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Threats and opportunities dot landscape for European Jewry
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BY: DINAH A. SPRITZER JTA
For European Jewry, it was a year of the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good: The election of a French president seen as sympathetic to Israel, the opening of new Jewish institutions, and increased opportunities for Jews from Eastern countries that have joined the European Union.
The bad: Boycotts and threats of boycotts boiled over in England, with fears that similar anti-Israel efforts would spread elsewhere in Europe.
The ugly: Alarming levels of anti-Semitism. These incidents were primarily the result of the prolonged negative reaction in Europe to Israel’s two-month war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer, say observers.
In Britain, the Community Security Trust reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since it began monitoring in 1984, with a 60% increase in the second half of the year. In France, the country’s main secular Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, recorded a 24% rise in anti-Jewish incidents in general and a 45% increase in violent incidents.
There was also an upsurge in anti-Semitic attitudes, according to research conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in May.
Human Rights First, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization, took European governments to task in June for their lack of a coherent response to the problems of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
In many of the countries where anti-Semitic violence was on the rise, the perpetrators, according to police, were of Arab descent.
Jewish leaders are also focused on the boycott of Israel proposed by Britain’s largest teachers’ union. The University and College Union (UCU) voted May 30 to consider an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
Almost immediately after the UCU move, the country’s largest trade union decided to consider a boycott motion at its upcoming conference. While UCU represents 120,000 members, UNISON has more than a million. Another proposed boycott by a British journalists’ union was ultimately rejected.
“We are worried about these kinds of boycotts spreading throughout Europe,” Serge Cwajgenbaum, the general-secretary of the Paris-based European Jewish Congress (EJC), noted.
As always, European policy toward Iran and the Middle East was a source of concern for Jewish leaders.
On July 10, for instance, European foreign ministers, led by France, posted an open letter in the French daily Le Monde calling for Israel to make more concessions for peace.
But there were other political developments in Europe that gave Jews a hopeful outlook.
In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, a president viewed by most as sympathetic to Jewish and Israeli causes took office in May. Nicolas Sarkozy, a right-leaning centrist whose grandfather was Jewish, received overwhelming support from the country’s Jewish voters.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel continued to reinforce her reputation as a champion of Jewish and Israeli causes. “We will fight the new anti-Semitism along with the old,” she said on a visit to Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in April.
The most heated political event among Jewish communities in 5767 was the election of Moshe Kantor as president of the European Jewish Congress. Kantor, the first Eastern European elected to the post of EJC chairman, won support from a wide majority of the delegates representing 41 European Jewish communities.
Kantor’s election was viewed by many of Europe’s communities as uniting EJC, which has previously shown the strain of battles between East and West.
This tension was reflected within a single European capital: Berlin’s Jewish community split this year as a new group was formed in response to the growing influence of Jews from the former Soviet Union.
Within Europe, meanwhile, greater unity was heralded among Jews as Romania (915,000 Jews) and Bulgaria (8,000 Jews) were accepted Jan. 1 into the now 27-member European Union.
“We have negative aliyah n young people who were already in Israel are coming back to Bulgaria because our economic situation is improving,” said Emil Kahlo, a former president of Shalom, the largest Jewish organization in Bulgaria.
There were other large celebratory occasions for European Jewry.
The Ohel Jakob synagogue and community center was inaugurated in Munich on the symbolic date of Nov. 9, the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass).
In Poland, Jews in February heralded the renovation and re-opening of the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, the largest yeshiva in Europe before World War II.
In May, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews broke ground in Warsaw. To be completed in 2009, the museum will be the largest Jewish institution of its kind in Europe, commemorating the 1,000 years of history of what was the largest Jewish community in Europe before World War II.
But in Poland as elsewhere in Europe, Jewish life coexisted with the ugly resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents and attitudes.
The good: The election of a French president seen as sympathetic to Israel, the opening of new Jewish institutions, and increased opportunities for Jews from Eastern countries that have joined the European Union.
The bad: Boycotts and threats of boycotts boiled over in England, with fears that similar anti-Israel efforts would spread elsewhere in Europe.
The ugly: Alarming levels of anti-Semitism. These incidents were primarily the result of the prolonged negative reaction in Europe to Israel’s two-month war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer, say observers.
In Britain, the Community Security Trust reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since it began monitoring in 1984, with a 60% increase in the second half of the year. In France, the country’s main secular Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, recorded a 24% rise in anti-Jewish incidents in general and a 45% increase in violent incidents.
There was also an upsurge in anti-Semitic attitudes, according to research conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in May.
Human Rights First, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization, took European governments to task in June for their lack of a coherent response to the problems of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
In many of the countries where anti-Semitic violence was on the rise, the perpetrators, according to police, were of Arab descent.
Jewish leaders are also focused on the boycott of Israel proposed by Britain’s largest teachers’ union. The University and College Union (UCU) voted May 30 to consider an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
Almost immediately after the UCU move, the country’s largest trade union decided to consider a boycott motion at its upcoming conference. While UCU represents 120,000 members, UNISON has more than a million. Another proposed boycott by a British journalists’ union was ultimately rejected.
“We are worried about these kinds of boycotts spreading throughout Europe,” Serge Cwajgenbaum, the general-secretary of the Paris-based European Jewish Congress (EJC), noted.
As always, European policy toward Iran and the Middle East was a source of concern for Jewish leaders.
On July 10, for instance, European foreign ministers, led by France, posted an open letter in the French daily Le Monde calling for Israel to make more concessions for peace.
But there were other political developments in Europe that gave Jews a hopeful outlook.
In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, a president viewed by most as sympathetic to Jewish and Israeli causes took office in May. Nicolas Sarkozy, a right-leaning centrist whose grandfather was Jewish, received overwhelming support from the country’s Jewish voters.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel continued to reinforce her reputation as a champion of Jewish and Israeli causes. “We will fight the new anti-Semitism along with the old,” she said on a visit to Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in April.
The most heated political event among Jewish communities in 5767 was the election of Moshe Kantor as president of the European Jewish Congress. Kantor, the first Eastern European elected to the post of EJC chairman, won support from a wide majority of the delegates representing 41 European Jewish communities.
Kantor’s election was viewed by many of Europe’s communities as uniting EJC, which has previously shown the strain of battles between East and West.
This tension was reflected within a single European capital: Berlin’s Jewish community split this year as a new group was formed in response to the growing influence of Jews from the former Soviet Union.
Within Europe, meanwhile, greater unity was heralded among Jews as Romania (915,000 Jews) and Bulgaria (8,000 Jews) were accepted Jan. 1 into the now 27-member European Union.
“We have negative aliyah n young people who were already in Israel are coming back to Bulgaria because our economic situation is improving,” said Emil Kahlo, a former president of Shalom, the largest Jewish organization in Bulgaria.
There were other large celebratory occasions for European Jewry.
The Ohel Jakob synagogue and community center was inaugurated in Munich on the symbolic date of Nov. 9, the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass).
In Poland, Jews in February heralded the renovation and re-opening of the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, the largest yeshiva in Europe before World War II.
In May, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews broke ground in Warsaw. To be completed in 2009, the museum will be the largest Jewish institution of its kind in Europe, commemorating the 1,000 years of history of what was the largest Jewish community in Europe before World War II.
But in Poland as elsewhere in Europe, Jewish life coexisted with the ugly resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents and attitudes.
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