News Brief

A European Jewish leader says European Jewish groups do not represent the interests of the continent’s Jews.

Antony Lerman, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in London, prepared to deliver a paper Friday at a discussion on European Jewish advocacy that says European Jewish organizations have been unable “to satisfy the needs and demands of European Jewry for effective political representation or for the efficient facilitation of Europe-wide cooperation.”

“The result,” he says, “is that despite the obvious opportunities, challenges and possible dangers to Jewish communities presented by the policies of the E.U., practically no systematic scrutiny, analysis and considered policy input is undertaken, which has the overall interests of Jews in Europe at heart.”

Lerman posits that due to the financial weaknesses of pan-European Jewish organizations and political infighting, the groups have been supplanted by Israeli and U.S. organizations that do not fully consult with European Jews when acting in their name.

Among the figures slated to speak at Friday’s meeting on European Jewish advocacy were Jerome Chanes of Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies; Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament; and Nick Lambert, author of “Jews and Europe in the Twenty-First Century: Thinking Jewish.”