#LightingEurope Sixth and Seventh Day of Chanukah

December 17, 2020

As a part of our #LightingEurope canpaign we are happy and honored to have Suchowolski -Sluszny Regina President Forum der Joodse Organisatie and Vice President Enfant Cache for the Sixth candle and Mr. Edward Odoner TSKZ Review Board Chairman for the Seventh candle with some special words for Chanikah

Additional Articles

Israel welcomes launch of maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza Strip

“We are now very close to opening this corridor, hopefully this Saturday-Sunday and I’m very glad to see an initial pilot will be launched today,” said European Commission Ursula von der Leyen a visit to Cyprus where she met Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.

Israel on Friday welcomed the inauguration of a maritime corridor from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip.

‘’The Cypriot initiative will allow the increase of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after security checks are carried out in accordance with Israeli standards,’’ a satement from the Israeli foreign mionistry said.

‘’Israel will continue to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip in accordance with the rules of war and in coordination with the United States and our allies around the world.’’

The statement added that Israel ‘’will continue the fight against Hamas — an organization that calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and carried out the 7 October massacre — until its elimination and the return of all the hostages.’’

‘’It is very important that additional countries join the Cypriot initiative and the international effort to transfer aid,’’ the foreign ministry said.

On the same day, the European Commission, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States announce their intent to open a maritime corridor ‘’to deliver much-needed additional amounts of humanitarian assistance by sea.’’

‘’The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, with innocent Palestinian families and children desperate for basic necessities,’’ they said in a joint statement.

“We are launching this Cyprus maritime corridor together, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States,” Von der Leyen said after a visit to facilities in Cyprus.

“We are now very close to opening this corridor, hopefully this Saturday-Sunday and I’m very glad to see an initial pilot will be launched today,” said European Commission Ursula von der Leyen a visit to Cyprus where she met Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.

“The maritime corridor can make a real difference to the plight of the Palestinian people, but in parallel, our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance through all possible routes will continue,” she said in a joint press conference in Larnaca.

The sea corridor is due to formally open this weekend, with a first pilot operation to leave either on Satrday or Sunday, when the right conditions are in place.

It comes just hours after US. President Biden announced in his annual State of the Union speech that the US will set up a port on the Gaza coast to ramp up the delivery of lifesaving aid.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria jointly with the European Jewish Association are organizing an International Conference on STOP HATE SPEECH, which will be held on 5thand 6th December, 2022 in Sofia.

Such an event is being held for the first time in our country and it will be attended by Prosecutors General and supreme prosecutors from states of the European Union and the region, senior clerics of various religions, representatives of state institutions, non-governmental organizations, academic society, human rights defenders and civil activists. The main goal of the conference is to create a platform for the exchange of experience and good practices, which will help to effectively and timely counter xenophobic, anti-Semitic and discriminatory acts, as well as against the incitement and commitment of hate crimes.

The international conference will be opened by Prosecutor General of the Republic of Bulgaria Ivan Geshev. Welcome speech will be addressed to the participants by the Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria Iliana Yotova, the Interim Minister of Justice Krum Zarkov, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the European Jewish Association and representatives of the executive and judicial authorities.

Video message to the participants will be addressed by Manfred Weber – Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament, Ilhan Kyuchuk, MEP from the “Renew Europe” Group in the EP and co-chairman of the European Liberals, Adrian Vázquez Lazara – Chair of the Legal Affairs Committee in the EP.

At the invitation of the Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev, the Prosecutor General of Romania Gabriela Scutea, the Prosecutor General of Lithuania Nida Grunskiene, the Prosecutor General of Slovenia Drago Šketa, the Chief Prosecutor of the State of North Rhine Westphalia – Germany Markus Hartmann, the Deputy Republic Public Prosecutor of Serbia Tamara Mirovic, the Deputy Prosecutor General of Albania Thoma Jano, the Head of Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office – Ukraine Sergiy Kostenko, chief prosecutors from the Republic of Slovak, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Estonia, experts from Eurojust and the Council of Europe, the leadership of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Bulgaria, etc. will take part in the International Conference.

The international conference STOP HATE SPEECH will gather in one place clerics from four religions. Guests at the event will be Bishop Polycarp, Vicar of His Holiness the Bulgarian Patriarch and Metropolitan Neophyte of Sofia, Alexander Moshev- representative of the Apostolic Nuncio in our country, Grand Mufti Mustafa Hadji. The chief rabbi of the Netherlands, Benjamin Jacob is arriving for the forum in Sofia.

A lecturer at the event will be the photojournalist Marissa Roth, Pulitzer Prize-winner for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots sparked by police brutality against a black biker.

An example of the increasing risk of hate crime these days, related to killing a defenseless person because of his ethnicity, will be presented by Keren Knoll. She is one of the heirs of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old French woman of Jewish descent who survived the Holocaust in World War II and was murdered in her Paris home in 2018 because of her ethnicity.

Within the framework of the two-day conference, a discussion will be held on protection of human rights and respect for ethnicity and gender and speakers on the topic will be representatives of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the Bilitis Foundation, activists for the rights of the LGBT community, the Center for Inter-Ethnic Dialogue and tolerance “Amalipe” and others.

Representatives of the academic society will take part in the separate discussions, as Prof. Dr. Vili Lilkov will present a historical overview of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during the Second World War, and Assoc. Prof. Simeon Groisman will present an analysis of the topic: “The religious – source and object of hatred in the age of “Online Crowds”. Among the participants of the International Conference are Assoc. Prof. Iva Pushkarova, Assoc. Prof. Rumyana Hristidi, Milena Kotseva, Director of the Directorate “Procedural Representation before the ECHR” in the Ministry of Justice, Yulia Dandolova, executive director of the organization of Jews in Bulgaria “Shalom” and others.

The program of the event is divided into three thematic panels:

“Countering Crimes Against Religions” with moderator Alexander Benjamin from the European Jewish Association; “Protecting the citizens’- rule of law – way to guarantee the fundamental human rights” with moderator Vladimir Nikolov – Chairman of the Association of Prosecutors in Bulgaria; “Crimes with a discriminatory motive – the needs of measures guaranteeing the rights of minority groups” with moderator Liliya Dragoeva, BILITIS FOUNDATION.

Nearly 70 media representatives are accredited for the event.

The EJA Annual Conference starts in Porto.

More than 100 Jewish Leaders from across Europe gather in Porto to shape the future of European Jewry

Words for Pesach by the Chairman of EJA, Rabbi Margolin

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!

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