It was the second Forum of this kind and it was just as successful as
the first one. 180 Jewish students and young professionals from 24
different countries and different levels of Jewish involvement in
Europe and the US spent a week-end of discussions. In Frankfurt on the
Main, in November 2007, the Forum had stood under the motto:” Where do
I belong?” Now, the question was:” What can I do?”
What is the modern Jewish identity in Europe? Social intercourse can
bring them to pursue the common cause of B’nai B’rith and to bring them
to the mission of B’nai B’rith: the betterment of the world, the Tikkun
Olam.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2008
After the
candle lighting inaugurating Shabbat, John Reeves, Chair of
Forum, together with Claudia Ascarelli, President of the Stefano Gaj
Tache Lodge, Daniel Citone of the Elia Benamozegh Lodge and Simone
Hofmann of the Frankfurt Schönstadt Lodge, welcomed the participants.
After the
Kabbalat Shabbat Service, during dinner Graham Weinberg,
President of B’nai B’rith Europe addressed all our friends from
throughout Europe and introduced the guest speaker H.E. Mordechai Levy,
the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican. His theme was “The relationship
of Israel and the Jewish Community with the Vatican.” Ralph Hofmann,
Senior Vice-President of BBE, proposed a vote of thanks.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008
After Shabbat Service Ralph Hofmann, Senior Vice-President of BBE,
explained to the participants what is B’nai B’rith. Our motto is
“Charity, Fraternal Love and Harmony” and our aims are:
-
To foster Jewish identity and culture
- To fight against racism and anti-Semitism
- To strengthen and support the relations between the Jewish People and the State of Israël
- To preserve and transmit the memory of the Shoah
- To train and support Jewish youth
- To uphold human rights.
“Our Work and Programme”
Young Sisters and Brothers from Young B’nai B’rith Europe Lodges in
Berlin, Istanbul, Nice, Paris and Rome gave a short survey of their
accomplishments.
A small group of lovely girls from the Leopolis Junior Lodge in Lviv,
Ukraine, the centre of the Holocaust, were eager to tell about their
Lodge. They have sixty members and deal mostly with social problems.
They are taking care of old people to whom they would daily deliver a
dinner. They have a kindergarten and a medical centre. 3.000 Jews are
living in this town where there is a problem of domestic violence.
I was presented with a lovely 2009 Ukrainian calendar with photos.
Laurent S. is President of the Leon Askenazi Manitou Lodge in
Nice. He is a software engineer working for Alten Group in Sofia
Antipolis. He said:
“In the French Riviera, most of the Lodges have senior Brothers and
Sisters. They badly needed a Lodge of young people and my Lodge has
been created in May 1998. At the beginning, for the first five years we
had 40 members but unfortunately, some had to leave for family reasons
or for business. Some saw that involvement in B’nai B’rith demands more
time than they had expected. Today we have 23 active members. We meet
once or twice a month for a lecture. We invite journalists, artists and
business men but sometimes one member gives the lecture. Once a month,
we organize an open meeting in a bar located between Cannes and Nice:
‘The apero du Jeudi’. Apart from that we meet for a barbecue at the
sea-side or we go skiing in the Isola 2000 Ski resort, or we have a
disco-party. This year we made up our mind to organise a theatre play
in the Phoenix Parc located in Nice. The benefit will go to a Charity.”
Yves Pallade, Director of FAN- the Foreign Affairs Network of B’nai B’rith Europe, explained what is his work and programme.
First, to provide BBE with a political voice vis-à-vis the national
governments in Europe and the European institutions. We have 5,000
members in 29 European countries. Through our Lodges, we are
represented in almost every major city in Europe.
Second, to support and to coordinate the political work of individual
members within and outside of BBE so that they can act as members of a
large network.
Third, to inspire young Jews to become politically active, to support
Israel and to fight anti-Semitism. The connection between members
allows joint action.
The internal journal FANMAIL serves as a forum for exchange between members on a variety of political issues.
FAN currently covers 20 countries. We are now in the run –up to a
review conference of Durban that is scheduled to take place in April
2009. The same kind of crude hatred of Jews and Israel is spread by the
regime in Iran. The very problem concerns not only Israel and the
countries of the Middle East but Europe itself since Iranian missile
technology brings some EU member states within striking range.
We have to live up to our duties as European citizens and as Jews.
Renee Howard, Young leadership Outreach Coordinator in Washington explained:
”In the US, BBI is focussing on community based programming to
encourage young professionals between the ages of 21-40 to become
active in the organization. We currently have groups in New York City,
Washington D.C., South Florida and Chicago. We are in the process of
creating groups in New York City, Washington D.C, South Florida and
Chicago. We are in the process of creating groups in Denver, Colorado;
Louisville; KY, and Philadelphia, PA. One lesson we have learnt is that
what works in one community doesn’t necessarily work in another. Some
people become involved because of our work with the elderly, some for
our work at the U.N and others for our community service work. BBI can
be what you want it to be.
There are three models we have successfully used in the US to engage young people:
-
Connecting young Jewish professionals with the diplomatic
community. This model is working in New York City where we have created
a program called the Global Roundtable. Events take place every 6 weeks
to 2 months and consist of a reception and presentation with Q & A.
Past programs have been on topics such as Healthcare, Kashrut, Church
State relations. Energy, Education and more.
- Core groups. This model has been very successful in Washington
D.C. We brought together a group of 4-6 young Jewish professionals
interested in getting involved and made them part of the planning
process. We meet periodically by phone, in person and over e-mail to
brainstorm program ideas. Currently the group heavily supported by
staff but the hope is that soon it will become self-sufficient.
- Social and Networking. This model is working in Chicago and
South Florida. In Chicago, we began our outreach with a happy hour
followed by professional networking event. The next program is going to
be issue based with the hope of continuing to bring issues of
importance to the Jewish community and the demographic to the community.
Internationally young adult programming is going on in Europe as you know, in Latin America (Uruguay and Chile) and New Zealand.
We should be looking at ways to create an international network of
B’nai B’rith young adults who can share experiences, learn from each
other and build lasting relationships.”
Workshops
-
Communities in crisis- How can I help? Claudia de Benedetti, Member of the Board of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. An excellent questionnaire devised by the Speaker elicited a lively
discussion on many common issues in all European countries. “Tzedakah”
was the centre of discussion.
- Family.Marriage, divorce, conversion, mixed marriages, gay and
lesbian encounters. Rabbi Avraham Soetendorp, Rabbi of the Liberal
Jewish Community in The Hague, Netherlands, and Rabbi Michael Ascoli of
Rome were leading the workshop. This well attended workshop and the
conflicting views exchanged by the participants revealed the importance
of the issues raised by the participants.
- Israel-Diaspora relations: The 60th. Anniversary of the Jewish State.
Emmanele Ottolenghi, Director of the American Jewish Committee’s
Transatlantic Institute in Brussels: According to Th.Herzl, Jews are a people entitled to self determination
in the land of their forefathers. Consequently, anti-Semitism became an
advantage. His most important book is “Old New Land”. Israel has been at war since 1948, but it is a source of pride and a
centre of creativity. Anyhow, the world over, anti-Semitism lingers on.
Israel tries to find a compromise on the map but the Palestinians keep
saying that they are not responsible for what happened to Jews. Nothing
would be enough and it looks as if there will always be conflicts. Iran is a major problem. To strike or not to strike, that is our
question. To compromise might be most dangerous. The whole world is
upside down for the time being. Syria has experienced how daring it can
be to face the West and how easily it could be wiped out. Here, too, we
are waiting for the elections in the US. Our conclusion is that evil is part and parcel of the cosmos. We have
to understand the nature of the enemy. The survival of a people depends
on the way we are able to compromise.
After the
Havdalah, the Young Participants were transported to the
Disco Party in Rome. The Organising Committee enjoyed a relaxing
evening in a warm and fraternal atmosphere at the Restaurant Ba’Ghetto
in Rome
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2008
After breakfast, we listened to the presentation of working groups.
-
Communities in crisis- How can I help? Claudia de Benedetti, Member of the Board of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. “Claudia began with a questionnaire on some principle values in our
religion like “Tsedaka”. Help of our entourage…Then she wanted us to
talk about some specific subjects but, thanks to an eloquent
participant in the audience, and thanks to his questions, we talked
specifically about the problem of not having enough people being
members of the community. It seems like in some countries, even if you
do your best, there are not enough people coming to the synagogue, to
the activities, and this is an enormous problem, especially in
countries where the Jewish people are really not numerous. People from
Romania feel the same.” Audrey Keim (France)
- Family. Marriage, divorce, conversion, mixed marriages, gay and lesbian encounters. The Chair of the workshops, Nathan Rubinsztejn, vividly summarised the many contentious issues raised by the participants.
- Israel-Diaspora relations: The 60th. Anniversary of the Jewish State.
Emmanele Ottolenghi, Director of the American Jewish Committee’s
Transatlantic Institute in Brussels: The Chair of the workshop – Viktor
Hajos – in his summary praised the speaker and his succinct historical
review of the State of Israel from its foundation to her 60th
Anniversary.
How to deliver the right message? Esther Shapira, Journalist made a
documentary on Mohammed Al Dura and a film on the assassination of Theo
Van Gogh.
At the time, the dramatic heart- rending footage of Al-Dura, caught in
crossfire in a clash between Israeli and Palestinian forces in the Gaza
Strip on September 30, 2000 was broadcast around the world and led to
international accusations of Israel’s excessive use of force and the
IDF’s possible intentional killing of the boy. Palestinian television
later broadcast the footage repeatedly. Children were called to follow
Dura’s footsteps into “martyrdom”.
The German documentary produced by Esther Shapira found that Dura was
not killed by Israeli gunfire. In 2001 she already came across a number
of interesting hints indicating that the so-called “killing of Mohammed
al Dura “might be a Palestinian propaganda fabrication. However when
she did her film, she focused on the question: who could have killed
the child? She wanted to do a film about the unusual situation for
soldiers to be confronted with children and to cope with the feeling of
having killed an innocent child.
Her findings that it was most unlikely that he was killed by the
Israeli came as a surprise. Charles Enderlin, the French journalist of
France 2 stuck to his version accusing Israel. She received life
threats and needed police protection when she appeared in public.
Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague. Although he was known as a
friendly, tolerant character in person, in the 1980s, he became a
newspaper columnist, and through the years he used his columns to anger
at all kinds of people, even the Jewish community, who were part of the
establishment. He rejected any form of religion especially political
Islam.
Working from a script written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, he created the ten-
minute movie Submission. It dealt with violence against women in some
Islamic societies. They both received death threats but Van Gogh did
not take them seriously.
On November 2, 2004, in Amsterdam, Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh
in the early morning in the street: he shot him. Van Gogh died on the
spot. Boueyeri then cut his throat and stabbed him in the chest. He
was apprehended by the police and sentenced to life in prison with no
chance of parole.
In 2007, Esther Shapira was granted the Europa prize and the Banff Prize in Canada for her movie on Theo Van Gogh. Anyhow, although France 2 considers her to be an excellent journalist,
the trial goes on and on and Enderlin keeps accusing Israel.
Israel and the Diaspora and Youth by Dr. David Breakstone, Head of the WZO Department for Zionist activities.
It all started with Abraham. The “Lech Lechah” kept Abraham moving and
the Jews moved to a lot of places. Why not to Israel? Are we at home in
Europe? To-day, there is a new way of understanding this “lech lechah”. It
means to create a “haverat mofet”, a wonderful society, a positive
Zionism which has been described in Herzl’s second book. “It includes
not only the yearning for a plot of promised land legally acquired for
our weary people, but also the yearning for ethical and spiritual
fulfilment” ( Herzl, Tikvatenu, March 1904). We have to cultivate universal values; try to have good relations with
the Arab people. The ancient land is “a new blossoming of the Jewish
spirit”. It brings the dignity of labour and the hope of creating a
just society.
If you will it, it is no dream…
During the festive lunch, Guest of Honour Arno Klarsfeld, the
well-known defender of Jewish and Humanitarian causes, spoke. His topic
was: “Human Rights Issues and B’nai B’rith Young Adults in the European
Scene”
Paolo Foa, Member of the Executive B’nai B’rith International, read out
warm greetings from the Speaker of the Italian Parliament.
One of our young adults said:” Arno Klarsfeld has been the very symbol of that Young Jewish Adult Forum.”
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld’s son looks just as young as these young
adults although he was born in 1965. He spoke about his worldwide-known
parents. As a lawyer, he has dedicated his life to the French Jewish
children whose parents had been deported. He was their lawyer against
Touvier and in the famous trial against Papon. He went to Rwanda and Kosovo in order to create international courts and have the criminals judged. He became Israeli in 2002 and joined the Israeli Army as a soldier in the occupied territories. He gave a hand to Nicolas Sarkozy in different and recurring ways. He keeps looking for different ways to help the needy.
Graham Weinberg, President of B’nai B’rith Europe gave a vote of thanks.
Claudia Ascarelli, Daniel Citone and John Reeves bade us “au revoir in Paris”
The event was concluded with the participants singing the “Hatikvah”
N.B. The Organising Committee wish to express thanks to Senior Vice President
Ralph Hofmann for securing the presence and contribution of a number of speakers for the Forum.
