EU remembers holocaust victims [EUROPEAN UNION]Vandaag, 70 jaar na het einde van de Shoah, herdenken de Joodse gemeenschappen overal ter wereld de tragedie en de gruwel die zijzelf en hun families tijdens de Holocaust hebben moeten verduren.

Aan het Memoriaal van de Joodse Martelaars uit België te Anderlecht heeft vandaag om 18u30 een herdenkingsplechtigheid plaats die wordt voorafgegaan door het aflezen van de namen van onze dierbaren die niet konden ontsnappen aan de gruwel van de Holocaust.

Helaas, is in 2015 de toestand in België en in Europa verre van positief, en het antisemitisme is weer sterk in opmars.

Lees hierover o.a. het artikel van Sam Sokol dat gisteren gepubliceerd werd in Jerusalem Post: “Seventy years after the Holocaust, European Union says never again”

“There are Jewish communities in Europe that again feel insecure and we have been sadly reminded that violent anti-Semitism, intolerance and fanaticism remain a threat, ” EU says.

The European Union issued a strong message of intolerance for anti-Semitism on Wednesday prior to the onset of the Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day. …


The EU delegation to Israel said that it mourns all of the victims of the Holocaust and that “honoring their memory means for us to stand strong against anti-Semitism, prejudice, and racial discrimination in all their forms and wherever they occur.”

According to the statement, which was issued jointly with 26 EU member states, such a position is “true today more than ever. Seventy years after the Shoah, we still encounter anti-Semitism in Europe,” “There are Jewish communities in Europe that again feel insecure and we have been sadly reminded that violent anti-Semitism, intolerance, and fanaticism remain a threat. As a union built on the values of human dignity and human rights after the tragedies of two world wars and the Shoah, we will not allow the return of the demons of anti-Semitism, racism, and intolerance. Never forget. Never again.”

Meeting with a Belgian Jewish delegation on Wednesday, First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans indicated that “often anti-Semitism is also hidden behind anti-Zionism and malicious criticism of the state of Israel,” the Forum der Joodse Organisaties said in a statement.

According to the Belgian Jewish representative body, Timmermans likewise agreed that while both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are terrible, they do not share a common origin and cannot be fought in the same way.

Jewish organizations worldwide expressed shock and dismay last week following the announcement that the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency is planning on holding a conference that implies an equivalence between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

The first annual colloquium on fundamental rights in the EU, held by the racism watchdog organization and titled “Tolerance and respect: Preventing and combating anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe,” is scheduled to be held in Brussels in early October.

During the meeting Timmermans also said that he would consider the Belgian Jewish community’s request that he establish either a director or appoint a special envoy tasked with combating anti-Semitism in Europe.

Last month EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini issued a statement to an Italian newspaper in which she endorsed the idea of an EU anti-Semitism task-force.

“Jews belong to Europe like the Acropolis. A Europe without Jews is not Europe anymore,” he asserted, echoing politicians in France and elsewhere who have pegged the validity of their respective identities on their treatment of the Jewish minority.

“I transferred the idea to Frans Timmermans, who has the formal authority in this issue, and we are already working on various initiatives,” she was quoted as saying. … http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Seventy-years-after-the-Holocaust-European-Union-says-never-again-398213

Lees ook: “How the State of Israel can help fight against anti-Semitism in Europe” JPost – door Yitzhak Eldan en Arsen Ostrovsky

…Seventy years ago, as the death camps of Europe were liberated, the international community took a collective oath of “Never Again,” to swear that we would do everything within our power to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust would never be repeated.

Yet, 70 years since the end of the darkest chapter in Europe’s history, anti-Semitism has once again surged to levels unprecedented since the end of the Holocaust, with virtually no part of Europe free from this indomitable evil.

… The only difference since the Holocaust is that today’s anti-Semitism is not directed solely against Jews as individuals, but also motivates vicious public assault upon and vilification of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, or as renowned human rights activist and former Canadian attorney general and justice minister Irwin Cotler put it, “the Jew among the nations.”

This “new anti-Semitism” is being waged by a dangerous and unholy alliance of militant Islam, the neo-Nazi far Right and the far Left. We see examples today in the form of the denial of Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish People, the BDS Movement, odious comparisons to Nazis and attempts to single Israel out for special opprobrium.

Perhaps nowhere is this confluence of old-new anti-Semitism more self-evident than in the Iranian regime, which denies the Holocaust and boasts (as recently as two weeks ago) that Israel’s destruction is “non-negotiable.” … http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/How-the-State-of-Israel-can-help-fight-against-anti-Semitism-in-Europe-398248



JPost – foto: EU remembers holocaust victims [EUROPEAN UNION]