Capitol Hill Webinar – Reflections on the Opening Session of the United Nations

FEATURING:

Ambassador Richard Schifter – Chairman of the Board of the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI)

About this webinar: As the UN General Assembly opens this week for its 75th Session, we are honored to hear the remarks of Ambassador Richard Schifter, long-term expert on the workings of the United Nations and founder and president of AJIRI.

Ambassador Richard Schifter has a long and illustrious history serving the United States, human rights, the Jewish people and the state of Israel. He is now President of the American Jewish International Relations Institute, (AJIRI), an organization that works tirelessly to break the anti-American and anti-Israel voting bloc in the United Nations.

Prior to forming AJIRI, he served as US Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (from 1983 to 1985) and Deputy U.S Representative to the UN Security Council (1984 to 1985) and Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (1985 to 1992).

Ambassador Schifter was born in Vienna on July 23, 1923 into a Jewish family from Poland. In the wake of the Anschluss, his parents tried to get visas for the entire family to emigrate, but unfortunately, Richard was the only one to obtain a visa. When they put him on the train in Vienna, that was the last and final time he saw his parents. Upon graduation from college, Richard joined the US Armed Forces, and served as one of the Ritchie boys, the group of young Jewish refugees from Germany who were trained in interrogation and psychological warfare against the Nazis.

Said Ambassador Schifter, “From 1942 onward I was greatly concerned as to whether I would ever see my parents again. I recall it when I entered the army we were all being urged to take up life insurance policies for the benefit of relatives. And I said, I remember, that I don’t have any close relatives. On my dog tags I decided I was gonna keep the H. And I just said to myself, all right, this is the risk I take.”