JLI Retreat Hits the Press

By COLlive reporter
Photos by Bentzi Sasson / Merkos

From the Associated Press (AP) to CBS and ABC News, Chabad’s National Jewish Retreat is receiving unprecedented media coverage in major news networks in the U.S.

Much of the media coverage was due to interest in former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen, who will speak for the first time about his recently discovered Jewish roots.

The Republican politician who is readying for an expected rematch against Democratic Sen. Jim Webb in 2012, is scheduled today to speak to an audience of about 600 at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA.

In his failed 2006 re-election bid, Allen bristled during a debate when asked about reports that his mother, Henriette “Etty” Allen, is Jewish. It was among several blunders that contributed to Allen’s upset.

Allen’s Jewish grandfather, Felix Lumbroso, was a resistance fighter in French Tunisia whom the Nazis imprisoned during World War II. Allen and his three siblings were raised as Christians.

The news quickly spread, and many newspapers including the Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner and political websites such as Politico.com have reported the story.

Organizer of the retreat and director of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, Rabbi Efraim Mintz was quoted as saying “Allen is interesting to the American Jewish community especially because of his discovery late in life of his Jewish ancestry. We embrace him as a fellow Jew and we look forward to his remarks.”

The AP story generated much interest and scores of media networks contacted Yaacov Behrman of Lubavitch.com, the press coordinator for the retreat.

NBC and Fox News have already dispatched video crews to the JLI Retreat and tens of media outlets as well as major Jewish networks will be present during the banquet and retreat sessions, COLlive.com was told.

Other program highlights include sessions on topics controversial and current, among them The Nuclear Threat From Iran, and Jewish Homeland Under Attack by Bradley Gordon of AIPAC; Who is A Jew by Yona Reiss, director of Beth Din of America; Where was G-d in the Holocaust by survivor Rabbi Nissan Mangel and a talk by Nathan Lewin, Esq.

Historian Dr. Jonathan Sarna will present on The Emergence of American Judaism and Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews; Erica Brown on Judaism and Love; Nazi hunter Eli Rosenbaum will recount his efforts at the US Department of Justice identifying, investigating, and prosecuting Nazi war criminals.