#LightingEurope Fourth and Fifth Day of Chanukah13-12-2020

A golden eagle from Hitler’s bedroom. Nazi toilet paper. A concentration camp “crusher” visor cap. These are only some of the items that will be available for sale on July 28 and 29 at Alexander Historical Auctions, a prominent Maryland-based auction house.

European community leaders have urged the auction house to cancel the event. In a letter signed by Rabbi Menachem Margolin — chairman and founder of the European Jewish Association — signatures argued that the “sale of these items is an abhorrence,” and stated that “every Jewish family living today had relatives murdered or who were interned simply for being Jewish.”

Co-signers include Binyomin Jacobs, Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands, Rev. Cornelis Kant, Executive Director of Christians for Israel International, and Andrew Cohen, President of the Federation of Synagogues in the United Kingdom.

(Brussels 1st October 2021) Belgian Constitutional Court decision to uphold effective ban on Kosher slaughter is an opportunity for other European Countries to stand fully behind their Jewish Communities and protect this central tenet of faith and practice.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin adds that European countries must not fall into the trap of being ‘two faced: solidly protecting us from antisemitism on one side, whilst making it impossible for Jews to practice their faith by legislating against us on the other”.
The Belgian constitutional court on Thursday upheld a decision by the European Court of Justice banning religious slaughter without pre-stunning, thereby also upholding a similar decision by the Belgian Walloon and Flemish governments.
In a statement this morning, Rabbi Menachem Margolin – Chairman of the Brussels based European Jewish Association, a pro-Jewish advocacy organising representing hundreds of communities across the continent – lamented the move but said it provided an opportunity for European countries to show their support to Jews:
“The Belgian Constitutional Court have shamefully upheld a decision that is openly hostile to a fundamental pillar of Jewish practice.
“What gets to the Jewish Communities the most is the two-faced approach of some countries towards Jewish Communities. On the one side they are solidly supportive when it comes to the fight against antisemitism, on the other they have no difficulty in effectively legislating Jewish faith and practice out of existence.
“Worse still these countries are blissfully ignorant of this massive contradiction and its catastrophic effects on Jews across Europe. This decision, if replicated, is a real threat to Jewish life across Europe. Every bit as threatening as rising antisemitism, and in a sense even worse as it directly targets the very tenets of our beliefs. Now is the time for European Countries to stand behind their Jewish Communities and leave Belgium isolated and an outlier of how not to treat Jews”.
 

The EJA warmly thanks H.E. Milo Đukanović, President of Montenegro, for His Excellency’s kind wishes to the European Jewry in light of the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashanah