Trump committed to guarding Jewish heritage, combating denial, envoy says
"The administration is committed to ensuring there is no daylight between the United States and Israel on preserving Jewish heritage."
By MICHAEL WILNERUpdated: APRIL 30, 2018 01:20Paul Packer at the 7th Annual JPost Conference in NYat the 7th Annual JPost Conference in NY(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
NEW YORK – The Trump administration is combating international efforts to deny recent and ancient history of the Jewish people, including Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the facts of the Holocaust, one of the president’s appointees told the annual Jerusalem Post conference on Sunday.Paul Packer, a former New York hedge fund manager appointed by US President Donald Trump to chair the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad last year, told the conference that the administration is concerned by motions at UNESCO that deny the “historic connection between Jerusalem and the Jewish people,” and by recent polling that revealed widespread ignorance amongst Americans of the Nazi slaughter of Jews during World War II.A survey published earlier this month by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found that two-thirds of American millennials cannot identify the significance of Auschwitz.“The administration is committed to preserve heritage worldwide as key in the fight against antisemitism,” Packer said.“Jewish heritage will not be forgotten, in Germany or around the world, where a Jew will be able to walk the streets of Germany or anywhere wearing a kippa,” he said, referencing a recent violent attack in Berlin against a man wearing a skullcap.Packer touted cooperation between the US government and Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry in their efforts to fight denial efforts. Just as on security matters, he said, “the administration is committed to ensuring there is no daylight between the United States and Israel on preserving Jewish heritage.”The United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 to encourage and facilitate the preservation and restoration of monuments, cemeteries, historic buildings and other important sites associated with US history.
