HOLLYWOOD : Clergy Group Vows Effort to Teach About Holocaust

The more than 500 clergy members who make up the Committee of Concerned Christians will spend part of 1995 trying to re-educate people about the Holocaust, the group’s co-founder said Tuesday.

A recent poll by the organization showed that 41% of the respondents between ages 18 and 55 do not believe the Holocaust will ever be repeated, Ben Friedman said, compared to 44% who do.

Increasing instances of anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe show that an event similar to the Holocaust could occur again, he said, adding that it is the responsibility of Christians and Jews to see that it doesn’t.

The committee, whose members agreed to preach at least one sermon a year on the Holocaust, is the first group “organized solely to be concerned for the Jews in Europe,” Friedman said. At a news conference in Hollywood, the Rev. Ignacio Castuera said the poll reflects a growing apathy in the United States about the persecution of Jews, especially European Jews. Holocaust survivor Ebi Gabor said many things she sees today remind her of what she saw 50 years ago in Hungary as the anti-Semitic tenets of the Third Reich took root. She said the desecration of graves last week at a Los Angeles Jewish cemetery reminded her of events that led up to the Holocaust.