French Interior Minister asks to step up protection of Jewish community sites

Munich’s Hermann Historica International Auctions house is selling over 700 items linked to the Nazis including personal items of Hitler and other nazi figures, who murdered 6 million Jews alone.

It’s wrong to make money off these blood soaked items, especially in Germany of all places! Please share our poster on Facebook, and if any of you are near Munich we invite you to protest directly at Bretonischer Ring 3 Munich, Germany.
#antisemitism
#NazisMemorabilia
#EJA
#EuropeanJewishAssociation

At the request of European rabbis, Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Lau is adding a clause in the chametz sale contract that will be selling the chometz of all Jews in the diaspora, even if they didn’t do it themselves.
The Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE) recently conducted a practical Halacha class as part of their virtual shiurim channel on the topic of Erev Pesach falling on Shabbos.
Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau told the rabbis that “the Chief Rabbinate of Israel will include chametz of Jews in the Diaspora who are not aware of the chametz sale contract, as per the request of the European rabbis.”
Rabbi Lau praised the initiative of the Rabbinical Center to provide the translation of the European Jewish community chametz sale in English, French and Hebrew online.
The shiurim channel was launched in memory of Rabbi Binyamin Wolff OBM, Chabad Shliach in Hanover, Germany, who passed away this past year. The virtual classes provide the continent’s rabbis a way to connect the study at a time when travel is restricted due to the pandemic.
During the Shiur, Rabbi Lau answered many questions, among them the issue of selling chametz to a non-Jew. Rabbi Lau consented to the rabbis’ request and promised that the text of the chametz sale contract appointed by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate will include a clause stating that the sale will also apply to every Jew who has chametz in the Diaspora.
“As the deadly pandemic has taken toll of many lives, the Shiurim channel turned into the current replacement for the various conferences and professional seminars held by the RCE during the year for rabbis in various cities across Europe,” said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the RCE.
Director-General of the RCE Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg stated his satisfaction with the variety of classes and practical Halachic shiurim that were delivered and will be delivered within the framework of the Shiurim channel.
But it isn’t only with selling chametz that the Rabbinical Center of Europe is occupied with.
In collaboration with the European Jewish Association, 100,000 packages of Shmura Matzah are being distributed to hundreds of communities across Europe. Each kit was professionally wrapped and packaged to prevent the Matzot from cracking.
The logistical operation was conducted under the supervision of the RCE’s Deputy Director-General, Rabbi Yosef Bainhaker, and Rabbi Yehuda Reichman, head of the BASSAD organization which executed the project with great devotion.
The Matzos were distributed to over 560 European Jewish communities. The kits were delivered to Rabbis and community leaders who will distribute them just before Pesach.
This particular operation had a goal of ensuring kezayit size of handmade Shmurah Matzah will reach all Jews in the various communities of Europe. Working with postal and government officials, they were successful in ensuring that the sealed packages arrive despite the pandemic.
This is not the first logistical operation conducted by the Rabbinical Center of Europe together with Rabbi Reichman. Before Sukkos and Chanukah this past year, the organization helped distribute the four species and menorahs across Europe to hundreds of families.
“Due to high public demand for matzah, it was decided that despite the heavy expenses involved, an effort would be made to supply any quantity of matzah that would be required to the various countries ensuring that there would be matzah everywhere,” said Rabbi Margolin.
In addition, a special kit has been distributed for the children of the communities, enabling Rabbis and Rebbetzins to teach the children about the Mitzvos of Pesach, beginning from the general observance of Pesach till the practical details of each Mitzvah.
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Never again? If European governments are not prepared or are unwilling to turn words into action, these important words will have just been a platitude. And an insulting one at that.APRIL 12, 2024 10:54A DEMONSTRATOR holds a sign that reads “Never Again is Now” during a protest against right-wing extremism and the far-Right opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD), in Cologne, in January.(photo credit: Jana Rodenbusch/Reuters)Never again. Everybody knows those words. They are on every politician’s lips on Holocaust Memorial Day.And in 2025 we will mark the 80th liberation of the camp that prompted these words to be uttered: Auschwitz.What exactly do they mean? No more concentration camps? No more mass murder? One would certainly hope so, given Europe’s turbulent and bloody treatment of the Jewish people.And what about never allowing the circumstances that led to these barbaric and inhuman manifestations of hate to happen again? Does “Never again” mean that too?The Jewish communities across Europe certainly thought so. It appears that we were laboring under a misapprehension, brought into vivid and stark relief in the aftermath of October 7.Antisemitism continues to rise at alarming ratesSince the Hamas pogrom, reported cases of antisemitism have gone through the roof – in the UK, Spain, and France the percentage rise is over 1000%. Today, as I write this, Jews are facing levels of antisemitism last seen in 1939 in Nazi Germany.Protesters participate in a demonstration against antisemitism in Parliament Square in London, Britain, March 26, 2018 (credit: HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS)This is an unbelievable and incredible sentence to have to write.Things were already bad. Like a dormant volcano before October 7 , there were regular tremors and some eruptions, but we hoped for the best. The war awoke it. Jewish Communities are daily facing molten streams of hate everywhere across the continent.In Holland, earlier this year, they canceled Holocaust Remembrance Day events at universities over security concerns and because of vociferous opposition to the memorializing. Just recently, in Amsterdam, there were protests at the opening of a new Holocaust museum.Rabbis are slapped in the street and verbally abused. In capitals across the continent – mainly in those with significant Muslim populations – there are regular protests displaying Nazi images referring to Jews, images drawing parallels between Gaza and Auschwitz, and you can hear calls for Jewish genocide and ethnic cleansing “From the river to the sea.” You can read placards calling Jews terrorists, and the blood libel of “child killers” is regularly used.Death threats against rabbis are common. Jews are insulted on the street on a daily basis and our children cursed at.Those European citizens who have served in the IDF are outed in their communities through letter campaigns pointing out that a “child killer” is living next to them; flights arriving from Israel are tracked and met by protesters.The Jewish community president in Porto takes his child to nursery wearing a bulletproof vest. The principal Jewish organizations here in Belgium have had to write to their prime minister, urging him not to abandon them.A Brussels commune, in which NATO HQ is located, just this week raised the Palestinian flag above their town hall.To paraphrase Nietzsche, as Israel stared into the abyss, Jews in Europe have seen the abyss staring back at them in their neighborhoods in London, Paris, Madrid, and Brussels. Just because they are Jews.At least Israel can fight back. What can we do? We place our lives and our trust in the hands of our respective governments. Are we right to do so? Let’s take a minute to look at the evidence.Back in 2021, amidst a spike in COVID-related antisemitism, the EU published a detailed strategy for combating antisemitism. The strategy was handed over to the member states, and they in turn were to adopt measures and develop national plans for combating antisemitism. Many did. A great many also signed up to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, patting themselves on the back.But any strategy must ultimately pass the test in the real world. So how have these strategies, plans, and IHRA adoption held up upon meeting the post-October 7 landscape from what you have read so far?That’s right. They have no visible or demonstrable practical application across Europe today. Or to put it as eloquently and simply as a Dutch Jewish community president put it: “They are not worth the paper they are printed on.”The reality is that police departments are hamstrung at openly antisemitic protests, unsure and therefore unable to stop public manifestations of hate and overt antisemitism.A swastika is allowed because it is “context-dependent”; “From the river to the sea” is allowed in some capitals, because it isn’t explicit enough to count as hate speech. (Would they just prefer “Burn, Jew, burn”?).The courts too, seem to have little to no frameworks available to prosecute the anti-Zionists and antisemites who are making our collective Jewish life here in Europe hell.And these Jew-haters are emboldened because they can act with total impunity. They simply moved the goalposts and – when they can be bothered – have just replaced Jew with Zionist, thereby rendering the vast majority of Jews in Europe as the Azazel for their hate. It must be such a relief for them to finally give air to their sulphurous pent-up poison.As I write this, an image from a community in Dortmund has just popped up on WhatsApp. It shows a large graffiti of a Star of David with a swastika inside it.Never again? If European governments are not prepared or are unwilling to turn words into action, these important words will have just been a platitude. And an insulting one at that.The writer is chairman of the European Jewish Association, which represents hundreds of Jewish communities across the continent.https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-796594

Shabbat Shalom, Europe!
The EJA is happy to announce that we are distributing Menorahs and candles for various congregations across all corners of Europe!
Interested?
We kindly request that you fill in the form to be found through this link:
https://members.smoove.io/lk0tibd1y68dbmybby9nnghn1fcbxi7pxgrn399ntbgtnhtnd9nbx9drgmb9g.ashx
Have a wonderful day!