Vice Presidents Jourová and Schinas speak at 4th meeting of Working Group on Antisemitism

Community Security Trust has recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2023, the highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year and an increase of 147% compared to 2022., especially since the October 7 attacks and the war between Israel and Hamas.Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced an extra funding of 54 million pounds (€63 million) to protect Jewish communities in the country against antisemitism over the next four years.“It is shocking, and wrong, the prejudice, the racism we have seen in recent months,” Sunak said in an address to the annual dinner of Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity which provides security and advice to the UK Jewish community. It also records antisemitic incidents in the country.“It is hatred, pure and simple. An assault on the Jewish people. We will fight this antisemitism with everything we’ve got,’’ he added.CST has recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2023, the highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year and an increase of 147% compared to 2022., especially since the October 7 attacks and the war between Israel and Hamas.Sunak said that Jewish schools, synagogues and other community centres are to be given the additional funding for security guards, CCTV and alarm systems. There are 250 synagogues in the UK.He said, ‘’it is shocking, and wrong, the prejudice, the racism we have seen in recent months. That Hamas attack of October 7 was the most abhorrent act of terrorism against Israel that any of us have ever known. And it’s been followed by record levels of antisemitism in this country that are utterly, utterly sickening.“As prime minister I will lead this government in a long-term effort to strengthen your security, defend our liberal democratic values and change our culture so we tackle the root causes of this hatred,’’ he added.Also on Thursday, Prince William said he was extremely concerned about growing antisemitism in Britain as he visited the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London.A week after the heir-to-the-throne called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza saying “too many have been killed”, Prince William met young ambassadors from the Holocaust Educational Trust who are seeking to tackle hatred amid soaring abuse and attacks on the Jewish community.“Both Catherine and I are extremely concerned about the rise in antisemitism that you guys have talked about this morning and I’m just so sorry if any of you have had to experience that,” the prince said.“That’s why I’m here today to reassure you all that people do care and people do listen.”Wearing a kippah, William met Holocaust survivors and listened as Jewish students recounted how there had been what one described as an “explosion” in antisemitism, including death threats and assaults.

British PM Sunak announces extra funding to protect Jewish community sites as antisemitism is soaring

While the world at large is rightly concerned about Russia-Ukraine, a years-long effort to save Levi has failed. Levi has been imprisoned in appalling conditions in a primitive country since 2016 just because he is Jewish. After years of attempts to free him with the mediation efforts of another country, that route has failed. I was a small link in that liberation campaign, one without success I was told on Friday from the US.
A feeling of helplessness takes over me. Powerlessness and incomprehension too about Ukraine and Russia. The rabbis in Ukraine are in a very difficult situation. Some have fled and are now without a source of income, mostly in Israel, neck-deep in worries. Others have stayed, and don’t really know what to do, completely at a loss as to which way it will go.
I spoke to the chief rabbi of Dnieper on the phone. He can’t leave, he told me, because the older members of the congregation can’t leave either. There isn’t a single hair on his head that contemplates leaving his community, of abandoning his (sinking?) ship, as long as the majority of his crew members and passengers cannot or do not want to take that escape route.
More and more I think about my parents and their generation and the decisions they had to make to survive. My parents made the right decisions and that is why I exist and the second generation exists. But the great majority of then made the wrong decision and literally and figuratively had no way out. At the time, many thought that everything would not go so smoothly and that the Netherlands, like in World War I, would be able to escape the macabre dance again
And since I already started this new week from a low point, I can add something to it. Some of the Ukrainian rabbis or teachers have fled and are now elsewhere in Europe. They thought they could dedicate themselves to the Jewish Ukrainians who also fled to become their rabbi again, as it were, but outside of Ukraine. But it’s not all that simple. The interest in maintaining Jewish contacts is very low for the vast majority of people. For most, Judaism was a ticket to get away and seek shelter. But now that they’re gone and the first shelter is over…
Whether it is war or not, man remains human in times of war and also in his selfish behaviour. Some of the rabbis I know from Ukraine really couldn’t go back and are now in Israel, caring for their Ukrainians in the Holy Land. And I can again be a small link to financially support those rabbis and therefore be a part of their commitment, as it were. The rabbis who really can’t go back because their congregations have been totally destroyed are also supported. The stragglers too. But that in-between group? To return or not to return? And what about wife and children? That intermediate group is having a hard time, because they are either viewed as heroes or/and as traitors.
By the way, amidst the gloom, I also received a nice message. A Jewish-Dutch family that has been trying to settle in Israel for more than a year has finally managed to go through the long bureaucratic road of forms and signatures and can now finally make Aliyah. And another positive message is my appointment as a jury member. You see: no complaints about rabbinical variety. You may remember the discussion about the German war cemetery in Ysselsteyn. The result, after many discussions and meetings, was that a
monument was erected in memory of the 102,000 Jews, Roma and others who were not allowed a grave, unlike the murderers. Six artists can give a presentation of ‘their’ artwork and I will be one of the jury members. And so, I will be in Ysselsteyn on November 22. You will read about it here first!

The delegation of Jewish leaders of EJA was excited to meet today as part of the solidarity visit to Israel Shira and Moshe, the parents of the late hero Aner Shapira, who on October 7 pushed 7 grenades thrown by Hamas terrorists into the bunker where they were hiding near Kibbutz Reim, calmly commanded the event and saved 11 Israelis. The leaders also met Jacob, Elkana’s brother who was kidnapped to Gaza and since then the family has had no information about him. The head of the delegation, the president of the Consistory in Paris Dr. Yoel Margi and the chairman of EJA, Rabbi Menachem Margolin announced a grant to support the family of abductees and gave to the new rehabilitation center of The Hadassah Mount Scopus is a hydraulic medical accessory that will speed up the healing procedures of the patients.