January 12 , 1998 After an extensive campaign , AJC , a founding member of The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany , sees the German government provide 200 million DM , approximately $ 120 million , to a new Holocaust fund set up to compensate survivors in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union . As noted in The Washington Post :
December 8 , 1997 Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn ( pictured above ) of New York City provide major support for AJC to create the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding . In 2001 , the Institute publishes two books on Muslim-Jewish relations that break vital new ground .
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Germany overall has set a positive model for the world , one that few other nations have matched , in facing up to the evils of its history and paying about $ 60 billion in reparations for admittedly unrightable wrongs . But in the case of the Eastern Europeans , it stalled for nearly half a decade , offering varying untenable excuses . Only when the American Jewish Committee went public with its tenacious campaign , beginning last spring , did it begin to make progress .”
1997 1998
1998 Israel celebrates 50 years of independence with colorful jubilee events throughout the country .
Photo : Amos Ben Gershom 13