Jewish leaders in Europe call orgs to reject ‘intersectionality’ due to Zionist exclusion

jpost
May 17, 2023

Jewish leaders from across Europe called on Monday on Jewish organizations to reject “intersectionality” due to Zionist exclusion which creates a lack of solidarity with Jews. They also called on Israeli politicians to rise above differences, and urged legislation that bars from office EU politicians with avowed antisemitic positions.

These claims were voiced at the European Jewish Association (EJA) Annual Conference in Porto, Portugal yesterday.

Titled “Shaping the Future of European Jewry Together,” the conference was held in partnership with the Jewish Community of Porto and the EMIH Jewish community of Hungary headed by Rabbi Shlomo Koves. Over 100 presidents and board members of Jewish communities across Europe attended, along with government and regional special envoys for Combating Antisemitism.

The two-day conference included panel discussions on national plans for combating antisemitism, online hate, a new youth leaders program for campus activity and youth experiences of hate, ending Nazi memorabilia trade, bringing forward a women’s leadership forum and more. EJA is a Jewish-European NGO, and is one of several umbrella Jewish organizations. It was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Brussels.

The conference culminated in a resolution passed by vote in a show of hands that will be forwarded to governments across Europe and to the Leadership of the European Union institutions, stating that antisemitism is unique and must be separated in national plans from other forms of hate.

The resolution also calls on Jewish organizations to reject “intersectionality” due to Zionist exclusion and a lack of solidarity with Jews, as well as on Israeli politicians to rise above their differences in the current tense political climate. It also urged governments to push for legislation barring from office EU politicians with avowed antisemitic positions.

Notable figures addressing the conference included European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, The General Secretary of the French Inter-ministerial delegation for the fight against racism and antisemitism Mrs. Elise Fajgeles, the Personal Representative of Chairman in Office on Combating antisemitism OSCE Rabbi Andrew Baker, Chair of the Woman’s Impact Forum at the World Jewish Congress Ruth Wasserman Lande, World Zionist Organisation Head of Department for combating antisemitism Raheli Baratz-Rix and the CEO of NGO Monitor Prof. Gerald Steinberg.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-743116

Additional Articles

COVID Diary- Reflections from Our Advisory Board Member Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs

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!

Reflections on life and the polish animal welfare law from our advisory board member Rabbi Binyomen Jacobs

A healthy winter!
During the war, Germans who had volunteered to join the SS and the SD and Dutch collaborators of the Nazis were buried in the municipalities where they had been killed or shot.
After the war, the municipalities where those Jew hunters and other beasts were buried no longer wanted to tolerate having these remains in their local cemeteries.
The Ministry of Defence then made a piece of land available in Ysselsteyn where they had to be reburied. That killing field in Ysselseteyn is therefore a collection bin for SS beasts, Dutch SD men, collaborators, a number of whom had been shot by the resistance, and also “ordinary” German soldiers. The person who had Anne Frank and her family deported is also buried there.
A commemoration at a cemetery where only dead “ordinary” soldiers are buried, even if they were exclusively German soldiers, is a completely different story in my view.
Commemoration there is certainly worth considering. But here in Ysselsteyn paying tribute to traitors and murderers who have voluntarily chosen to murder my family and / or have them sent to the gas chambers? No way!
And so I still signed the petition, although by nature I am not a signer. I added my name to the petition to prevent anyone from thinking that I have forgiven them for their atrocities, because it happened so long ago, because it has now become history, because the crimes are barred…. So no.
Crimes of this kind against humanity cannot and must not expire and degenerate into an old episode in history. Am I hateful then? When the question arose years ago in the Sinai Center (Jewish psychiatric centre) whether we, as a Jewish institution, would like to treat children of parents who had dome wrong, I made it clear: certainly!
We must not punish children for their parents’ mistakes and I am grateful that I was able to help those victims of the war, because they too are victims of those horrible dark years.
Their parents’ opposition to my parents makes them no less victim, no less second generation. Of course we are talking about children who suffer because their parents were “wrong” in their view. I remember a meeting in Israel of my wife with a daughter of a German SS officer. Crying that daughter and my wife embraced each other: a heartbreaking and impressive scene!
And while I was able to confirm the above information about Ysselseteyn from my car, I was on my way to The Hague together with the secretary of the NIK. An appointment with the Ambassador of Poland, Mr Marcin Czepelak. (Don’t ask me how to pronounce this name. I notice that those ambassadors from those former Eastern bloc countries all have  unpronounceable names.) It was a good and friendly conversation. It was about the impending new law that wants to ban the export of kosher meat slaughtered in Poland.
Polish Jews will be allowed to continue to slaughter kosher for domestic use, but export? That should be a bridge too far. The ambassador understood well that this is not just a practical and business problem.
He foresaw very clearly that if Poland bans exports, several EU countries will follow and in the end there will no longer be kosher meat available within the EU, not even in the Netherlands. The Ambassador was in no doubt about that. But he also felt keenly that the ban on the export of kosher meat would hurt the Jewish community in its full breadth, would deeply affect their Jewishness. Jews who never eat kosher and perhaps consider kosher food as nonsense and out of date, the ambassador himself indicated, are equally affected by this measure. Because it may be that they don’t consume kosher meat, the ban on the export of kosher meat is an assault on their Jewish identity.
And now here I am at the end of this day, writing this diary to the digital paper and hopefully still with enough puff in me to dismantle the Sukkah (booth) tonight and put it away until next year. And until then? Hopefully, peace and a very soon deliverance from the evil that is called corona and also a proper return to Jewish life in our polder country.
Even on Yom Kippur, there were Jewish congregations that did not have shul service. And this year, far fewer booths that stood near the synagogues have to be demolished. The reason? Unfortunately they were not built because of corona! At the end of all these Jewish Holidays, we wish each other, and so do I: a healthy winter!
During corona time, Chief Rabbi Jacobs keeps a diary for the Jewish Cultural Quarter. NIW publishes these special documents daily on www.niw.nl.

The Conclusion of the Council of Jewish Leaders

The European Jewish Association is pleased to announce the successful conclusion of the Council of Jewish Leaders in Rome. Our primary objective on Monday was to convene leaders from diverse Jewish communities to address the pressing challenge of increasing anti-Semitism.

Discussions revolved around the efforts of each community, bolstering security measures, and sharing valuable insights. This gathering held significant importance as we came together to confront this alarming trend. Distinguished speakers and influential stakeholders contributed their expertise to these pivotal discussions.

On Tuesday, we wrapped up the round table discussions and had the privilege of visiting the senate, where we met with the President of the Senate. The Council of Jewish Leaders concluded with a visit to the Jewish Ghetto, further cementing our commitment to unity and solidarity.

#NeverAgainIsNow #NotOnMyWatch

RCF_Radio_Logo

27 janvier : Journée de la mémoire de la Shoah. Le Reportage de RCF Loiret dans un ghetto juif

La rédaction de RCF Loiret a pu visiter le camp de concentration de Theresienstadt, situé aux portes de Prague. Parmi les milliers de personnes qui y ont été enfermées, un jeune juif, Zelman Brajer provenait d’un camp d’internement et de transit Loirétain. Le journaliste Gabriel Laprade a retracé le chemin de déportation de cet homme, jusqu’au lieu de sa libération.

Soixante-dix-huit ans après la fin de la deuxième Guerre mondiale, on tend malheureusement à oublier que ce conflit et la Shoah ont eu sur la vie quotidienne de millions d’homme et de femmes. Il ne faut pas penser que l’holocauste du peuple juif soit juste une notion contenue dans les livres d’histoire. Cette tragédie a touché des personnes communes qui ont été arrachées de leur quotidien, de leurs familles, de leurs amis.
L’une de ces personnes – l’artiste polonais Zelman Brajer – a été arrêté à Paris en 1941 et transféré dans l’une des “portes” des camps de la mort nazis, qui étaient situés dans le Loiret. En effet Zelman Brajer (1919-2003) est prisonnier du “camps d’internement et de transit”, comme l’appelaient les nazis, de Beaune-la-Rolande. Avec son jumeau de Pithiviers, lui aussi situé dans le Loiret, ce camp a été le point de départ de plus de 18.000 personnes. Presque toutes ont trouvé la mort dans les “lager” de Hitler.

Zelman Brajer est d’abord prisonnier à Auschwitz, puis transféré à Terezin. Le 8 mai 1945, l’artiste polonais retrouve sa liberté.

Theresienstadt est une forteresse fondée en 1784 aux portes de Prague qui, pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, a été utilisée par les nazis comme ghetto. D’abord, des juifs tchèques et des célébrités y ont été enfermés, puis des juifs venant du Danemark et des Pays-Bas y ont été envoyés.

 

Au total, plus de 140 000 personnes sont passées par le ghetto. 35 000 y ont perdu la vie, et 88 000 ont été déportées et assassinées.

 

Sur place, Gidon Lev, survivant de l’holocauste et de Theresienstadt de 87 ans, est retourné au ghetto pour en faire la visite. Il dédit aujourd’hui une partie de sa vie au travail de la mémoire, en sensibilisant les plus jeunes sur les réseaux sociaux Instagram et TikTok : TheTrueAdventures.

 

 

Additional Communities
United Kingdom
Ukraine
Turkey
Schweiz
Switzerland
Sweden
Spain
Slovenia
Slovakia
Serbia
Russia