New Cooperation with The FORUM der Joodse Organisaties (FJO)

May 11, 2020

The European Jewish Association is proud and delighted to welcome another organisation to our growing roster of partners and communities.
We have just concluded and signed a memorandum of understanding with The FORUM der Joodse Organisaties (FJO), an organisation that we have increasingly had closer ties with. A formal arrangement was the next logical step in our mutually beneficial ongoing relationship.
We look forward to continuing our work for the betterment of Belgium and European Jewry together.

Additional Articles

Antisemitism in Paris university: Jewish student barred from entering because she was “Jewish” and therefore “Zionist”

The student was prevented from entering because she was J”ewish and therefore a Zionist.”

French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “unspeakable and perfectly intolerable.”

A Jewish student was barred from entering a lecture hall at the elite French university Sciences Po by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who occupied the place and renamed it “Gaza Amphitheater”.

The student, who is a member of the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF),  was greeted with shouts of “Don’t let her in, she’s a Zionist.’’

The hall was lined with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs. Outside the university, students, including UEJF members, were also taken to task by pro-Palestinian activists. While the UEJF members called for a minute’s silence for all the victims of Hamas and for the release of the hostages, the pro-Palestinian activists responded in the negative, chanting “From the river to the sea,’’ a slogan which means the destruction of the State of Israel.

At a cabinet meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is himself a Sciences Po alumnus, called the incident “unspeakable and perfectly intolerable.”

The Minister for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé,  wrote on X that “what’s going on here has a name, anti-Semitism.’’.

The student was encouraged to file a legal complaint.µ

France – which is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States and to Europe’s biggest Muslim community – has seen a rise in anti-Semitic acts and pro-Palestinian protests since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

According to a survey  published at the end of last year, 9 in 10 French Jews attending universities have had an experience with antisemitism.

Words for Rosh HaShanah by Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi

The shofar has no reason.
But it contains a sign: Wake up! (Maimonides)
If you want a livable society there has to be legislation. Because without rules the theory of people living together in peace is not going to work. Ideally this would not have to be necessary, but our society is far from ideal. And so, we see that in every country, in every city and in every group in which people live together rules are made to make the society livable. Because if we wouldn’t…
But it is not as simple as that. Because laws made by people are subject to change and can lead to quite the opposite of livability. Over the years laws are adapted, changed. What is criminal and unacceptable in country A, is ridiculous and exaggerated in country B.
Some time ago we received a journalist from Moscow as a guest. We were debating during the shabbat meal and since he sounded pretty pro-Russian, I asked him how he feels about the oligarchs who because of their large financial strength more or less define the law. In my point of view rather corrupt. But it is accepted and these multimillionaires are treated with a chronic respect. I find that difficult to accept!
The journalist looked at me a bit sheepishly and instead of answering he asked a counter-question, which is a good Jewish custom. When I got off the train at the Central Station in Amsterdam, he began talking, I saw men selling drugs under the police’s condoning eyes. Drugs that can only come onto the market through exploitation and degrading trade. How can your Dutch people, was his question, accept this just like that?
The journalist was right: what is acceptable in society A, even instinctively, is corrupt in society B. And so, it is a good thing that societies make laws to create a livable climate, but there is also a risk attached to this man-made legislation. Because when man starts to determine what is right and what is wrong, we have a problem. Are extramarital relations acceptable? Years ago, that was not done, but nowadays in our so-called modern civilized society … We stand up for women’s rights and rightly so! But we use these same women as inducement to focus attention to a certain product. And we accept the exploitation of imported women who have nowhere left to go, female slaves!
Judaism knows three kinds of laws: (1) Laws we obey to commemorate certain events. During the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) we live in a sukkah to commemorate the forty years in which our ancestors lived in sukkot after the Exodus from Egypt. (2) Laws that make sense, like the ban on stealing. This kind of legislation must exist to avoid chaos.
But Judaism has a third kind of law: Chukim (decrees). Laws that transcend rational reason. These laws are obeyed exclusively because God expects this from us.
“This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded” (Numbers 19:2). And then the text continues and presents the completely incomprehensible legislation of the red heifer. With the ashes of the red heifer the unclean is cleansed and the priest performing the ceremony becomes unclean because of the action!? It doesn’t make sense.
But apart from this inconceivable legislation: why does the text say “This is the law of the Torah?” It should have said “This is the law of the red heifer!” But because this incomprehensible law is called the law of the Torah, the Torah declares that reason cannot be the basis of any law. Every law, also the law we do understand, has to be obeyed because G’d desires that of us and not because we understand it. And then such a law is independent of the trend that dominates society at that particular moment. Because it may be that we find some laws rational and comprehensible, but with regard to standards and values there is no logic.
What was completely unacceptable yesterday is one hundred per cent normal tomorrow!
The Halacha is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is full of logic, taking into account circumstances and situations, it is absolutely not black or white, and constantly moving. But at the same time, it is plain that man is too small to determine the law himself. Standards and values are fluctuating all the time. What was totally unacceptable fifty years ago, is normal today. And what we find normal today, our grandchildren will experience as primitive and incomprehensible.
But why looking at ancestors and grandchildren? My Russian journalist cannot comprehend the policy on drugs in our country and it is beyond my comprehension that in Russia oligarchs are hoisted up into the air, while we live in the same age.
And that is precisely the message of the shofar.
A message reaching far beyond legislation.
Maimonides teaches a vital lesson for life at the beginning of the New Year:

  1. There is no logical reason why we should sound the shofar on Rosh Hashana
  2. But there is a sign hidden in the shofar: wake up, repent.

Primarily we have to realize that life is incomprehensible, we need to accept!
And when we are thoroughly aware of that, only then we start to try and understand as much as possible!
With this thought we start the New Year.
A Shanah Tovah, a good and healthy 5780
Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi

In response to the European Commission’s publication of a Communication on “No place for hate: a Europe united against hatred”

In response to the European Commission’s publication of a Communication on “No place for hate: a Europe united against hatred”, Rabbi Menachem Margolin Chairman of the European Jewish Association, which represents hundreds of Jewish Communities across the continent, said:

“We welcome the seriousness and diligence with which the European Commission have approached this communication. It is a serious document.

“In particular, we welcome the bringing forward of the call for proposals under the Internal Security Fund, initially scheduled for 2024, forward to 2023, which puts a focus on Jewish places of worship, with an increased budget. However, as I personally expressed to the Commission in meetings, the process must be expedited as soon as possible. With a clear and present danger to Jewish Communities everywhere in Europe right now, our communities don’t have the time for lengthy form-filling and procedures, we need help with security yesterday, not in months from now on completion of a process.

“Perhaps the biggest part of this communication is the proposal to extend the list of Treaty crimes to include hate speech and hate crime. If this is directly linked with the IHRA definition of antisemitism as it should be, it could be a game changer.

This communication has a lot of good in it. We are still working through the detail, but it is a very welcome communication.”

New Cooperation with The Warsaw Ghetto Museum

The European Jewish Association is proud and delighted to welcome another organisation to our growing roster of partners and communities.
We have just concluded and signed a memorandum of understanding with The Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
We are sure that this cooperation will bring with it beautiful and important accomplishments. We look forward to working for the betterment of Polish and European Jewry together.

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