David Lega as appointed as EJA new Secretary General

La France est le pays dont la communauté juive se sent le moins en sécurité, en dépit des actions menées par l’Etat, selon une étude portant sur 12 pays européens publiée ce mardi dans le cadre d’une rencontre organisée par l’Association juive européenne (EJA).

Les chiffres font froid dans le dos. D’après une étude sur la «qualité de vie juive» portant sur 12 pays européens, réalisée par l’Institute for Jewish Policy Research de Londres et par la European Union Agency for Fondamental Rights, auprès de 16.000 Juifs européens en 2018, la France est le pays dont la communauté juive se sent le moins en sécurité.

QUATRE CRITÈRES CROISÉS

Pour réaliser cette étude, les chercheurs ont croisé quatre ensembles de données : le sentiment de sécurité ressenti par la communauté juive, l’attitude de la population vis-à-vis des juifs et Israël, l’antisémitisme et enfin la «performance du gouvernement» (statistiques sur les incidents antisémites, lieux de mémoire de l’Holocauste, budget destiné à la sécurité des sites juifs, liberté de culte et préservation des pratiques juives telles que la circoncision et l’abattage rituel, etc…).

Les résultats sont probants. Il en ressort que la France, qui comprend la plus forte communauté juive d’Europe avec un peu moins de 500.000 Juifs, arrive à la 10e position (68/100) de cet index qui concerne également l’Italie (1ère place avec 79/100), la Hongrie (2e), la Pologne (11e), la Belgique (12e place avec 60/100), mais aussi l’Allemagne, l’Espagne, le Danemark, le Royaume-Uni, la Suède, les Pays-Bas.

DES ATTAQUES ET ATTENTATS ANTISÉMITES

«L’une des conclusions, surprenante, est que le gouvernement de la France a une bonne performance» par les actions menées par l’Etat (score de 83/100), «mais en dépit de cela, la communauté juive exprime un fort sentiment d’inquiétude» pour sa sécurité (31/100), ce qui place la France en dernière position sur ce point, a déclaré à l’AFP Daniel Staetsky, auteur de cet index et statisticien à l’Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

Comme possibles explications, il a cité les «attaques terroristes antisémites» comme la tuerie de l’école juive Otzar Hatorah à Toulouse en 2012 ou l’attaque contre l’Hypercacher dans l’Est parisien en janvier 2015.

LE DANEMARK PREMIER DE LA CLASSE

Autre enseignement : c’est au Danemark que la population juive se sent le plus en sécurité. La Hongrie arrive au premier rang concernant l’antisémitisme. Et la Belgique est dernière pour les actions menées par le pays en faveur de sa communauté juive.

Selon l’EJA, la rencontre, qui se tient à Budapest (Hongrie) depuis lundi et se termine mardi, réunit quelque 250 personnes, dont 120 représentants et dirigeants des communautés juives d’Europe.

https://www.cnews.fr/france/2022-06-21/la-france-est-le-pays-europeen-dont-la-communaute-juive-se-sent-le-moins-en

After supporters of Arnhem based Vitesse football club were heard chanting “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” ahead of a game against Amsterdam side Ajax last weekend, Dutch Chief Rabbi and European Jewish Association Chairman of the organisation’s committee for combatting anti-semitism Binyomin Jacobs and the Muslim Mayor of Arnhem Ahmed Marcouch are to hold a “town hall” meeting with Vitesse fans with the full support of the football club’s hierarchy.
The town hall meeting – whose date in coming days and details are being finalised – was arranged after Rabbi Jacobs got in touch with the Mayor immediately after the incident. Both agreed that words of condemnation were not enough, but that a constructive approach of engaging and holding a dialogue with supporters was needed.
Mayor Marcouch then contacted the Vitesse hierarchy to arrange a meeting with the supporters group.
Speaking today, Rabbi Jacobs said,
“Clearly the chants are abhorrent and disgusting. They are ignorant and a twin attack on Jews: on Israel and on the Holocaust. The natural reaction is to condemn in the strongest possible terms. We, of course, do so.
“But that on its own is not enough. We must be constructive, we must engage, we must educate so that those who chant what they think are throw-away lines in the spirit of rivalry, are fully aware of the weight of their words, of the damage and hurt that they cause.
The mayor and I, a Jew and a Muslim are fully aware of the dangers of ignorant prejudice. And we are also fully aware that boxing people in with condemnation can just entrench positions into “them and us”. This serves nobody’s interest. Our town hall meeting for which I am grateful to the Mayor for initiating, will be a frank, and we imagine difficult, exchange of views. But an entirely necessary one.”

Is the war in a deadlock, what is the situation in Rafah, is a regional escalation on the way, and what about the hostages? These were some of the many subjects Ron Ben-Yishai touched on during a briefing yesterday on the current status of the war between Hamas and Israel at the French think tank Fondation Jean-Jaures, which organized the event in partnership with EIPA.

The renowned Israeli war correspondent, who is one of the leading experts on Israeli foreign and defense policy, came specifically to Paris to share his extensive and long-standing knowledge and detailed analyses on the subject with journalists from a wide range of top French media outlets, as well as several researchers.

Ron Ben-Yishai, who is currently a Commentator on National Security & International Affairs and Special Assignment Correspondent for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, has covered all major wars in the Middle East and Africa over the last half-century, as well as many conflicts and revolutions in all corners of the world. He is also one of the few journalists who have embarked in Gaza with the special Israeli forces after the 7th of October—the last time being just a few days before the briefing.

He has an in-depth knowledge of military tactics and history, which was of great interest to the many journalists who attended the briefing in Paris and eagerly asked questions to the experienced reporter, gathering around him when the briefing concluded in the afternoon.

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
Eli, Mazal Tov!
Our grandson Eli turned three! My daughter, his mother, blew up 150 balloons for it and it turned into a drive-in party. I’ll come back to it in a moment.
We are plagued here in Holand by rioters, detritus. Of course the riots are served up with a side order of ‘rational’ sauce.
The youth do not feel heard, the vaccine is not good and there will be more explanations as to why this looting is taking place. Cars are set on fire, windows smashed, police cars overturned. Polygamy must be allowed and forced prostitution is acceptable. And at the same time we speak with justified horror and disgust about glitterati such as Epstein, Weinstein and fashion king Jean-Luc Brunel who, despite their criminal lives, could and were allowed to afford themselves anything.
If everything is allowed and everything is possible, is it any wonder that this kind of criminally smelly rich activity goes on and on ?! Morality is totally lost. Is there a new phenomenon?
In the Pirke Avot, the ethics of the Fathers, we read (3: 2) that we should pray for the welfare of the royal family because if there is no authority people devour each other alive. And that is exactly what is happening now. Anarchy and therefore aimless looting, burning cars, blocking entrances to hospitals and completely destroying individual hard-working people.
As it was really unimaginable six months ago that the Capitol in the USA could be penetrated, it is no longer inconceivable in our own peaceful polder country that something like this could also happen here in our government buildings. I cannot imagine that this is not yet taken into account by the police. At the German cemetery in Ysselsteyn, an educational centre is being set up that shows how easily people can be transformed into inhuman beings. There, SS killers and Dutch traitors lie buried next to regular soldiers who were often forced, against their will, to go to war they absolutely did not want. But many of them, still young, were brainwashed and believed that good is bad and that there are Aryans and Jews, Humans and Superman.
I am convinced that ten or twenty years from now, most rioters will look back with horror at the present and be filled with shame.
By coincidence (although coincidence really does not exist!) I came across a speech I gave in 2010 on the occasion of 65 years of liberation:
“Freedom is not everything is allowed and everything is possible and freedom does not mean that we can and must tolerate everything. Freedom has limits and requires individual commitment, training, education and respect for others. Freedom cannot tolerate everything, freedom has its limitations, freedom starts with you, with me, for the sake of all of us.
They fought for freedom
For then, for tomorrow and for the present
But if freedom means, everything is possible and everything is allowed
And respect is disappearing for Government and for authority
When values ​​and norms fade and disappear
When people only think of themselves and their own
And for the other there is no place and there is no place
If it is common to think that it should
Then the freedom of that time is not the freedom of the present
Isn’t it the freedom they fought for?”
I don’t want to include the 1940s-45s. Despite the riots, despite comparisons that might be drawn, we have a Government that may not be excellent with respect to Corona, but it is reliable. Rutte can absolutely not be compared to any villainous potentate. He is a good person who wants to do what is right for his citizens.
However, I would like to mention that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. That Holocaust also started with looting, brainwashing, indoctrination, maleficent education.
My grandson Eli who lives in Montreal turned three today. There is a custom not to cut a boy’s hair until his third birthday because man is compared in the Torah to a tree in the field. And just as the fruit of the tree must be left untouched for the first three years, so too, the hair is not cut until the boy is three. Eli has received presents, put money in the Tzedaka (charity) box , he was allowed to say aleph beit and lick the letters that were smeared with honey. Tomorrow he will be wrapped in a tallit and carried into the Jewish school and sweets will be thrown at him.
Obviously, corona is a bummer here, but I am convinced that my son-in-law and daughter will do everything as normal as possible while respecting the corona rules. So Eli is raised from day one with positive thoughts, deeds and gifts. He will not get a pistol or a frightening dragon from his grandpas and grandmas. We gave him, via zoom, his own kiddush cup, a small one of course. He is now wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit.
And so, his parents invest from a very young age in his Jewish upbringing and pray daily that Eli may continue to follow the right path, the way of Torah and Tradition, so that he will be a blessing not only for his own family but also for the society as a whole.
Eli, Mazal Tov!