At issue is a below-ground walkway under construction at the site, which Weiss says disturbs the remains of the dead. The AJCommittee — the main backer of the project, along with the Polish government — denies that charge.
The AJCommittee contends that the memorial not only shores up a site that has fallen into disrepair but will protect Jewish remains by ensuring that pedestrians no longer walk freely around the area.
The group’s executive director, David Harris, said the AJCommittee never would have supported the project had it not secured the approval of “the highest rabbinic authorities.”
A spokesman for Poland’s Foreign Ministry, Boguslaw Majewski, said the government would “not comment on Rabbi Weiss’ doings.”
Harris suggested that Weiss, president of Amcha-The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, might have ulterior motives for fighting the memorial.
He was alluding to the fact that Weiss is the brother-in-law of a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Walter Reich.
Reich was supervised and later fired by Miles Lerman, who is the Belzec project’s chief backer.