Albanian American Civic League 25th Anniversary - June 14, 2015

Now, I want to shift to another part of the world and somebody I'm really very very happy to have met tonight for the first time and that is Congresswoman Grace Meng. She is the first Asian-American member of Congress from New York, she's the only representative of Asian descent on the entire East Coast, she's a member of the House of Foreign Affairs Committee, and she serves on the subcommittee's on Asia and the Pacific and Middle East in Africa, and, if you haven't heard about her or met her, we have with us tonight Chinese American friends of Joe and me and two officials from the Chinese consulate in New York who are very happy that we ask Congressman Meng to speak, and they're also happy about the Civic leagues recognition of China for accepting Jews without visas or papers during the Holocaust, about the unique role that Dr. Fengxiang Ho, the Chinese consul general in Vienna, played in giving visas to 30,000 Jews and about Shanghai for receiving Jews and sustaining them over World War II- until well after World War II was over at least 19,000. And as you'll see in the dinner journal if you go to the inside almost at the end of the journal you will see that the Civic League stands together wanting to recognize two ancient peoples, Albanian and Chinese, both with close relationships with Israel and the United States. We’re very happy that Congresswoman-woman Meng said that you would join us tonight. Please. [applause]

Are you ready for another speech? Haha, good evening everyone. I'm Congresswoman Grace Meng, and I'm here all the way from Queens, New York, and it's such an honor to join all of you here today. To our- to Mr. Ambassador, to Rabbi Potasnik, Chairman Cox, to everyone who's here tonight, to our civic leaders and clergy leaders. I especially want to thank Congressman Joe Dioguardi, then uh tongue-tied is my first time meeting them was very excited to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi who I’ve also met for the first time tonight and of course to our co-chair Ron Rettner, thank you so much for the amazing work that you do.

You know I- I get to go to a lot of events, and every single night there are events all throughout the city in Washington DC with so many leaders in so many groups, but I have to tell you that tonight's event has re- has really stood out to me. I rarely am able to stay for such a long time, and even if I didn't have the time tonight, I wanted to be here tonight. I've learned so much [applause] I've learned so much from- from all the speakers from Senator McCain and Senator Schumer as well, but really tonight's event, this journal, these awards that were given to the board members uh doesn't come just out of knowledge up here, but it truly comes from the heart and you can see that and you can feel that in the room tonight. So once again to Joe and Shirley, thank you so much. You've really touched me with- with the tremendous work that you've done.