Good and Bad: Mixed Messages From Europe

Good: Congregants place Torah scrolls in the ark of the newly inaugurated Ohel Jakob synagogue in Munich on Nov. 9, 2006.

Prague
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. Several organizations and individual country reports revealed a marked rise of anti-Semitic incidents across Western Europe in the second half of 2006.

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.

The mood in Europe was stoked by media coverage "that was one-sided, focused only on Lebanese casualties and implicated Jews in general," according to Ilan Moss, political counselor for the Paris-based European Jewish Congress.

In Britain, the Community Security Trust reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since it began monitoring them in 1984, with a 60 percent increase in the second half of the year. In France, the country's main secular Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, recorded a 24 percent rise in anti-Jewish incidents in general, and a 45 percent increase in violent incidents.

Bad: A photo of a street scene showing anti-Semitic graffiti in Lodz, Poland, included in a press packet for the play "Last Jew in Europe."

There was also an upsurge in anti-Semitic attitudes, according to research conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in May.

The ADL found that 44 percent of those surveyed in France, Poland, Germany, Italy and Spain agreed with the statement that "Jews have too much power in international financial markets," while 39 percent felt "Jews have too much power in the business world."

In a number of the countries where anti-Semitic violence was on the rise, police said the perpetrators were of Arab descent.

As communities press governments for greater security and programs to better combat anti-Semitism, Moss said that Jewish leaders are also focused on the boycott of Israel proposed by Britain's largest teachers' union. The University and College Union 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 rejected.

But there were other political developments in Europe that offered 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. Many applauded his tough stance against anti-Semitism in his previous post as Interior Minister.

Sarkozy is expected to be more sympathetic to Israel's need to protect itself from Palestinian aggression than his long-serving predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

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. Germany and the European Union are committed to the security of the citizens of Israel," 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 the Russian Jewish Congress president, Moshe Kantor, to the helm of the European Jewish Congress.

Kantor, the first Eastern European elected to the post of EJC chairman, beat the French incumbent Pierre Besnainou in May, with support from a wide majority of the delegates representing 41 European Jewish communities. His election was seen by many of Europe's communities as uniting EJC, which has previously shown the strain of battles between East and West.

As a sign of the diversity of even Poland's Jewish community, Rabbi Burt Schuman of New York was installed as Poland's first full-time Progressive rabbi at Beit Warszawa last October.

In May, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews broke ground in Warsaw. To be completed in 2009, it will be the largest Jewish institution of its kind in Europe, commemorating 1,000 years of history of what was the largest Jewish community in Europe before World War II.

Still, a Polish member of the European Parliament, Maciej Giertych, published a pamphlet in February that said Jews were unethical, unable to integrate into society, and are a "tragic community" because they don't accept Jesus as the messiah.

Added to that, Tadeusz Rydzyk, founder of the Catholic Radio Station Radio Maryja, was quoted by Wprost magazine in July as calling Jews greedy, and criticizing Polish President Lech Kaczynski for supporting the establishment of the new museum.