Day two of our bootcamp started with two special guests: Berlin’s combatting anti-semitism representative Mr Sigmount Konigsborg, and ACOM’s Mr Angel Mas who took our participants on an intensive session into modern manifestations of anti-semitism, the challenges of social media and how to fight back on campus and in public discourse. Both are heroes of ours and it was great to have them share their experience and tips.
We had a brief tour of Madrid before getting straight back into it with Attorney at the Paris Bar and leading French Jewish and Israel advocate Pascal Markowicz who gave us his take and counter arguments to the ICC’s announcement to investigate Israel, then we dove straight into an EJA team seminar on two threats to Jewish life in Europe: Shechitah and Brit Milah. Day 2 concluded with a great dinner where special guests from the Israeli embassy and Spanish MP and friend of the EJA José Ignacio Echániz. Then, well, we let our hair down a bit…
Day 3 coincided with Yom Hazikaron, and it was fitting on a day that Israel mourns its dead in defence of the country that we spoke about the positive impact that Israel has played in embedding normalisation in the hearts and minds of the Emiratis. Two masterminds of the the social media strategy Strategic Mr Yonatan Gonen who heads up the Arab language social media section at the MFA and Mr Ido Daniel who directs public diplomacy and social media at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs shared their remarkable and inspiring works as well providing tips and insights on how to manage social media relations.
We then went straight into a panel of leading Spanish Journalists for an exchange of views on Israel and how the media covers the region, before concluding with former ACOM President and former President of the Madrid community Mr David Hatchwell, who shared his incredible and inspiring story of how he got engaged in advocacy and the challenges and opportunities in advocacy work going forward. Finally, as we drew our bootcamp to a close, we talked about our Jewish Diplomatic Corps, which is the next step for many of our bootcampers….intense, fun, enlightening and constructive. The EJA, our partners the
ECJS (European Center for Jewish Students) and Concert – Together for Israel are building the next generation of Jewish leaders. Leaders with the right skills and tenacity to lead from the front. We are proud of them.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will celebrate Chanukah on Monday 19 December by lighting the flame on a large menorah in front of the European Commission’s headquarters in the Brussels EU quarter.
As part of the cultural agenda of Brussels, the city’s Mayor Philippe Close will light the second candle of Chanukah.
The event is seen as a strong sign for the European Jewish community in the wake of the EU’ clear commitment to ensuring a Jewish future and fostering Jewish life as laid out in the EU Commission’s new strategy for combatting resurgent antisemitism and fostering Jewish life in Europe.
European ambassadors and civil servants are expêcted to attend the event.
The lighting, which is organized in partnership with the European Jewish Association and the City of Brussels, will take place on Monday at 18:00 on Schuman Square and will be followed by a concert from the singer Haim Tzvi.
Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, is one of the most popular Jewish holidays worldwide. Candles are lit over 8 days to remember the miracle of one day’s worth of oil lasting eight following the reconsecration of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its message of hope, light and emancipation resonates are universal and timely. Celebrations worldwide are attended by heads of states who often light their own candles.
In addition to Monday’s lighting, Chanukah will also be celebrated the next day in the European Commission with the presence of the European Commissioner Janez Lenarčič, honoring Hias Europe, the world’s oldest refugee organisation, first established in the 1880s to help Russian Jews fleeing from pogroms resettle in the United States. Since then, HIAS Europe has had a strong presence throughout Europe, resettling hundreds of thousands of European Jews fleeing from violence and conflict. Today, HIAS Europe is a global humanitarian organization with thousands of employees in 22 countries dedicated to helping forcibly displaced persons, irrespective of their background. During more than a century of activity, HIAS Europe has helped more than 4.5 million people escape persecution worldwide »
EuroChanukah is organised every year by the European Jewish Community Centre (EJCC).
The mayor of Brussels Philippe Close cleaned some pavement stones of the Belgian capital this Wednesday afternoon, April 27. They were not simple stones, though. They were “Stolpersteine”, known in English as stumbling stones: each engraved brass block is dedicated to the memory of a victim of the Nazi regime, usually placed in front of the victim’s former residence.
“These stones are very important for Brussels, because they are not only figures, they are names, they are families, children, men, women. They lived in this neighbourhood. And these pavements are very symbolic of the people who lived here,” said Close to Belga News Agency.
“We do it together with the European delegation of the Jewish community, but also throughout the territory of Brussels, with this symbolic act. It’s very important to show that in Brussels everybody has a place,” added the mayor.
In Brussels, the cleaning event was organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA) to commemorate the Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) that this year started Wednesday evening April 27 through Thursday April 28.
“We have to remember all those who did not come back from Auschwitz. And one of the manners to do it is the Stolpersteine that we clean today,” explained Régine Suchowolski-Sluszny, Belgian Holocaust survivor from Antwerp.
“Because a lot of people do not have a place where they are buried, because they burnt,” added Régine with emotion. “It has to go on living on everybody’s soul that these people were murdered for nothing. Only because they had a Jewish mother,” she said to Belga News Agency.
Gratitude to Belgians
According to Regine, who presides the Jewish Organization in Flanders (FJO) in Antwerp, the Belgian people saved about 5000 Jewish children from the nazi regime. “50% of the Jewish people living in Belgium were saved. If you compare it to Holland, there was not even 20%. So the Belgian people did a very good job and we have to be grateful for that.”
In her speech at the opening event at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, she reminded the Belgian Christian couple that helped her family to scape the nazis, loved her and took care of her until she could reunite with her parents. She was only two years and a half then.
Régine defends that people should stand up against all forms of hate, intolerance and anti-Semitism. “People have to denounce it and not accept what is going on today,” she said to Belga News Agency.
“The world has to remember what happened. And we see today, sadly enough, that other people are suffering again; it’s not the same, because we can’t compare the Shoah to anything else, but too many people are suffering today and people are forgetting too quickly even what happened one hundred years ago,” Regine remarked.
Shining memory
In total, 90.000 stones can be found in Europe, from Spain to Finland. They were conceived by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1993 and today the initiative follows up the international student-led “Make Their Memory Shine” movement, aiming to clean all Stolpersteine in a “pro-active manner”, mixing commemoration, volunteering and education.
The Chairman of the EJA rabbi Menachem Margolim, reminded that the nazis forced Jewish people to clean the streets.
“Today we clean the stones of the streets to make the memory of those Jewish people shine,” he said.
It’s a challenging time for Jewish communities in Europe. Anti-Semitism is on the rise as populism and the politics of the lowest common denominator are gaining traction. Our communities often need round the clock protection and our practices and customs such as keeping Kosher are under pressure from increasing political interference.
