Auktion mit Hitlers Uhr sorgt für Entrüstung

Every Day during the Corona crisis our Advisory Board Member Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs (NL) writes a diary, on request of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam, which is published on the website of the NIW, the only Jewish Dutch Magazine. Rabbi Jacobs is the head of Inter Governmental Relationships at the Rabbinical Centre of Europe. We will be regularly publishing a selection of his informative, sometimes light hearted, but always wise pieces.

For our Dutch readers you can follow the diary every day at NIW home page: https://niw.nl
Column NIW 38 GB
Sara wants to tell her husband something positive and something negative. What do you want to hear first, she asks him? Start with the good news, her husband replied. Well, Sara enthuses, your Lexus’airbags worked very well. After two weeks holiday of writing my diary, I also have something positive and something negative to say. I'll start with the negative. I had to go to England for a few days. The reason why is irrelevant, but I want to share the corona bombardment surrounding this trip. The ferry ticket was easily booked, but then the test circus started. I checked online which test is required to cross the sea. €130 PCR. Afterwards, the test of €39 turned out to be sufficient. I had to be at the test site at 11:05 am, preferable not earlier. I was there at 11:04, but had to queue until 12:15! Two days later, after lengthy paper statements about testing, whereabouts and quarantine, I was in London. Four times a day I got a call from the local authority asking how I was feeling and where I was. They also send inspectors to check us at the door every other day. And then back home again. I expected the return journey to be easy as I am Dutch and fully vaccinated. Mais non! I was bombed by text, WhatsApp and email by the Ferry company. I had to have an urgent reason, which officially falls under the exceptions, to be allowed to return home. My full vaccination was not recognized as I am entering Holland from England and I had to have a negative PCR test less than 24 hours old. The latter was a difficult one, because my ferry left at 11 p.m. So, I could only go to a test location the next morning, on the day of departure, but I would receive the results after 24 hours, not earlier. I was quite upset about it. It seemed like mission impossible. After a few days in England and five tests with negative results, I was back in Holland. At the border I was kindly welcomed by our Royal Military Police. I just had to show my ID. No test results and not even my app showing that I’m vaccinated. That friendly “welcome back to the Netherlands and have a nice” made me forget all threatening emails, text messages and WhatsApp’s in no time and therefore my quarantine after returning passed without any emotional problems. Which shows the importance of a few kind and
friendly words!

This year “MAHAR” (tomorrow) conference was dealing with the important question:  “Whither will Jewish Diaspora go?”
Rabbi Menachem Margolin (Founder of European Jewish Association) was invited to share his thoughts and ideas on the issue of the European Jewry Future.

For more information on the conference klick HERE

The EJA and our partners the Joods Forum of Antwerp and JID, had the opprtunity to meet with Mr Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. The EJA has long enjoyed a great relationship with Commissioner Varheyli, who was a recipient in Krakow of the EJA’s Jerusalem Award for his support for European Jewry, and his support for the State of Israel.

In his new role, the Commissioner has responsibility for two key matters relating to European Jewry, those of circumcision and kosher slaughter. We pledged to work together to protect these two pillars of Judaism from any political attempts that would seek to ban or hinder them. We very much look forward to working again with our esteemed friend and took the opportunity to congratulate him in person.