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Midwest Diplomatic Marathon

F

Seth Gould

or several years, I have had
the honor of being a board
member of the American
Jewish Committee (AJC) in Detroit.
Last year, AJC joined with the
Jewish Community Relations
Council (JCRC) to launch a part-
nership now known as JCRC/AJC.
As the public affairs voice of the
Detroit Jewish community, JCRC/
AJC’s programs include strength-
ening inter-cultural, religious and
ethnic relations, and promoting val-
ues important to the Jewish com-
munity. This work includes fighting
hate speech and intolerance on
behalf of the Jewish community. We
do this work not only in Detroit and
across the U.S., but also on an inter-
national stage.
I say “international” because
AJC commences diplomatic
efforts every year in New York in
September at the opening of the
U.N. General Assembly (GA). This
year, AJC met with more than 70
world leaders on the sidelines of the
U.N. GA. Diplomatic meetings con-
tinued in Chicago at the Midwest
Diplomatic Marathon in October,
where we joined with small groups
of lay leaders to meet with consuls
general and diplomats from 21 dif-
ferent countries.
This year, seven Detroiters
joined with me to participate in
the Diplomatic Marathon: Howard
Friedman, Micki Grossman, Milt
Neuman, Illana Stern, Noah

Stern and Jordan Weiss. Our lay
leader teams included people from
Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and
St. Louis. Throughout the one-day
Diplomatic Marathon, my team
met with diplomats from Lithuania,
China and the Czech Republic.
Topping the agenda in meetings
this year was countering the escala-
tion in global anti-Semitism; ending
U.N. institutional bias against Israel;
and responding to Iran’s continued
ballistic missile development and
ongoing support for terror across
the Middle East. We also advocated
on behalf of a peaceful resolution
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
based on two states living side-by-
side, through bilateral negotiations,
rather than the current Palestinian
attempts to internationalize the
conflict.
The diplomats were keenly
interested to hear from representa-
tives of the U.S. Jewish community.
Our meeting with the Lithuanian
Consul General focused on how ris-
ing European anti-Semitism is an
issue that not only threatens the
Jewish community but also chal-
lenges universal interests and social
values.
The Lithuanian Consul General
shared his personal and very
meaningful efforts to combat anti-
Semitism during a prior assign-
ment in Brussels and told us about
an upcoming event sponsored by
Lithuania at the Illinois Holocaust

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Museum featuring such Litvak
music as George Gershwin, Aaron
Copland and Leopold Godowsky.
He also shared a map of Lithuania
that utterly took my breath
away. Next to the name of each
Lithuanian town was a small pie-
chart that showed the percentage
of Jews residing in each town before
World War II. This map clearly
depicted the utter destruction of
Jewish communities in Lithuania.
My thoughts quietly turned to my
paternal grandmother Rose Gould
and her family who fortunately
emigrated to the U.S. from Vilnius
in 1905. I will never forget that
map and the commitment of the
Lithuanian Counsel General to con-
tinue his personal efforts to combat
anti-Semitism.
The meeting with the Chinese
Consul General was similarly fas-
cinating. We celebrated 25 years
of diplomatic relations between
China and Israel, and our group
commended China for safeguarding
thousands of Jews from the Nazis
during World War II.
JCRC/AJC continues these dip-

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David Kurzmann, executive director, JCRC/AJC; Jordan Weiss of West Bloomfield, lawyer;
Consul General of Italy in Detroit, Honorable Maria Manca; Howard Brown of Franklin, commu-
nity activist; and Seth Gould of Bloomfield Hills, lawyer

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lomatic efforts here in Detroit
throughout November. Our board
members are meeting with local
diplomats from Germany, France,
Mexico, Japan, Italy and the United
Kingdom.
I’m not aware of any other orga-
nization in Detroit that affords this
diplomatic opportunity, which is
both truly empowering and educa-
tional. We know from past experi-
ences that our messages on behalf
of the U.S. Jewish community are
sent up the chain to the capitals of
these countries and, collectively,
our advocacy has made a differ-
ence.
We look forward to seeing
our diplomatic and interfaith
friends again at JCRC/AJC’s Fifth
Diplomatic/Inter-Faith Seder on
March 19, 2018. We invite you to
join us as we read from our seder
Hagaddah and pray for the freedom
of all peoples! •

Seth Gould is partner in the law firm Wienner
& Gould, P.C. and vice president of the
Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC.
He resides in Bloomfield Hills.

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