November 11, 2010 – New York – A group of emerging political leaders from Central and Eastern Europe are visiting the United States on a ten-day, six city tour, to discuss problems in their respective countries in combating intolerance and learn from the experiences of Americans in addressing issues of racism, sexism, and ethnic tension.
The annual "Promoting Tolerance" program, now in its 18th year, and is co-organized by AJC and The Naumann Foundation in Germany.
This year’s 13 participants are visiting New York, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC from November 7-16. They come from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kyrgystan, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
The goal of the program is to help the region's developing democracies learn from U.S. experiences with diversity. Participants will observe how pluralism, democracy and diversity are fostered in the United States.
"Freedom didn't suddenly bring understanding and appreciation of ethnic relations, as we saw in the former Yugoslavia," said Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC’s Director of International Jewish Affairs and co-organizer of the tour, which began in 1992. "The challenge for us is what can we take from our experiences in America to benefit what is going on in these societies."
