Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial opened a new museum today, with a ceremony attended by an impressive list of international leaders. They include 14 heads of state and UN secretary General Kofi Annan, though the US sent a lower-level representative, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. “We see with the visit of all these foreign leaders…a strong message from the international community against racism, anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Holocaust,” said Foreign Ministry official Mark Regev. It took a decade to build the new museum, which seeks to personalize the victims with photographs, diaries and videotaped accounts. The aim is to preserve the memory of the Holocaust at a time when survivors are dying out. (We’ll have a full page report on the new museum in next month’s edition of “israel today” magazine).