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  • Words for Pesach by the Chairman of EJA, Rabbi Margolin

Words for Pesach by the Chairman of EJA, Rabbi Margolin

April 24, 2020
Belgium

The pandemic has upended so much of our daily lives, including the most sacred: our holy days.
Millions of Jews around the world will be celebrating Pesach this evening in ways that up until a few weeks ago was unimaginable, without family around them, without the bustling celebration around the table. It will of course be hard for all of us.
Of course, the irony of celebrating our holiday of freedom whilst we are in confinement due to a plague – the coronavirus, will not be lost on us.
And yet, even amongst this adversity, we are being given the opportunity to celebrate Pesach in a unique way, loaded with significance that can, in fact, bring us closer to the story of our exodus from Egypt. How?
Let us be honest, how many of us really appreciate what freedom means? In our modern lives the vast majority of us are free to come and go as we please. This pandemic has given us a flavour of what it is like to lose freedoms that we take for granted, and in the process brings us closer to our ancestors, who lost theirs under Pharaoh. It brings the holiday alive.
Truly both nights will be different from all the others, they remind us to truly appreciate the everyday blessings that the almighty bestows on us everyday, our families, our jobs, our friends.
I wish you, and your families a Pesach Sameach, and G-d willing next year in Jerusalem!

Additional Articles

Belgium

Dutch right-wing politician resigns following party’s anti-Semitism scandal

The leader of the Dutch right-wing Forum for Democracy party resigned Monday following reports that members of its youth movement had engaged in anti-Semitic behavior.
Thierry Baudet, a colorful politician who in 2018 published a nude self-portrait on Instagram, said that assuming responsibility for the anti-Semitism scandal was not the immediate reason for stepping down. Rather the trigger was demands within the party that the guilty members be kicked out before the completion of an internal disciplinary review of their actions.
The review is of members of the party’s section for young members who in a WhatsApp group shared Nazi songs. One of them called “Der Untermensch,” or “Subhuman,” a 1942 Nazi propaganda book inciting hatred of Jews and Slavs, a “masterpiece,” the Het Parool newspaper reported last week.
Some party members seek to “skip the process and throw people under the bus before we know what’s happened,” Baudet said in video he shared on social media announcing his resignation as party leader. He warned against a “trial by the media, which isn’t trustworthy.”
If the accused engaged in anti-Semitism,  he said, “they should leave the party, and my resignation will be an act of assuming responsibility for what happened.”
Forum for Democracy seeks a Dutch exit from the European Union and stricter immigration policies. It’s also consistently pro-Israel.
It won only two seats out of 150 in parliament in the 2017 elections but three of the 26 in the 2019 Dutch elections for the European Parliament.
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  • November 24, 2020
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Belgium

Israeli parliament speaker urges 'sincere' EU action against anti-Semitism

Yuli Edelsetin speaks at EU on International Holocaust Memorial Day
Israeli parliament speaker Yuli Edelstein addressed a special session of European parliament marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, and accused EU leaders of contradictory approaches to fighting anti-Semitism in Europe while repeatedly condemning Israel.
Edelstein praised efforts to combat anti-Semitism but said that public rebuke for Israel contradicted messages coming from many elected officials.

“The efforts to combat anti-Semitism and protect the Jews of Europe are sincerely appreciated,” Edelstein said at the Brussels ceremony. “But what is the message when elected officials march with the Jewish community one day, and against Israel the next?”
The speaker declared that when leaders embrace the Jewish leaders “in solidarity after a hate-crime and then treat Hamas as a legitimate voice. When an attack is condemned as anti-Semitic and then condemns Israel for fabricated war crimes.”
“These contradictory messages do not build trust. Instead they prevent us from meeting our joint obligations,” he said.
Edelstein also chided an EU delegation that recently traveled to Tehran for failing to condemn a Holocaust denial cartoon contest hosted in Tehran.
“I’m sure, and correct me if I’m wrong, that during that visit no one protested the international cartoon contest taking place in Tehran for the best caricature denying the Holocaust,” Edelstein said, brandishing the contest’s first prize winner — an old fashioned cash register with a sketch of Auschwitz at the top.
“It’s about Jews exploiting the Holocaust to get money,” he said, noting that the illustrator came from France.
“For ‘Never Again’ to really mean ‘Never Again’, consistent and sincere actions are necessary,” Edelstein said. “Anti-Semitism, wherever it rears its ugly head, for whatever reason, is wrong and must be fought at every turn. Writing off such acts as mere opposition to Israel is absurd.”
“Anti-Semitism has no excuse. not religion, not poverty, not lack of education, and not political disagreements,” he said.
Edelstein also thanked the United States for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“In Jerusalem the Jewish people made their mark on the world, therefore it was meaningful to us, that last month, one country, the United States, chose to recognize the capital of Israel after 70 years of independence,” said Edelstein.”Acknowledging both our ancient heritage and our modern history, I welcome all of you to do the same.”
Edeltsein told the story of his own father who survived the Holocaust and asserted that though memorials are being constructed across the world, anti-Semitism still runs rampant.
“Yet, for all the work that has been done I feel that the post war sense and mission has faded, leaving the real issues unaddressed,” said Edelstein.
Edelsetin asked the European parliament “what has been learned from all the memorials if synagogues across Europe need round the clock protection?”
“Is Holocaust education effective if Jews on this continent don’t wear a kippah or a Star of David necklace for fear of attack?” said the speaker.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be commemorated on January 27. Israel memorializes its national tragedy separately, in memory of the six million Jews who were slaughtered under Nazi rule.
 
The article was published on I24news
  • January 25, 2018
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timesofmalta
Poland

European Jewish community awards Roberta Metsola

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was on Monday presented with the King David Award from the European Jewish Association (EJA) in recognition of her support to the Jewish community in Europe.

In an acceptance speech, she said the award will serve as a continuous reminder of heinous crimes committed against humanity, and to recall the importance of speaking up in defence of European common values.

The award was given after her visit commemorating the victims of the holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camps.

Metsola also laid a wreath at the so-called Death Wall and participated in a memorial ceremony.

Metsola pledged to honour the legacy of the Holocaust victims “by never forgetting, by never being indifferent, and by always, always speaking up”.

“At this place of horror, we must find hope. Our promise to those lost and to those who survived is to remember, to never be silent and to build a new world in their memory. We remember”, said President Metsola at the end of her visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camps.

timesofmalta
  • November 10, 2022
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Belgium

The campaign with the portrait of Mr. Soros

The delegation who met with Orban included general director of the Rabbinical Center of Europe, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, and Hungarian Rabbis Baruch Oberlander and Shlomo Kovesh, the latter of whom is head of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation.
The meeting followed the inauguration of the opening of a new kosher slaughterhouse in the country, for which they thanked the prime minister for his “commitment to freedom of religion and to the eradication of antisemitism.”
“Though the campaign with the portrait of Mr. Soros is not necessarily very elegant, it has absolutely no relation with, and does not make any mention or even hint to his Jewish origin,” Margolin told the Post on Sunday. “When this claim came up a few times, the government has made it clear that it rejects any means of trying to connect this argument with people’s ancestry.”
  • November 27, 2017
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European Jewish Association

It’s a challenging time for Jewish communities in Europe. Anti-Semitism is on the rise as populism and the politics of the lowest common denominator are gaining traction. Our communities often need round the clock protection and our practices and customs such as keeping Kosher are under pressure from increasing political interference.

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