Spanish Jews decry Basque Region’s prize for anti

Leaders of Spanish and French Jews protested a decision by the government of Spain’s Basque Region to award a prize named for a French Jewish human rights and Zionist activist René Cassin to U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain (FCJE) and the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities issued a joint statement Monday against the Dec. 1 decision to honor Albanese with the award bearing the name of Cassin, the author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968.

The Basque decision is “a distortion of Cassin’s legacy and a serious misunderstanding of human rights values,” FCJE and CRIF said.

The groups cited Albanese’s history of making b