Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 3, 2003 Page: 4 of 28
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4 Texas Jewish Post * In Our 57th Year July 3,2003
By James D. Besser
TJP Washington Correspondent
Administration takes
insurance company's word
in Holocaust controversy
The Bush administration remains
prickly about its opposition to a
California law forcing European
insurance companies to provide lists
of Nazi-era pol icyholders. That law
was overturned by the Supreme
Court last week, with the active sup-
port of the Bush administration.
The Justices ruled that the Cali-
fornia statute represented
improperly restricted the adminis-
tration's ability to conduct foreign
policy and that it could complicate
the effort to win justice for elderly
Holocaust survivors and heirs.
But some Jewish groups
protested, saying those diplomatic
efforts were not producing results.
last week Ambassador Randolph
M. Bell, the administration’s special
envoy for Holocaust-related issues,
defended the administrations
actions in the case.
“We have strongly urged...that
everyone reach the most rapid and
generous provision possible for the
settlement of these claims, and we
continue to do so,” Bell said in a
news teleconference. “The decision
by the Supreme Court last week was
consistent with that policy.”
The Justices, he insisted, were
more interested in the issue of fair-
ness to victims than in abstract
questions about the administra-
tion's foreign policy prerogatives.
And he insisted that the adminis-
tration continues to prefer an
“orderly, expeditious and noncon-
frontational" approach to the
ongoing insurance controversy.
That includes working primarily
through the International Commis-
sion on Holocaust Era Insurance
Claims (ICHEIC), which has
reached agreements with European
insurers on the publication of lists
of policyholders from that era.
The California law, he said, would
force German companies to violate
privacy laws in their own countries.
But in response to a reporter’s
question, Bell admitted the State
Department merely took the word
of the German companies and had
not done its own investigation of the
claim that such laws would bring
insurance companies into conflict
with privacy laws.
“Based on the reporting of our
foreign service posts and contacts
we have maintained, they have told
us this would be the case,” he said.
Jewish leaders involved in the
Holocaust insurance fight reacted
angrily.
“The privacy issue is an obvious
ploy by the insurance companies to
hide how much they owe to their
Nazi-era policy holders,” said Rabbi
Abraham Cooper, associate dean of
the Simon Wiesenthal Center. 'The
French banks tried the same shtick
with us, but under threat of lawsuits
created a mechanism that protected
the ,'privacy' of the banks, while
allowing full access to data.”
Bell's comments also prompted
criticism by the sponsor of pending
legislation that would do much the
same thing as the overturned Cali-
fornia law.
“The insurance companies have
provided a long list of excuses, but
what we need for the survivors is a
comprehensive list of names," said
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
“The State Department should and
must do much more to make sure
that policyholder names are pub-
lished.”
Waxman's Holocaust Victims
Insurance Relief Act, introduced in
March, already has 53 cosponsors.
But Bell indicted the administration
will continue to oppose it.
Uproar verses applaud
Conservative Christian groups
are in an uproar, but many Jewish
groups applauded last week’s
Supreme Court decision striking
down a Texas sodomy law.
Many, but not all; one Orthodox
group took sharp issue with the 6-3
decision, which ruled that a Texas
ban on gay sex was an unconstitu-
tional violation of privacy rights.
In a strongly worded statement,
Agudath Israel of America said the
ruling has “far-reaching and omi-
nous implications” that could lead
to ending prohibitions on “other
promiscuous behavior such as pros-
titution, adultery, bigamy and
incest."
But the Orthodox Union was
conspicuously silent on the deci-
sion.
“The OU has the matter under
study, and has no comment to make
at this time," said the group's execu-
tive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb, in a statement.
Most other Jewish groups praised
the decision.
Leaders of the Anti-Defamation
League said that “we are all safer
today because the Court reaffirmed
the principle that bigotry and fear
may not be the basis for criminaliz-
ing private consensual conduct.”
American Jewish Committee
general counsel Jeffrey Sinensky said
that the ruling “affirms the anti-dis-
crimination principle that
Americans stand on equal footing
before the law, regardless of their
race, their religion, their gender or
their sexual orientation.”
Both groups participated in an
amicus brief opposing the Texas law.
That brief acknowledged that while
participating groups took different
positions on the morality of homo-
sexuality, they were united in
opposing the criminalization of
homosexual acts.
The Jewish Council for Public
Affairs (JCPA) and the National
Council of Jewish Women (NCJW)
also praised the decision. But
NCJW expressed concern about the
language of the dissenting opinion -
- which included the charge that the
majority “has largely signed on to
the so-called homosexual agenda.”
That dissent, written by Justice
Antonin Scalia, also claimed that by
ruling against the Texas law, the
majority had “taken sides in the cul-
ture war.”
Scalia's comments are being
widely interpreted as a call to arms
for a constitutional amendment
prohibiting gay marriage.
This week Sen. Bill Frist (R-
Tenn.), the Senate majority leader,
said he would support such an
amendment. Liberal Jewish groups
will strongly oppose such an
amendment; David Zwiebel, direc-
tor of government relations for
Agudath Israel of America, said his
group will support it.
“For those who care about the
issue on one side or the other, it will
be very hard to sit on the sidelines,”
he said.
GREAT MEWS.'
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Wisch, Rene & Wisch-Ray, Sharon. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 3, 2003, newspaper, July 3, 2003; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth754662/m1/4/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .