit inspired the UNESCO Square for Tolerance and Peace, which I had the honor to inaugurate in Haifa, during my official visit to Israel three years ago. This is the very idea also for the Square of Tolerance at UNESCO Headquarters -- donated by the State of Israel and the artist Dani Karavan and inaugurated in 1996 by Shimon Perez and Federico Mayor. This monument stands behind me in the garden, representing the tree of peace and the Preamble of the UNESCO Constitution in 10 languages, including Hebrew for me, this captures and expresses the essence of UNESCO. This is the idea that lasting peace must start in the minds of women and men, through dialogue, respect and tolerance, through a better understanding of others, their perceptions, their heritage and cultures, their contribution to the story of all humanity. The Square of Tolerance is dedicated to the promotion of peace by UNESCO, in homage to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a UNESCO Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize Laureate. 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 6

7 We need this spirit of dialogue and understanding more than ever today, to struggle against all forms of racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia, wherever they occur, whatever forms they may take. I take this opportunity to thank all partners with whom we have worked to these ends, over the past years. I thank the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a partner of UNESCO since Thank you, Rabbi Heir and Rabbi Cooper, for traveling such a long way for this event. My gratitude also goes to Yad Vashem, the Shoah Memorial, the Aladdin Project, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and B nai B rith, a strong partner -- for all we do together to protect and promote the wealth of Jewish Culture. Thank you also to the CRIF, Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France, for being with us tonight. In this same spirit, I join my voice to that of President Shimon Perez, in his message for this event: May this exhibition draw visitors from all faiths and from all parts of the world, serving to highlight the magnificent heritage of the Jewish People and as a message of peace. Thank you. 11/06/ :06:29 - Page 7