By STEPHANIE KANG and CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
May 1 – American Jewish leaders urged Jews world-wide to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing the Chinese government’s policies regarding Sudan and Tibet.
The group, which included about 185 rabbis and other Jewish leaders, said it was “deeply troubled” by China’s provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, as well as its “friendship” with Islamist group Hamas.
In a statement, the group said it is urging a boycott because it believes China is using the Olympic Games as a way to deflect attention from its human-rights record, much the way that Nazi Germany used the 1936 Olympic Games to distract attention from its persecution of Jews.
“We remember all too well that the road to Nazi genocide began in the 1930s, with Hitler’s efforts to improve the public image of his evil regime. Jews should not be party to the whitewashing of such a regime,” read the statement, which was released just before Holocaust Remembrance Day and is titled “The China Olympics Are Not Kosher.”
“It’s an important moral lesson that a totalitarian regime can be successful at whitewashing international events,” said Rafael Medoff, director of the David W. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington. “There’s no doubt that the Chinese government would like the Olympics to serve the same purpose today.”
Mr. Medoff said the group will discuss how to approach Jewish athletes about the boycott.
China’s government has strongly criticized calls to boycott the Games, arguing it is against the spirit of the Olympics to politicize the event. A call to the Chinese Embassy in Washington about the move by Jewish leaders wasn’t returned.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, said he and other Jewish leaders were moved to take action after they learned of China’s plans to provide kosher food in the Olympic Village in Beijing.
“We felt it was a Chinese government attempt to get broader respectability, and that it was something that should be challenged,” said Mr. Greenberg.It is the latest challenge for the Chinese government, which has faced everything from protests along much of the Olympic torch route to the resignation of popular American film director Steven Spielberg as artistic adviser for the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies.
