European Jewish community awards Roberta Metsola

“If people are willing to attack the graves of the dead, we shudder to think what they would do to the living given the chance” add Rabbi Menachem Margolin.

Following the attack on 80 gravestones in Randers, Denmark, on Sunday, European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin called on EU Leaders to step up security arrangements at Jewish sites and buildings and to double their efforts in education when it comes to rising antisemitism across the continent.

“We must generate a vehement and strong societal action against antisemitism, because if people are willing to attack the graves of the dead, we shudder to think what they would do to the living given the chance”, said Margolin.  

He continued:  

“The attack at the weekend represents another episode in the rising trend of antisemitic attacks across the continent as a whole.

“I want to be clear. Governments can only do so much. The fight against antisemitism needs to be ‘ground up’, as well as ‘top down’. And that comes through education. Initiatives and activities in schools must be prioritised that clearly delineate antisemitism as a malignant symptom that must be urgently eradicated today.

“Following this latest attack, and taking into account the rising figures in Denmark and across the continent as a whole, now is also the time for Leaders across the EU to step up their security support for communities across Europe.

“We must ensure that the widespread silence and shoulder shrugging following attacks within society are replaced with concern and a vocalisation of it’s unaceptability in modern society. To this end, we are asking all EU leaders to double their efforts today.”

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).

Jewish freedom of religion is under direct attack across Europe from the very institutions that have vowed to protect our communities, said European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin following Greece’s Supreme Court’s ruling that ritual slaughter without stunning violates EU law, writes Yossi Lempkowicz.
The ruling is an immediate consequence of a ruling by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg last December that member countries may ban the practice of ritual slaughter in order to promote animal welfare, without infringing the rights of religious groups.
The December ruling said that the EU’s animal slaughter regulation “does not preclude member states from imposing an obligation to stun animals prior to killing which also applies in the case of slaughter prescribed by religious rites”, but encouraged member states to find a balance.
“It is now clear that a number of member states are zealously applying the former whilst ignoring the latter,” said Rabbi Margolin in a reaction to the Greek decision.
The Brussels-based European Jewish Association represents hundreds of communities across the continent.
“We warned in December about the downstream consequences that the European Court of Justice ruling carried with it, and now we see the outcome. Jewish freedom of religion is under direct attack. It started in Belgium, moved to Poland and Cyprus and now it is Greece’s turn.
“These direct attacks are coming from many of the same governments and institutions who have sworn to protect their Jewish communities. What we are witnessing is rank hypocrisy,” said the EJA leader.
He added: “When it comes to antisemitism, governments and institutions rightly stand behind us. But when our faith and practice is assailed left and right by laws, they are nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found.”
“What use is it to protect Jews while legislating fundamental pillars of our religion out of existence?,’’ he asked.
He said his group ‘’will urgently making representations to the highest levels of the Greek government to get direct answers to this simple but fundamental question: How can there be Jews in Europe if you keep bringing in laws against us?’’
Under freedom of religion, which is protected by the European Union as a human right, EU legislation allows exemption on religious grounds for non-stunned slaughter provided that they take place in authorized slaughterhouses. Jewish kosher religious practice requires livestock to be conscious when their throats are slit.

‘How can there be Jews in Europe if you keep bringing in laws against us?,’ asks Jewish leader after Greece rules to ban slaughter without stunning

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 .