Danish parliament to consider becoming first country to ban circumcision of boys

We shudder to think what could possibly come out of Poland next, a country that is well and truly positioning itself outside of the pale.

Poland is now beyond the pale. This expression was deliberately chosen. The Pale of Settlement was a historical region of Imperial Russia, including a large chunk of modern-day Poland, where Jews were permitted to live.
First, we had the Holocaust Law, making it illegal to critique Poland for what happened during the Holocaust, under pain of imprisonment. So I’m going to take a risk and spell out a few facts for you about Poland. As many have noted, “the few who survived Auschwitz went back and found their homes vandalized. Their jobs were taken. Their shops were confiscated. They were further welcomed by their former neighbors with slurs, curses, fists, knives, riots, broken glass, and often murder.” Just like pop singer Katie Melua’s “Nine Million Bicycles” says, “that’s a fact, that’s a thing you can’t deny.” If that appears trite, it’s because it’s meant to. The Holocaust Bill is an affront to decency, honesty and good grace. It deserves resentment, but also ridicule, for the sheer unparalleled scale of its stupidity.
And then what modicum of common sense was left in Poland’s armory of credibility also packed its bags and decided to move beyond the pale: Poland is about to make it illegal to export kosher meat and perform kosher slaughter. Oh, and for good measure, slap a four-year prison sentence on the offense.
The text of this was uncovered by us at the European Jewish Association, hidden in a 48-page general bill on animal welfare, which the lower house of the Polish Parliament is expected to vote on this week.
Back in 2013 the EJA – when a kosher ban reared its ugly head – challenged the law in Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal and won. Rabbi Menachem Margolin, our chairman and founder, has said the EJA will do so again, and also challenge the Holocaust Law.
But Poland is today a very different political beast than it was five years ago. The Law and Justice Party has brought in its own brand of ultra-conservative, good old-fashioned xenophobia and parochial politics front and center, appealing to the worst instincts of a disenfranchised demographic, a trend that is increasing in popularity across the European Union to the detriment of immigrants, Muslims, Jews and anyone else who doesn’t fit the nationalistic bill.
“Panem et circenses” is now the leitmotif in Poland. So very apt. In a political context, this old Roman phrase, meaning “bread and circuses,” means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace.
Mission accomplished, with both these laws.
What is most alarming though is what little recourse is left to challenge it. You see, Law and Justice quickly realized that the Constitutional Tribunal was blocking their carts laden with bread and so removed the judges, replacing them with appointed party acolytes, using the smear of former communist sympathies to oust the incumbents. That means simply that gross and demeaning legislation such as this can be steamrolled through (it won’t prevent us from trying to stop them though.) Little wonder that Israel is considering withdrawing its ambassador to Poland, and little wonder that the EU is considering Article 7 as a punishment for Poland. We shudder to think what could possibly come out of Poland next, a country that is well and truly positioning itself outside of the pale.
But we shudder more that in 2018, in a supposedly modern and enlightened Europe, we even have to write opinion pieces such as this one, on subjects that stir up the hot coals of what we all thought and hoped were dying embers: Jew hatred.
This Op-Ed was written by the director of public affairs for European Jewish Association, Alex Benjamin. It was publish on The Jerusalem Post .

A German auction of items such as Adolf Hitler’s hat and partner Eva Braun’s dresses has been sharply criticised by the European Jewish Association (EJA).

The EJA argued the items have little historical value, and would be bought by individuals who glorify Nazism.
The organisation asked Munich-based Hermann Historica to stop the auction, but it went ahead.
A silver-covered edition of Hitler’s autobiographical “Mein Kampf” was also among the items for sale.
A silver letter seal belonging to Eva Braun has sold for €10,500 (£9,003), while a silver-framed and signed photograph of Hitler sold for $46,000 (£39,442).
The chairman of the EGA, Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote an open letter to German political leaders expressing his concerns.
Mr Margolin argued the auction is an “opportunity for people to glorify, show adulation and sentimentality for the Nazis”.
He added: “I understand that it is not illegal to buy and sell Nazi memorabilia… this is not a legal request but a moral one. It is wrong”.
The director of the auction house, Bernhard Pacher, told DPA news agency: “The largest part of the customers who shop with us are museums, state collections and private collectors who really meticulously deal with the subject”.
He added there would be strict controls on the auction, to “prevent the wrong people from getting it”.
Other auction items which belonged to Adolf Hitler include a hand-written letter, a silver cigar box from his personal collection and a rental agreement for an apartment in Munich.
The 147 items specifically related to the Third Reich are part of a larger auction of over 800 German historical collectibles from 1919 onwards.
The article was published on the BBC

Mazal Tov to Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The first Kippah wearing leader the country has had so far (he will need as much divine providence as he can muster with all the challenges ahead!). As Israel opens a new chapter in its political history, we wish the government well, good luck, and to do us proud!

Shavuot starts on Thursday evening. For those of you lucky enough to understand dutch, we are pleased to share with you this deeply inspiring message from our esteemed EJA Board Member, Chief Rabbi Jacobs from the Netherlands, for those of you that don’t, we had it translated for you. Wishing you all a Blessed and Happy Shavuot Holiday.
Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs shares his vision in these complicated times from the synagogue in Amersfoort.
Judaism has many traditions and laws.
But there is one law that remarkably doesn’t fall under the 613 commands and prohibitions.
It just doesn’t exist and that is the prohibition on being depressed.
What I mean is there are people that see everything darkly. They see everything in a negative way and don’t look for the positives. They always focus on the negative side. So why is there no law against this?
The answer to that question is, being depressed is not a violation but it stands higher (or lower) in a way than a regular law. Because it leads to the biggest of violations.
This perspective looks at everything that can go wrong. It’s like only looking at the negative potential side-effects of medicines and forgeting that the purpose of the medicine is to cure.
Such a way of life is not only one violation but is also the root for a lot of misery in mental health.
And because body and mind are connected, it also has effects on your body.
A negative and depressed attitude is a source of misery, mental and physical.
I wrote a column once about a tightrope walker. A tightrope walker shouldn’t look only upwards and blindly trust in the Eternal that all ‘it will be alright.‘ But equally only to look down into the abyss is not good.
There is a happy medium. A balance between up and down. Otherwise the tightrope walker will never make it to the other side.
In a way we are all tightrope walkers. All the time we need to find a balance between the Eternal and the fact that there is indeed an abyss.
Another point: A man grows up in the jungle. He knows nothing of the civilised world.
His view never got further than the trees and the jungle. His jungle. This man gets lost and arrives in a city.
He looks at everything. He walks around surprised. He walks into the door of a big building into the hallway, walks up the stars and goes unto the balcony. Below him he sees a large room. In that room men and women walking around with face masks on. On the wall he sees tools, saws, drills and more intruments.
In the middle of the hall stands a high long table. On that table lies a white sheet. Under that sheet a human foot stick out. A nod is given, and some men and women start to cut into it.
Blood sprays out and our man from the Jungle passes out. He has never seen something so sadistic. Of course, he ended up in the operating room of a hospital. The person on the table, in the hospital bed, was sick and was being cured by the doctor and the nurses. Our man sees only the painful operation. He does not know the context that that the patient was sick and is being cured by this operation.
Life is like an operation. There is something before and something after. But if we only witness the operation then that’s the only thing we see. What there was before and what comes after, removes itself completely from our vision.
More than ever, today we all feel that we are undergoing an operation.
Is it a punishment? A reward? Meaningful? Meaningless? It’s always good to keep a mirror in front of yourself. But to firmly embed yourself into feelings of guilt, putting yourself into a depressed condition, that should never happen.
We cannot understand life like our man from the Jungle.
Serve G-d with joy. Are we able to do that? Or a better question: can I do that?
A parable is told of 2 strong cool guys (someone like me). Both are standing at the foot of a mountain. Both have an empty burlap sack on their shoulders. The contest can start.
The starting gun is fired and both guys need to, while climbing, fill their sacks with rocks.
After 3 hours they have a same amount of rocks in their sacks. Both climbed to the same height. But one is pale and cannot clime any higher.
The other is singing with joy and walks with big steps. How is this possible? That one is so heavily burdened but the other does not feel it? Both have the same health and strength. Both have the same amount of rocks in their sacks. But the guy that cannot climb a single step further thinks he is carrying kilos of stupid rocks. The more rocks he is collecting, it gets heavier and heavier.
His buddy knows that it is not just rocks. Its precious stones and diamonds. The more diamonds he gets into his sack, the lighter and lighter it gets.
How do I choose to look at all the things that I am enduring in my life?
When I’m speaking to a lot of people as a rabbi, I learn a lot. People are in situations that are heavier than mine. But they take every load as a diamond. I learn from their strength and self-control.
They hold a mirror in front of me.
That is Judaism.
To learn from someone else.
And it’s also Judaism to see the heavy load not as it is.
It’s also Judaism that when you notice an unexpected a shortcoming in someone else, you are aware that it also can be present in you.
If you did not know that this shortcoming was what it is, you would not recognize it in yourself.
And at the same time, alertness.
Alertness of the rise in antisemitism that is far from vanished and vanquished.
Our minister of Justice and Security is also Minister of Worship.
And when I spoke to him about restarting our worship, he warned me about the lone wolf.
Especially during the pandemic. But it is also, alertness to the physical rules that should protect us against that terrible virus.
When we can go to shul, the church or the mosque, we shouldn’t just trust that everything will come from above.
Because when that tightrope walker only looks up, he won’t make it.
On Thursday we start the holiday of Shavuot. The Jewish people stood as one at the foot of the Sinai to receive the 10 commandments, the 613 mitzvot and the Torah in its totality.
They saw G-d. There was something in common and that brought them together. There was unanimity. For division, fights and tensions there was no room.
In this time of Coronavirus, it is not only the Jewish people that have something in common, but the whole of humanity: a common enemy. From it we should liberate ourselves. But it’s an enemy of everyone, without any form of discrimination.
Let us pray that that enemy will be beaten in our days, exterminated and that the unanimity that the virus has made, will stay.
May there be speedily in our days eternal shalom – peace – for the whole of humanity, real peace for everyone.
You can hear the words of Rabbi Jacobs in dutch HERE