1.5 Million European Jews Represented 500 Delegates Attend Conference of European Council of Jewish

Five hundred delegates representing 1.5 million European Jews in 18 countries took part this weekend in the second annual conference of the European Council of Jewish Community Services. The participants, representing virtually every religious and ideological trend among European Jews focused on problems of Jewish concern including assimilation, the loss of traditional values, the structure of the various communities and their relations with Israel and world Jewry. The conference sought to project “the quality of Jewish life in 1985.”

The two largest communities participating in the conference were those of France and Great Britain with 550,000 and 410,000 Jews respectively. The smallest communities were Norway with 900 Jews, and Portugal with 700. Of the Eastern European bloc, only representatives of Rumanian and Yugoslavian Jewry attended. While the Jewish communities of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria are affiliated with the Council, they sent no delegates.

CONTRIBUTION OF JTA PRAISED

The Paris bureau of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency quadrupled the production of its daily French News Bulletin for the benefit of the delegates and added a special conference supplement published in English, French and German. More than 6000 copies were printed and distributed.

Michel Topiol, a member of the JTA Board of Directors in Paris spoke in his capacity as president of the French United Jewish Appeal when he called on the delegates to help JTA expand its activities in Europe. He said the French experience with the news agency “proves that JTA can make a huge contribution to community structures, information and to fund-raising it self.”

Claude Kellmann, president of the European Council, warned in his concluding remarks that the delegates must not place the needs of Israel behind those of other communities. “Israel must remain for us the guiding light and our inspiration,” he said in what was seen as a rebuttal to Guy de Rothschild, president of the Fonds Social Juif Unifie (FSJU).

Rothschild said at the FSJU’s general assembly last week that too large a share of UJA monies raised in France were going to Israel with the result that the French Jewish community was forced to operate on a “distress budget.” Rothschild announced that he would be meeting here this week with Louis Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, to discuss the issue. Rothschild stressed in a message to the conference that “Israel and the diaspora can co-exist only on the basis of mutual respect and understanding.”