Communication of the Conseil de l’Ordre regarding an Increase of Antisemitic Incidents

June 10, 2024

Communication of the Conseil de l’Ordre Re: Increase of Antisemitic Incidents

On Tuesday 4 June, the Conseil de l’Ordre received a delegation of lawyers who came to denounce the upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents in Brussels.of anti-Semitic incidents in Brussels and elsewhere in the country.Physical assaults on Jews, anti-Semitic rhetoric on the streets, on television and in the comments of citizens and politicians, and a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents.of citizens and elected representatives, and the organisation of conferences under heavy police protection. The Jewsof Europe are once again living in fear.The Conseil de l’Ordre hereby solemnly affirms its full support for the Jewish community, and in particular for all our colleagues and colleagues in the Jewish community.and in particular to all our colleagues whose identity has been affected.We call for the defence of the principles and values on which our profession is founded, which allow forrespect for the plurality of ideas and guarantee contradictory debate. We will firmly opposeour institutions being transformed into a place of pugilism, a receptacle for the emotions and violence thatour society.Let us remember that in the darkest hours of our history, under the impetus of the Bâtonniers LéonThéodor and Louis Braffort, the Brussels Bar was a resounding pillar of our democracy.democracy.Let us remain proud and worthy of this commitment.

The Council of the Bar,

Emmanuel Plasschaert, President of the Bar, Marie Dupont, Deputy President of the Bar, Xavier Dieux, Marianne Warnant, Xavier
Carrette, Sébastien Champagne, Stéphanie Davidson, Damien Holzapfel, Anne-Sophie Loppe, Caroline Pepin,
Fabrice Hambersin, François Collon Windelinckx, Pierre Huybrechts, Augustin Daoût, Pierre-Yves Thoumsin,
David Ramet and Jérôme Henri.

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EU Court on Brink of Mandating Anti-Semitic Product Labeling

Pope Francis said recently that he was “concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.” He was talking about the rise of extreme nationalism and populism, which he feared could lead to the fragmentation of the European Union. The pope should be worried about any current resemblances in Europe to the Nazi past, but the pope’s praise of the European Union as an antidote is premature. Indeed, the European Union itself is on the verge of reviving the Nazis’ stigmatization of Jewish-made products on the pretext that they come from “occupied” Palestinian territories.
According to sources cited by the Washington Beacon, “The European Union is poised to mandate that Israeli products made in contested territories carry consumer warning labels,” which is seen by Jews as “an ominous warning sign that they say is reminiscent of Holocaust-era boycotts of Jewish businesses.” The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice recently issued a non-binding opinion to the effect that EU law requires the labeling of such products as coming from “settlements” and “Israeli colonies.” He analogized this situation to the European boycott of South African goods during its apartheid period. “The absence of the indication of the country of origin or place of provenance of a product originating in a territory occupied by Israel and, in any event, a settlement colony, might mislead the consumer as to the true country of origin or place of provenance of the food,” the Advocate General said, referring to food products. Israeli occupation and settlements could be “an objective factor which might affect the expectations of the reasonable consumer,” he added.
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Lawfare Project who has fought the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in various courts, remarked, “The Advocate General’s opinion said that goods produced by Muslims are to be labeled from ‘Palestine,’ and goods produced by Jews labeled as coming from ‘Israeli colonies.’ Both people are living in the same geographic location, and yet Jewish goods are being treated differently.”
Discrimination on the basis of religion is a transgression of basic human rights that violates Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The EU Court of Justice’s 15 judge panel is expected to issue a binding ruling mirroring the Advocate General’s opinion. If it does so, the EU court would be handing the BDS movement a major win against Israeli Jews by codifying blatant discrimination against Israeli Jewish businesses.
Consider how differently the European Union treats Turkish settlements in northern Cyprus. There are currently about 115,000 Turkish settlers and 35,000 Turkish occupation troops in northern Cyprus according to the internationally recognized government of the Republic of Cyprus. Despite Turkey’s invasion and military occupation of northern Cyprus, and the forced dislocation of tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots from their homes as Turkish settlers moved in, the European Union has allocated funds to developing and restructuring the Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus’s infrastructure. Germany, Denmark, and other European Union member countries import Halloumi cheese, a major product from Cyprus that may soon receive a “Protected Designation of Origin” from the European Union covering Cyprus as a whole. There appears to be no initiative to require further labeling of Halloumi cheese produced by Turkish settlers in northern Cyprus as coming from “settlements” or “Turkish colonies.”
On April 1, 1933, a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses broke out across Germany as the SS stood in front of such businesses to inform the public that Jews were the proprietors. The word “Jude” was smeared on store windows and the Star of David image was painted on doors to serve as anti-Jewish labels. Discriminatory laws singling out Jews followed in succession, codifying Nazi anti-Semitism. The infamous Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” occurred on November 9, 1938, followed by the transfer of Jewish-owned businesses to so-called “Aryans.” Germany descended from there to the “Final Solution” of the Holocaust.
Germany officially professes to remember this dark time in its history with deep regret. Last May, Germany’s legislature declared the BDS movement to be “anti-Semitic” in a resolution co-sponsored by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian-Democratic Union Party, the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party. The resolution stated that “all-encompassing calls for boycotts in their radical nature lead to the stigmatization of Israeli citizens and citizens of Jewish faith as a whole. This is unacceptable and worthy of the sharpest condemnation.”  The resolution added, “The BDS movement’s ‘Don’t Buy’ stickers on Israeli products inevitably awake associations with the Nazi slogan ‘Don’t Buy from Jews!’ and similar scrawls on facades and shop windows.”
At the same time, however, anti-Semitism is sadly on the rise in Germany as well as elsewhere in Europe. Reported cases of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany increased by nearly 20 percent last year. Attacks against German Jews have come from both right wing and Islamist extremists living in Germany. The spread of Islamist anti-Semitism in Germany has become an increasing problem in recent years as Muslim immigrants from the terrorist-prone Middle East swarmed into Germany. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, for example, the annual al-Quds Day march in Berlin has become an occasion for participants to invoke anti-Semitic stereotypes linked to their gripes against the Jewish state of Israel and to call for the killing of Israelis. Last June, a witness testified during a murder trial that a Palestinian accused of killing a German man said he had done so because he thought his victim was a “rich Jew” whose people “destroyed my homeland.”
If the European Union Court of Justice follows its Advocate General’s recommendation, as expected, it will be seen as legitimizing anti-Semitism in Europe. The court will provide one more instrument of lawfare as a weapon of war for the Palestinians and their allies to use against Israeli Jews.
the article was published on Frontpage Mag

האיחוד האירופי הודיע: לא נתמוך בפרויקטים המעודדים טרור נגד ישראל

חברי ממשלה ממדינות אירופה ועשרות פרלמנטרים בכירים מרחבי היבשת סיימו אתמול, לצד מנהיגי הקהילות היהודיות, את הכנס למאבק באנטישמיות, שהתקיים בימי הזיכרון לליל הבדולח. הכנס החל באתר מחנה ההשמדה אושוויץ־בירקנאו ונמשך בקרקוב שבפולין, והוא אורגן על ידי איגוד הארגונים היהודיים באירופה.

בין המשתתפים והנואמים הבולטים הפעם נשיאת הפרלמנט האירופי רוברטה מצולה ממלטה, נשיאת הפרלמנט הצ’כי מרקטה פקרובה, ראש ממשלת מונטנגרו דרידאן אבאזוביץ’, נציגות בכירות מבתי המחוקקים הצרפתיים ואחרים. ישראל יוצגה על ידי ראש המשלחת לאיחוד האירופי, השגריר חיים רגב.

יו”ר איגוד הארגונים היהודיים באירופה, הרב מנחם מרגולין, סיפר בתחילת הטקס בבירקנאו על החוויה האנטישמית שעברה בימים אלה על ילדיו בבריסל מצדה של אישה שהעליבה אותם במהלך נסיעה בתחבורה הציבורית.

Bristol University professor fired for antisemitic comments

A professor of sociology at the University of Bristol in England was fired after making controversial comments about Israel that many alleged were antisemitic.
In 2019, Professor David Miller, who teaches about “how power self-perpetuates through lobbying and propaganda,” said in a lecture that the Zionist movement is one of five sources of Islamophobia, presenting a graphic associating Jewish charities with pro-Israel lobbying, The Guardian reported.
Miller has also stated that Israel is “the enemy of world peace” and that the Bristol Jewish Society, a campus Jewish organization, is an “Israel lobby group,” according to The Guardian.
Read More:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/bristol-university-professor-fired-for-antisemitic-comments-680870

¿Qué sucede con los judíos que permanecen en Ucrania durante la invasión rusa?

BUDAPEST – Algunos judíos se quedan en Ucrania porque no quieren dejar atrás a sus familiares fallecidos, sin saber lo que les depara el futuro, dijo el martes Aliza, una refugiada de la ciudad de Mariupol, en la conferencia anual de la Asociación Judía Europea (EJA) en Budapest.

Casi 5 millones de ucranianos han sido desplazados desde el comienzo de la invasión rusa de Ucrania el 24 de febrero, según las últimas estimaciones de las Naciones Unidas. Actualmente, según las estadísticas de la Agencia Judía, unos 200.000 judíos siguen allí.

“Nuestro pueblo está destruido”, dijo Aliza. “Antes de la guerra, teníamos una comunidad hermosa y pequeña. Era fuerte”. La comunidad judía de Mariupol tenía su propia escuela sinagoga.

“Todos en Mariupol sabían que si venían a nuestra cocina a las 10, obtendrían lo que necesitaban”, dijo Aliza.

El rabino Raphael Rotman, vicepresidente de la Federación de Comunidades Judías de Ucrania, contó innumerables historias de personas que pidieron ayuda y de familias que se reunieron con éxito fuera de las fronteras de Ucrania.

Cuando un amigo le telefoneó para que le ayudara a sacar a sus tíos de Kiev, le respondió que podía conseguirles un coche, pero que tendrían que hacer las maletas en 20 minutos y marcharse. Así lo hicieron.

Otra familia salió de Kiev un viernes por la mañana. Pasaron seis días hasta que toda la familia se reunió.

Aliza señaló que algunos judíos se quedaron en Mariupol porque tienen parientes enterrados allí -algunos en sus propios patios- que murieron por explosiones aéreas o por enfermedades para las que no podían acceder a los medicamentos porque las tiendas estaban cerradas, habían sido bombardeadas o saqueadas.

Recibió una gran ovación de los asistentes a la conferencia.

¿Qué está haciendo la guerra con los judíos de Ucrania?

Rotman relató sus experiencias en Bucha, Irpin y Hostomel -cerca de Kiev- llegando a los ciudadanos de estas ciudades después de ser liberadas.

En abril, después de que las fuerzas rusas abandonaran Bucha, se encontraron decenas de cadáveres en las calles de la ciudad, lo que provocó una gran conmoción en los medios de comunicación internacionales y en los líderes mundiales, cuando ya habían transcurrido dos meses de guerra.

El marido de una mujer murió durante la ocupación rusa; tardó seis días en ser seguro realizar un entierro.

Las familias están siendo separadas, las esposas de los maridos, los hijos de los padres”, dijo Rotman, que ha estado en Ucrania desde el comienzo de la guerra.

Para algunos de los judíos que Rotman conoció mientras luchaban por escapar del país en guerra, conocerlo fue su primera experiencia con el judaísmo.

“Algunas personas nunca habían asistido a un séder de Pascua; fue necesaria una guerra para que salieran. En Shavuot, un hombre que cumplirá 78 años el mes que viene recibió una aliá por primera vez. Era la celebración de su bar mitzvah.

“Estas son algunas de las alegrías a las que tratamos de aferrarnos en esta época de locura e incertidumbre”, dijo.

https://israelnoticias.com/internacional/que-sucede-con-los-judios-que-permanecen-en-ucrania-durante-la-invasion-rusa/

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