Via
Guardian:
Penguin has undertaken a “thorough” review of one of its books, Spanish colonel Pedro Baños’s How They Rule the World, after allegations of antisemitism were made against its author. The publisher concluded that while Baños’s views are “robust”, they are not antisemitic.
How They Rule the World, which promises to reveal “the 22 secret strategies of global power”, was published by Penguin Random House imprint Ebury Press in April. Author Jeremy Duns began drawing attention to the book after he spotted links between the title and the cover, which bears an image of octopus tentacles. The octopus has long been associated with antisemitism; Hitler refers in Mein Kampf to the octopus of the supposed Jewish conspiracy for world conquest, and it was a frequently used symbol in Nazi-era propaganda.
Comparing the Spanish language edition of How They Rule the World with the English text, Duns found a section about the Rothschild family, a banking dynasty subject to many antisemitic conspiracy theories, which does not appear in the English translation. The Spanish edition contains three references to the Rothschilds, none of which appear in the English, including a section that compares their wealth with other rich families, and concludes: “It is clear that [the Rothschilds’] economic power is gigantic. As is their ability to influence in all senses, an aspect that, when considering their traditional distance from the media spotlight, has led to multiple speculations about their capacity to intervene in key global decisions.”
Baños is described by Ebury Press as “one of Europe’s top specialists in geopolitics, terrorism and intelligence”. A colonel in the Spanish army, he was previously the chief of counter-intelligence and security for the European Army Corps. In interviews with Spanish media, Baños has called the Rothschilds dominant and likened them to the Illuminati. On Spanish TV, he also once accused Israel of being behind the assassination of John F Kennedy.
Duns accused Penguin of having knowingly published “a Spanish antisemitic conspiracy theorist … because to cover it up they’ve removed passages about the Rothschilds. I think you’ll agree this is a pretty serious problem we’re facing. As usual, it’s about fact-checking, research, due diligence, and not doing them.”
Penguin said it was aware of the “serious concerns” raised about How They Rule the World, telling the Guardian that they had prompted it to take a close look at both the book and the author.
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Via
Jewish News:
Spanish authorities arrested an illegal immigrant from Morocco allegedly for inciting on social media hatred against Jews.
The 32-year-old man disseminated hate speech “against the Jewish community [of Spain] and generally” on Facebook and YouTube before his arrest earlier this month in the Canary Islands, ABC Canary Islands reported Saturday based on information given by a source in the national police.
The report did not name the suspect, but it did say he that the content he shared had “considerable reach” on Facebook. He had been under investigation since 2017.
Arrests over hate speech are rare in Spain.
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Via
Gatestone Institute (Soeren Kern):
Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain, has approved a motion to boycott Israel and slander it by declaring the city an "Israeli apartheid-free zone." The move comes days after Navarra, one of Spain's 17 autonomous communities, announced a similar measure. In all, more than 50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel. The proliferating anti-Israel activism, driven by the rise to power of the political far-left, is establishing Spain as the EU member state most hostile towards the Jewish state.
The Valencian measure, introduced by the far-left party València en Comú, was approved during a plenary session of the city council on May 31. The motion, which commits the city to refrain from engaging in business contacts or cultural events with Israeli authorities or companies, aims at establishing Valencia as "a global reference for solidarity with the Palestinians."
The motion, which libelously describes Israel as an "apartheid regime," accuses the Jewish state of "colonialism," "racism," "ethnic cleansing," "tyranny," and "genocide."
The measure, which claims to reflect the "dignity, solidarity and justness" of the Valencian people, was introduced by Neus Fábregas Santana, a city councilor whose Twitter feed reveals an obsession with demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.
Santana works closely with a group called BDS País Valencia, the local branch of a worldwide movement trying to delegitimize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
BDS País Valencia is currently promoting a Spanish documentary about the Gaza Strip called "Gas the Arabs," a title that alleges, falsely, that the Jews in Israel are doing to the Arabs today what the Nazis in Germany did to the Jews during the Second World War.
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Via
Emmanuel Nahshon @ Twitter:
Seen in Spain on a shop window-“ This space is clean of Israeli apartheid-Bds”. Let there be no doubt - BDS and its supporters are filthy Antisemites. This shop window belongs to Nazi Germany.
Via
JTA:
Navarre became the first state in Spain to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
The motion voted on last month in Navarre, in northern Spain, received the support of all the parties represented in parliament except the center-right Popular Party, the ACOM pro-Israel advocacy wrote in a statement Friday.
The motion passed on May 21 calls on the central government to “support any initiative promoted by the international BDS campaign.” It also calls on Spain to “suspend its ties with Israel “until that country ceases its policy of criminal repression of the Palestinian population.”
Navarre is one of 17 autonomous communities — states with their own parliaments — that together make up quasi-federal Spain.
Catalonia’s parliament last year declared independence from Spain, though Madrid declined to recognize the declaration. Navarre has a substantial Basque population and a strong separatist movement.
The motion went on to condemn Israel for “murdering” dozens of Palestinians in May — a reference to those killed by Israeli forces during Hamas-organized riots along the Gaza border that featured hundreds of firebombs and attempts to breach the security fence into Israel. Of 61 people killed in the riots on May 14, 50 were Hamas members, according to one senior member of that organization.
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Via JTA (Cnaan Liphshiz):
The Committee for Solidarity with the Arab Cause, which receives funding from several municipalities in Spain, filed the criminal lawsuit against Angel Mas of the ACOM group last month, he told JTA. A judge examined the 70-page lawsuit against Mas and ACOM and concluded it merited further judicial review, Mas said.
It marks the first time that pro-Israel entities are being taken to court in Spain for their activities and a departure from the strategy of the local Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, or BDS.
Mas added he was “surprised and disappointed” by the judge’s decision to review what Mas called “a frivolous attempt to abuse the Spanish judiciary with propaganda.” But he added that he was confident that he would be found not guilty in any trial.
At least seven municipalities in Spain have scrapped their endorsements of BDS under threat from ACOM alone, the group said. Another 14 have seen tribunals cancel their pro-BDS resolutions and another two had those resolutions suspended by an injunction pending a final court ruling.
“Having suffered crippling losses in court, the BDS movement in Spain is switching methods,” Mas said. “They are targeting individuals in a smear campaign in an attempt to render Spanish Jews and Israel defenseless. This will not succeed.”
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Via Israel Hayom:
Despite having voted in favor of resolution condemning U.S. move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which urges states to refrain from operating missions in Jerusalem, eight European states maintain Palestinian consulates or embassies there.
Several European countries have been found to be in violation of a U.N. resolution they themselves supported when condemning U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The U.N. General Assembly resolution that followed the U.S. announcement on Dec. 6 called on all countries "to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem." But the eight European countries in question – Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – actively operate Palestinian Authority consulates or embassies in Jerusalem despite having voted in favor of the resolution.
The president of the world's largest Zionist Christian organization, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has come out against what he called the "hypocritical and inappropriate conduct of the international community toward Israel and Jerusalem."
ICEJ President Jurgen Buhler sent letters to each of those nation's leaders, in which he noted that "the international community has always called for an even-handed approach to Jerusalem, so as not to prejudge this sensitive final-status issue. Yet here are eight nations that have never been called out for violating this principle by placing their chief missions to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. It turns out the demand for neutrality has just been a hollow pretext for denying the Jewish people and state their rightful place in Jerusalem. So no nation can now complain when a country decides to open an embassy to Israel in Jerusalem.
"Many world leaders have been critical of the recent decision by U.S. President Donald Trump regarding Jerusalem, contending that it prejudges a sensitive issue which should left to final-status talks. Instead, they have urged an even-handed approach to Jerusalem. Yet [your country] has been violating this very principle for some time now due to your chief diplomatic mission to the Palestinians being located in … Jerusalem. If you truly wanted to be fair, you would either have both your diplomatic missions to Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, or neither."
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Via JNS:
The Lawfare Project threatened legal action against Google, Yahoo and Twitter in Spain for failing to address the proliferation of Holocaust-denial websites and anti-Semitic materials on their platforms, announced Brooke Goldstein, director of the legal think tank and litigation fund.
“Unless Google, Yahoo and Twitter take down the anti-Semitic content on their platforms, they will be taken to court in Spain and elsewhere,” she said.
Goldstein spent the past week visiting the Spanish Parliament to learn more about legislative initiatives against discrimination based on national origin. She also met with members of the Jewish community in Spain who have been subject to boycotts that restrict relations with companies that import Israeli products or have connections to Israeli citizens.
In the last week, the Lawfare Project has sent cease and desist letters to a number of search engines, including Google and Yahoo, with possible action planned against Twitter.
“Google, Yahoo and Twitter are all hosting anti-Semitic websites and content on their platforms, which is a clear violation of Spanish law,” said the Lawfare Project’s Spanish counsel, Ignacio Wenley Palacios. “This cannot be allowed to continue. If they do not respond positively to the cease and desist letters sent last week, we will file lawsuits against them.”
The Lawfare Project NGO, based in New York, funds legal action around the world to protect civil rights and free speech while challenging discrimination and anti-Semitism.
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Via JTA:
 |
| "Get out of our country" |
Anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted on the walls of a synagogue in Barcelona.
The word “pigs” was written in English followed by a sentence in the Spanish-Latin hybrid language Catalan reading “Get out of the country,” according to local reports.
The graffiti discovered on Wednesday was ordered erased by Barcelona Deputy Mayor Gerardo Pisarello, who called for an investigation into the incident. (...)
The synagogue is no longer in daily use, according to reports. It serves as a cultural center and a museum and as a site to host community events.
 |
| "Pigs" |
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Via
Daily Telegraph:
Organisers of the first major off-site exhibition of objects and artefacts from Auschwitz have been targeted by virulent social media attacks leading up to the world premiere opening of the display in Madrid on December 1.
“People use the anonymity of social media to launch negationist and hate-filled messages. This shows us that there are still people who need to know this story,” Luis Ferreiro, the director of Spanish company Musealia, told the Daily Telegraph.
More than 100 messages have been reported to the Spanish authorities, including messages denying the Holocaust.
The exhibition features more than 600 objects from Auschwitz, including one of the freight wagons used to carry prisoners to the camp.
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Via The Algemeiner:
A prominent US-based Jewish human rights group has expressed outrage over an ex-Spanish official’s insinuation that Jews might have been responsible for the recent death of his country’s attorney general, José Manuel Maza, during a trip to Buenos Aires.
The 66-year-old Maza passed away on Saturday after being taken to a hospital in the Argentine capital with a kidney infection. He was in Buenos Aires to attend an international law conference.
Maza had been leading the prosecution of 20 Catalan politicians following the recent independence referendum in the autonomous region of northeastern Spain.
In an Alerta Digital interview published on Monday, a predecessor of Maza in the attorney general position, Ramiro Grau, stated, “If we join the interest of some states for Catalonia to be constituted as a new country, for example Israel — as much as its president has said otherwise — and the existence of a large colony of Jews in Argentina, there are those who claim that the real controllers are the Jews, it would not be a bad idea to do an autopsy to check and verify the real causes of his death.”
Dr. Shimon Samuels — the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations — characterized Grau’s comment as “an extreme example of obsessive antisemitism” and called on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy “to condemn Grau and take measures to strip him of his honors and state pension as the price for his hatemongering.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Latin American representative, Dr. Ariel Gelblung, alerted the Argentine delegation to the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino) to the matter, and stated, “Grau had endangered the country´s Jewish community and thereby maligned Argentina.”
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The Boston Globe (Jeff Jacoby):
In an Oct. 1 referendum, the people of Catalonia voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Spain, the nation that has occupied their homeland for generations. Madrid did everything it could to prevent Catalonia from legitimizing its quest for independence by ballot, including sending thousands of troops to block polling places. In the ensuing violence, voters were beaten with clubs, dragged by their hair, and shot with rubber bullets. Nearly 900 civilians were treated for injuries.
Since the election-day assault, the Spanish government has doubled down on its opposition to Catalan self-determination. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, is claiming the right to remove Catalonia's elected officials from office and assume direct control from Madrid. A senior cabinet minister warned Monday that Spain will use force, if necessary, to compel Catalonia to submit.
Why such hostility to the Catalan yearning for self-determination? The people of Catalonia are a distinctive population, with their own culture, language, and customs. Shouldn't their sovereignty be peacefully conferred, rather than brutally resisted?
In other words, shouldn't Spain accept a two-state solution?
After all, the Spanish government unhesitatingly proclaims support for Palestinian sovereignty. Spain's leaders, such as former foreign minister Trinidad Jimenez, insist that the key to Middle East peace "depends on the coexistence of two states." In 2014 Spanish lawmakers adopted a resolution recognizing Palestine as a state and urging the European Union to do the same.
How can Spain, so ready to endorse a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, aggressively oppose one for its conflict with Catalonia?
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Via The Times of Israel:
Meeting with leaders of the Jewish community of Madrid on Sunday, President Reuven Rivlin pledged Israel’s support in the fight against anti-Semitism and celebrated 100 years of resurgent Jewish presence in the country.
Rivlin took part in an event at Madrid’s Ibn Gabirol School to mark 100 years since the reestablishment of the nation’s Jewish community after the expulsion of 1492. (...)
"The community here today is a magnificent community, with tens of thousands of members of all ages,” he said. “Jewish life on the Iberian Peninsula, which was cut off more than 500 years ago, is now full of life, and this is a great joy. This is a great victory for history and the spirit of the Jewish people.”
He added that he was aware of the community’s concerns over growing incidents of anti-Semitism directed against local Jews.
“According to the Spanish interior minister’s report on anti-Semitism, in recent years there has been a rise of hundreds of percent in manifestations of anti-Semitism in Spain,” and said.
“We must not surrender to anti-Semitism, we must fight it. I am pleased that the Spanish government is taking steps in legislation and enforcement against this ugly phenomenon. We must not be ashamed of or hide our identity.
“I know that there are concerns, and fears of terrorism against Jews, and of anti-Semitism which poses as criticism against Israel. We will fight these challenges together,” he said.
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Via Mosaic Magazine:
The European Union has begun building settlements for Palestinians and Bedouin in a small strip of the West Bank known as the “E1 corridor.” As the Oslo Accords place this territory under direct Israeli control, these building projects—conducted under the shelter of diplomatic immunity and without proper permits—violate both Israeli and international law. Israel has finally moved to dismantle some of these structures, and now the EU is demanding compensation. David M. Weinberg comments:
[I]llegally established Palestinian villages and Bedouin shantytowns have slowly closed the corridor between Jerusalem and [nearby] Maaleh Adumim, where a major highway runs, crawling to within several meters from it. These illegal outposts steal electricity from the highway lights and water from Israeli pipelines.
Civil Administration data, presented last year to the Knesset’s subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that 6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then—thanks to the EU, [which] has poured perhaps €100 million into EU-emblazoned prefabs, EU-signed roads, and water and energy installations. [And not only] in E1, [but also] in Gush Etzion, in the South Hebron Hills, and even in the Negev. . . .
In short, the EU’s support of the Palestinians has graduated from passive diplomatic and financial assistance to subversive participation in the Palestinian Authority’s illegal construction ventures. The explicit EU intent is to erode Israeli control of [this portion of the West Bank] and east Jerusalem while promoting Palestinian territorial continuity leading to runaway Palestinian statehood. . . .
Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Sweden—members of the so-called “West Bank Protection Consortium,” a body that coordinates “humanitarian assistance” to Bedouin and Palestinian squatters in [the area]—are now demanding that Israel pay them compensation of more than €30,000 each. . . . First the EU builds illegal settlements in defiance of Israel, then it demands that Israel pay for these offenses when Israel acts against them.
Read more at Israel Hayom
Via JTA:
A Spanish newspaper wrote that soccer fans hate the British team Tottenham Hotspurs because of their “Jewish origin,” spurring condemnation from British soccer clubs.
Marca, a Madrid-based daily sports paper, published the article on Monday ahead of a Champions League match between the Spurs and Real Madrid.
“Their Jewish origin has made them into a club hated by rival fans,” the article said, in part. “But in their 135 years of existence they have always had style and great players.”
The Spurs were indeed popular among Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fans often call themselves the “Yid Army,” though the league has since banned the term as offensive. According to a history of the club, opposing fans aimed anti-Semitic abuse at the team from the late 1960s onwards, and such chants were heard earlier this year.
In a clarification issued after publication, senior reporter Enrique Ortega wrote: “That ‘hatred’ that Tottenham suffers is very focused on the radical and racist groups that are hiding in the social mass, especially Chelsea and West Ham,” referring to two rival teams.
“I regret the confusion that has been created in this respect,” he added. “The intention was not to damage the image of Tottenham, a club we respect, value … and we do not want to serve as a spokesman for these racist minorities who use any pretext to expand their hate messages, which we reject head-on.”
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Related:
Europe: Huge success for terrorist Leila Khaled at European Parliament
Via The Algemeiner:
The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit legal-focused think tank, recently submitted a criminal complaint to the National Court of Spain, accusing convicted hijacker Leila Khaled, a member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of “public exaltation” of terrorism and financing terrorism.
The complaint was submitted in collaboration with the Jewish community of Ibiza, Spain. It details how Khaled used her position in the PFLP to “trivialize the Holocaust, compare Israel to Nazi Germany and advocate for indiscriminate violence against civilians,” the group said in a statement. Additionally, The Lawfare Project has applied for a European warrant for the arrest of Khaled and for her inclusion in the European Union (EU) and Interpol criminal databases.
Khaled, 73, participated in two hijackings; one in 1969 of a TWA flight and the other in 1970 of an El Al plane.
Recently, she was permitted to address the European Parliament at an event called “The role of women in the Palestinian resistance.” The Lawfare Project asserts that Khaled used that platform to “praise extremist violence and demonize Jews.”
“Seeing an infamous terrorist leader welcomed at universities, municipal halls, and even the European Parliament, all while praising violence against civilians, is both despicable and unacceptable,” said Ignacio Wenley Palacios, The Lawfare Project attorney who filed the charges. “Public exaltation and defense of terrorist acts is a serious crime in our country, and we are determined to advance criminal charges on behalf of the victims who are unable to defend themselves.”
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Via
Ynet News:
The Islamic State (also known as ISIS) announced Saturday that it is also responsible for the terrorist attack in the Catalan town of Cambrils, which took place on Friday, a few hours after the terrorist attack in the heart of Barcelona. "We murdered and wounded more than 120 Crusaders and Jews," a statement from the Sunni terror organization read.
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Via European Jewish Press (Ariel Bolstein):
The terrorist attack in Barcelona last Thursday appears to be just another link in the radical Islamist chain of carnage being inflicted on the free world. There was nothing new about the attack, tactically or conceptually. Ever since Palestinian terrorists discovered that trucks, tractors and other vehicles could be turned into weapons of murder and used against the hated infidels, the method has been adopted by attackers in France, Britain and Germany, among other places.
In the hours following the Barcelona attack, Britain's Sky News compiled a list of ramming attacks that have taken place over the past year. The attack that killed four Israeli soldiers on Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv promenade in January was nowhere to be seen on the list. A similar list, which also made no mention of the attack in Israel, appeared on the BBC. Although they are competitors, both of these networks were remarkably unified in their decision to conceal the facts. Like many in Europe, they try to avoid having to admit that Israelis and Europeans are in the same boat.
The attack on Catalonia's capital has further sharpened the distinction between those who recognize the growing threat and those who would like to obscure it in the hope that it will disappear from the public eye. Spain's conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy displayed admirable moral clarity when he said that radical Islam presents the greatest threat to the continent. But a fairly large camp in Spain and its neighboring countries is doing everything possible to sweep this fact under the rug.
Instead of facing this reality, members of the Spanish Left prefer to attack and denigrate Israel. Barcelona's city council called for a boycott of the Jewish state just a few months ago. Official representatives of the Catalonian government met with representatives from a number of radical groups, including Hamas. The BDS movement's Catalonia branch did not even wait for the blood of the Barcelona victims to dry before taking the classic propaganda step of turning facts on their head to announce that Europe itself was responsible for the attack. It is no coincidence that the same elements that incite against Israel also whitewash radical Islam. While one hand defends terrorism, the other hand demonizes Israel in an effort to push a confused public toward the false conclusion that stiff-necked Zionists are to blame for Europe's suffering.
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Via The Times of Israel (Ari Afilalo):
“Jews are not here permanently,” the chief rabbi of Catalonia, Meir Bar Hen, declared after the Barcelona terror attack. “I tell my congregants: Don’t think we’re here for good. And I encourage them to buy property in Israel. This place is lost. Don’t repeat the mistake of Algerian Jews, of Venezuelan Jews. Better [get out] early than late.”
Although he later tempered his comments as a result of community pressure, Rabbi Bar Hen hit a central nerve of Jewish Exile: the question of whether persecution is afoot and we should flee before doomsday. (...)
Rabbi Bar Hen’s approach is different. He does not fear that the Spanish government will turn against the Jews. He fears that the radicalized fringe of Spain’s Muslim community will produce more terrorists like the swiftly indoctrinated Barcelona cells, with the local Jewish community in its crosshairs.
Rabbi Bar Hen’s view is more in tune with the reality of the non-governmental purveyors of anti-Semitic hatred in the 21st century. However, he too misses out on an essential truth of today’s Diaspora: when it comes to the danger of anti-Semitism in Europe, not all Jews are created equal.
In France, for instance, we can roughly classify the Jews into three groups: (1) the French Jewish professional, reasonably well integrated and secular enough to be “Jewishly invisible”; (2) the religiously observant Jew who can afford to live in the enclaves where Jewish life has concentrated, send her children to Jewish school, walk to synagogue, and work and dwell in relatively safe neighborhoods; and, (3) the identified Jews of the banlieues or public housing, known to their neighbors, whether or not they are observant.
For the first two categories, the Jewishly invisible and the sheltered Jew, it is possible to go through a normal day without a spit on the ground, a dirty look, a pull of the beard, or the fear of a horrendous attack, such as that which, most recently, took the life of Sarah Halimi.
The public housing or banlieue Jews, on the other hand, are front line targets for radicalized jihadists and the new anti-Semites. At any time, those Jews may be confronted with the indignities and dangers of Exile, not from the government but from homegrown attackers, whether they be “lone wolves,” ISIS-powered terrorist cells, or merely neighborhood thugs driven by hatred of the Jew.
It is high time for those exposed Jews to leave their beleaguered corners of France. Although the government of France does not endorse their oppression, the France that they live in no longer resembles that of yesterday and the day before.
Sadly, those who most need to leave likely have the least resources to do so, and find themselves stuck in hostile neighborhoods. We cannot speak in generalities about “French Jews” or “European Jewry.” We must focus on at-risk Jews; it is a Zionist and Jewish duty to lend them a helping hand.
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Related:
Brussels and Barcelona chief rabbis say there is no future for Jews in Europe
Number of Jews living in Spain (2015): core 11,900 - enlarged 18,000 (total population 46,500,000).
Via The Jerusalem Post:
Commenting on deadly attacks in Catalonia, the chief rabbi of that region in Spain said his community is doomed, partly because of radical Islam and the alleged reluctance of authorities to confront it.
Rabbi Meir Bar-Hen has been encouraging his congregants to leave Spain, which he called during an interview with JTA a “hub of Islamist terror for all of Europe,” for years before the attacks Thursday and Friday, he said. At least 14 victims and five suspected terrorists were killed in Barcelona and the resort town of Cambrils, 75 miles south of that city.
To Bar-Hen, whose community on Friday resumed activities that it had suspended briefly following the Barcelona attack, “Jews are not here permanently,” he said of the city and region. “I tell my congregants: Don’t think we’re here for good. And I encourage them to buy property in Israel. This place is lost. Don’t repeat the mistake of Algerian Jews, of Venezuelan Jews. Better [get out] early than late.”
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Number of Jews living in Belgium (2015): core 29,800 - enlarged 40,000 (total population 11,200,000).
In 2015, the chief rabbi of Brussels warned that there is no future for Jews in Europe:
In the shadow of the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people and as Belgian police sweep the country for terror suspects, the Chief Rabbi of Brussels said Monday that there is no future for Jews in Europe.
Rabbi Avraham Gigi [Albert Guigui] spoke to Israeli radio station 103 FM about the atmosphere of fear in the Belgian capital that has been in a state of near lockdown for the past three days.
"Since Shabbat the city has been paralyzed. The synagogues were closed, something which has not happened since World War Two. People are praying alone or are holding small minyanim [small prayer groups] at private homes. Schools and theaters are closed as are most large stores and public events are not permitted. We live in fear and wait for instructions from the police or the government," he said.
Gigi gave a breakdown of the Belgian Jewish population which he said numbered 50,000.
"There are 25,000 Jews in Brussels, 18,000 in Antwerp and the rest live in smaller places. There has been aliya to Israel as well as emigration to Canada and the US. People understand there is no future for Jews in Europe," he said.
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