Eighth Candle of Chanukah- #LightingEurope

December 18, 2020

As a part of our #LightingEurope canpaign for the eighth and last Candle of Chanukah we are honored to have Ruth Dureghello, President of the Jewish Community of Rome with some special word for the holiday.

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Blessing for the Jewish New Year from Rabbi Menachem Margolin

Rosh Hashana marks the beginning of the year according to the Jewish calendar, We are now in the year 5778.

In Hebrew, Rosh HaShanah does not mean ‘the beginning of the year’ or ‘the new year’ but ‘the head of the year’. This means thatRosh Hashana should influence us for the entire year just as our head manages our body. 

Rosh Hashana is not being celebrated on the first day of the creation of the world according to the Bible, but rather on the sixth day of its creation. The reason for this is that on the sixth day of the creation of the world, Adam was created

In addition, we do not wish a happy new year or happy holiday but a ‘good year’ – that means that the entire year will be good. 

This is because Rosh Hashanah is the day that reminds us that as human beings, we all have a responsibility to make this world a good world. A world of moral values, kindness and charity. Not only on the day of Rosh Hashanah but throughout the entire year.

We live in a challenging times. The Bible teaches us that all challenges are given to us by God in order to strengthen us and reveal in us forces that are revealed only when a person is really capable of using them.

Just as hard work at a gym – those who go … it’s hard, but in the end it makes us stronger.

 The goal is to discover these forces and exploit them to make this world a good world.

Every year, when Rosh Hashanah comes – the birthday of the first person – each of us is obligated to make good decisions for the whole world.

On this Rosh Hashanah, we at eja started working on a large project that would bring people from all religions and backgrounds together and join forces to save lives in Europe. I call on each of you to take a few minutes and think how you can use your powers to make this world a world of  goodness and kindness.

Happy new year to everyone
 

EJA thanks Lithuania for adopting the working definition of anti-Semitism

EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote a letter of thanks to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius after the Minister made the decision that Lithuania will endorse and adopt the international definition of anti‑Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). “Anti‑Semitism has absolutely no place – neither in Lithuania, nor in other parts of the world”, said Mr Linkevicius as he announced the move.


 
 

Meeting with EU Ambassadors and diplomats on Antisemitism Emergency

The European Jewish Association had the honour of hosting an important meeting today with Ambassadors and EU diplomats on the ongoing unprecedented challenges and threats faced by Jewish communities as a result of the antisemitism crisis in Europe. EJA shared our proposals for the six-month EU-wide Emergency period and discussed ways of working together both bi-laterally and within the EU Framework to combat antisemitism today meaningfully.

 

We thank our guests for their kind participantion:

  • H.E. Ambassador Pieter Jan Kleiweg de Zwaan: Permanent Representative of Netherlands to the EU
  • H.E. Ambassador Thomas Oberreiter: Permanent Representative of Austria to the EU
  • Mr. Jonathan Rosenzweig: Deputy Head of Mission, Mission of Israel to the EU and NATO
  • Ms. Hiba Tareef: Spokesperson, Mission of Israel to the EU and NATO
  • Mr. Emilio Mineo: Justice and Home Affairs Attaché, Permanent Representation of Italy to the EU
  • Mr. Pablo Barbará Gómez: Counsellor and MaMa Delegate, Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU
  • Ms. Louise Stenfors Eidrup: First Secretary, Permanent Representation of Sweden to the EU
  • Mr. Donát Gesztelyi: Legal Adviser, Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU

Words by Rabbi Benyomin Jacobs on Dutch TV

I stopped worrying about current anti-Semitism. Just fiveminutes I forgot about the anti-Israel propaganda which I see and hear daily around me. I was standing in a serene silence for those five minutes in front of the Children’s Monument, het Kindermonument, in former Dutch concentration camp Vught.
“One thousand two hundred and sixty-nine children were put on deportation trains with the Kindertransport on June 6 and 7 in 1943.  A few days later they arrived in extermination camp Sobibor. Upon arrival they were brutely removed from the cattle wagons, driven to the gas chambers via the Himmelstrasse, the Street to the Heaven, as the Nazi scum jokingly called this street. Were they aware of the atrocities which the Nazi’s had planned for them? When did they realize that from the showers heads no water would come out but a deadly killing gas would emerge? How long did they suffer before they souls were forced to leave their young bodies? Didthe SS men, who watched through a few skylights, enjoy the sadistic spectacle?
The names of all those children are engraved on the Children’s Monument in National Monument Kamp Vught. Only a very few photographs of a few children still exist. Most children are reduced by the industrial killing machine to a just name,without a face.
Why are we commemorating yearly the Children-Deportation, the Kindertransport? In order to prevent? Is this monument akind of educational project?
Yes, the Kindertransport is commemorated every year, but not to teach, not to warn, not even to prevent!
When I unveiled the monument in 1999, people came forward from the audience after the ceremony. They searched through the names, found and, full of tenderness, love and with tears in their eyes, I saw them putting their hands on the name of their sister, their brother, their child or their grandchild. But the names of most of the children stayed untouched, because thebrothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, fathers and mothers of those children had also been murdered.
One thousand, two hundred and sixty-nine names. Lonely names, letters without faces, without family, as if they never existed. Through the chimneys of the Sobibor crematoria they disappeared into an invisible darkness. Anonymous, completely unknown, no one to think of them anymore. Just letters, a very few damaged photographs, as if they never existed.
Let us close our eyes and think in absolute silence of thechildren of the Kindertransport, who stayed on this earth for such a short while, were so cruelly snatched, and of whom nothing, absolutely nothing, has remained.
No grave, no ashes, just a name. Names without meaning, because no one today is able to remember whose life and suffering is behind their names.”
Credit: Jan van de Ven
Credit: Jan van de Ven

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