BRUSSELS (JTA) – A seven-month disputed election is racking a Jewish umbrella group in Belgium as the community there faces external threats that members say require strong leadership. Part of what distinguishes the two candidates vying for the presidency of the Coordination Committee of Belgian Jewish
Organizations is their approach to the rising tide of anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Israel rhetoric in their country.One candidate, Joel Rubinfeld, 38, says the committee has not done enough to tackle anti-Semitism in Belgium. His opponent, Norbert Cige, 65, does not see
anti-Semitism as a pressing problem.In a June 27 election, Joel Rubinfeld was just shy of the 60 percent of
votes needed for victory. Rubinfeld picked up 65 votes to 47 for Cige, with
one abstention. It was the sixth vote held by the committee, with Rubinfeld gaining each time. He started with 29 votes.The failure to
produce a new president is causing a rift in a community
where consensus has reigned since the group
was founded in 1970. The committee’s board will convene in early
September to review election procedures.Some 42,000 Jews live in Belgium, a country that receives attention beyond its size due to the presence of European Union institutions there, including the European Parliament in Brussels and the European Commission.Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Yehudi Kinar, criticized the Jewish committee for
being too passive last year in defending Israel during the Lebanon war with Hezbollah. Kinar noted also that the French regional government is funding The Year
of Palestine cultural program next year based on a request by the
Palestinian Authority’s Belgian representative.There are 400,000 Muslims living in Belgium. The community has been a
victim and victimized in racist violence that has plagued Europe. A member of the European Parliament for Belgium said recently that she would like to “strangle” Israel’s
ambassador if he discussed Israel’s security with her.

Veronique De Keyser was addressing an organization called the European Left Group at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The event was part
of a campaign seeking the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah terror
leader serving a life sentence in Israel for his role in several
murderous attacks.

De Keyser complimented the Palestinian Authority for
its “moderation and maturity.”

“I wonder how they are able to limit violence in the territories
given the background,” she said. “If the Israeli ambassador comes in
the future to speak of Israel’s security, I feel like I want to
strangle him.”

As to anti-Israel rhetoric in the Belgian media, Kinar noted an opinion piece in a Flemish left-wing daily headlined “Bad Western
Smell in Palestine” by a peace organization leader that blamed Israel for the
chaos in Gaza and the West for not dealing with Hamas.”The way the press reports, there is a lot of delegitimization of
Israel,” Kinar said. “We try to get articles published that show the other side, but
journalists almost never call us for comment.”

Rubinfeld says the Jewish committee is too passive and needs to establish a more open dialogue with government officials.

“Our biggest problem was the rise in
anti-Semitism since the second intifada in 2000,” Rubinfeld told JTA. “There were rabbis
attacked in the street and Molotov cocktails at Jewish stores. My
rabbi was being stoned by young Muslims.”

Rubinfield says he wants to launch a more public discussion of anti-Semitism and educate Belgian society as to why the issue is not only significant to Jews.

The number of violent anti-Semitic acts in Belgium increased from nine in 2005 to 16 in
2006. Overall there were 66 incidents reported to the committee in ’06, compared to 60 the year before.

“The CCOJB plays down the problem while Belgian Jews can’t even wear kipas on the street,” said
Rubinfeld, who owns an advertising firm but in recent years has spent
his time writing articles about anti-Semitism and helping to bring
Belgian legislators on image-boosting trips to Israel.

Cige, the former principal of the
Ganenou Jewish school in Brussels, told JTA that the committee is
sufficiently active, has excellent relationships with all political
parties and should not be hampered by “shouting from the rooftops
every time there is an anti-Semitic incident.””We
should only take action when there is something major so that we have
strength when when we need it,” he said.

Philippe Markiewicz, the committee president since 2001, also bristled at the
suggestion that his organization does not sufficiently support Israel – a criticism that dates back to 2001, when the Belgian courts allowed a
lawsuit against Ariel Sharon for war crimes. The charges stemmed from the 1982 massacre by Lebanese militia troops allied with Israel of more than 800 Palestinians
in Lebanon when Sharon was Israel’s defense minister.
Ehud Olmert, then the mayor of Jerusalem, said at the time that Belgium was run “by a government of bastards.” Markiewicz stood up for the Belgian government.

“I am an integrated
Belgian Jew,” Markiewicz said. “Olmert’s behavior was distasteful.”

Henri Benkoski, founder of Radio Judaica and a board member of
the committee, said those who seek to
depict Rubinfeld as strident and outside the mainstream are
playing with fire “when this Year of Palestine could bring out a
lot of negativity against us.”

But Michele Szwarcburt, president of
the Jewish Community Center of Belgium, said, “If Rubinfeld wins it
will be a catastrophe. He is supported by right-wing extremists, and
all they do is talk about anti-Semitism when we need to be building
bridges with the Muslim community.”

Julien Klener,
president of the Consistoire, which represents the
religious concerns of Belgian Jews to the government, said the
Belgian Jewish community might just “be moving towards the right,
as in the normal political scene.”

“Look at Sarkozy and Merkel, even in Belgium,” Klener said, referring to the leaders of France and Germany. “The
Socialists lost ground in this year’s elections; so why should we be
any different?”

Some say the group’s drawn-out voting process reflects their country’s ties to surrealism.”We are the country of the painter
Magritte, and what could be more surrealistic than such an election?”
said Benkoski.

SYDNEY,
Australia – A U.S.-born rabbi who was sacked last year is at the center of a
bitter legal battle with the board of an Orthodox synagogue on the edge of the Australian outback.

Rabbi Yossi Engel, 40, lost his appeal on June 26 in the Supreme Court of South
Australia to overturn a verdict by a district court judge who had ruled in
favor of the board of Adelaide Hebrew Congregation.

Now the Brooklyn-born
Chabad rabbi and the dwindling Adelaide Jewish community are set to take their dispute to a religious court halfway around the world,
in London.

The
six-month legal fight – which prompted the congregation’s president to resign
and sparked a scuffle involving the rabbi that required police attention – has
rocked the community of less than 1,000 Jews, costing it in excess of $90,000
and leaving it without a religious leader. It also has proven to be a black
mark for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement to which Engel belongs.

One
Lubavitch insider, who spoke to JTA on condition of anonymity, said the saga
was “tremendously embarrassing” for Chabad.

On the Web site of the
worldwide Chasidic movement, the listing of Chabad centers in Australia
includes a reference to “Chabad of South Australia.” But the link has been removed –
Chabad officials in the United States decided to sever themselves from Rabbi Engels’
imbroglio, according to the Lubavitch source.

“It was felt that what he was doing was bringing discredit to the Chabad
organization,” he said. Since the board of the Adelaide synagogue cannot appoint a new rabbi until
the case is resolved, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria has organized for
rabbis to travel from Melbourne to help support the congregation.

The synagogue has the only Orthodox congregation in Adelaide, which with 1.1 million is the most populous city in the state of South Australia.

The rabbinical council’s president, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, said the
Adelaide community is suffering while the case remains unresolved.

“It is pretty much paralyzed,” he said, “but they will live to see another day. No
question about it.”

Engel originally had demanded the contractual dispute be resolved by a din
Torah, or rabbinic arbitration, under the aegis of the beth din, or rabbinical
court, in Sydney, which has jurisdiction over Adelaide. But the synagogue board
refused because it maintained Engel’s contract was a civil agreement, not a
religious one.

As a result, the Sydney Beth Din issued a ktav siruv, or order of contempt,
against the board, effectively severing the congregation’s ties to the Orthodox
world.

The contempt order was lifted in May when the parties agreed to have the
case heard by the London Beth Din.

In
their recent decision, the Supreme Court judges agreed that Rabbi Engel’s
contract had expired on Dec. 31. But Engel hopes the London Beth Din will
reinstate him, or at least clear his name.

South Australian Chief Justice John Doyle said in his verdict that the rabbis
in London could not order Engel back to his pulpit.

“An order requiring
the congregation to reinstate Rabbi Engel as its rabbi is not an order that
could be enforced,” Doyle said.

In
any event, the registrar of the London rabbinical court, David Frei, told JTA
the logistics of judging a case across the globe had yet to be worked out.

One possibility being debated is for a dayan, or judge, to fly to Australia to
hear submissions from both parties.

Allen
Bolaffi, the congregation’s treasurer, told JTA that the Supreme Court ruling
vindicated the board’s position.

“For us it’s business as usual, and we
are getting back to doing what we’ve always done,” Bolaffi said.

But he said Engel believed he worked for a higher authority.

“He claimed lifetime tenure, that he worked for God,” Bolaffi said.

The board apparently resolved not to reappoint Engel because of a
major personality clash. In addition, the board reportedly was unhappy with
Engel’s kosher supervision in South Australia, among other
performance-related grievances.

Engel
told JTA that he could not comment. His lawyer, Ron Bellman, said his
client’s contract had been breached because he was dismissed without a
performance review.

“There’s been
a real smear campaign to discredit Rabbi Engel and lower him in the estimation
of right-minded people,” Bellman said.

Rabbi
Jeremy Lawrence, the registrar of the Sydney Beth Din, said the dispute was “hugely
regrettable.”

“It’s a tragedy because profound acrimony got in the way of normally
decent people being able to resolve a very difficult employment issue,” Lawrence said.

Last year David Ninio, the former president of the board, resigned over the
dispute, and in March police were called to a synagogue scuffle between Engel
and two board members.

Adelaide, known as the City of Churches, also has a Progressive shul and a
Jewish school, Massada College, which last year managed to stave off closure at
the 11th hour because of declining enrollments and spiraling debts.

A group of congressmen urged Germany to pay the pensions of Holocaust survivors.

Germany’s Ghetto Pension Law was designed to compensate Holocaust survivors employed as slave laborers in Nazi ghettos, but 94 percent of the 70,000 applications submitted for the pension have been rejected, according to the Claims Conference.

In a letter Tuesday addressed to German Minister for Labor and Social Affairs Franz Muntefering, 20 members of Congress led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), said the program is not determining eligibility appropriately and that applicants should be able to have their cases re-opened and re-evaluated.

Some of the congressmen who signed the letter had penned similar requests in August 2004 and May 2005. Former Minister Ulla Schmidt responded in June 2005, promising to address the issues and speed up the application process.

Tony Blair is vying for a broader mandate for his
peacekeeping mission in the Middle East.

Diplomats from the Quartet, the grouping of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and
Russia, met in London today to discuss the scope of Blair’s role as the Quartet’s special Middle East envoy. The former British prime minister is supposed to make his first Middle East trip in his new role next week, but the visit could be postponed if an agreement on his mandate is not reached.

Blair was quoted as saying his capacity-building mandate
“is not enough” and that he wants a more political role, Reuters reported.

NEW YORK (JTA) – With anti-Semitism resurgent in the world, one of the encouraging elements
for the Jewish people, particularly if one is to compare things today to the
1930s and 1940s, is the remarkable change in the Catholic Church’s attitudes
toward Jews.

In the past four decades, a conceptual revolution has taken place in the
church’s relationship with the Jewish people. The first step came with Vatican
II and its landmark document Nostra Aetate in 1965, which repudiated the
centuries-old “deicide” charge against all Jews, stressed the
religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, reaffirmed the eternal covenant
between God and the People of Israel, and dismissed church interest in trying
to baptize Jews.

This theological revolution then moved forward dramatically
through the papacy of Pope John Paul II. Further documents rejected
anti-Semitism and the destructive doctrine of supersessionism – the notion that
Christianity supersedes Judaism as the true religion – and the Vatican decided
to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.

[photo foxman1 align=left] In short, during the past four decades, the church has made great strides in
reversing a 2,000-year history of anti-Semitism.

That is why the decision by the Vatican to restore a wider use of the Latin
Mass with the inclusion of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the
name of taking them out of the darkness is so disturbing. I was in Rome in the
days leading up to the announcement of the revival of the Latin Mass containing
the conversion prayer, and quickly made my strong objections known in meetings
with Vatican officials.

It is not merely that such a conversion call and condescending references
conjure up the great suffering and pain imposed on the Jews by the church
through the centuries, though that is surely reason enough to be upset. And it
is not merely that the tone of this prayer runs counter to the new relationship
and language fostered by the Vatican for decades to change Catholic attitudes
toward Jews – though that, too, would be reason enough for anger.

The main reason to be disturbed by the return of this Vatican-sanctioned
prayer is that it threatens to undermine the conceptual underpinnings of so
much that has happened over 40 years – Pope John Paul II’s eloquently
expressed statement that Judaism is “the elder brother” of
Christianity; that it has a legitimacy and validity of its own; that it has an
unbroken covenant with God. It is this conceptual breakthrough – one that has
provided the framework for all the specific, positive steps to emerge – that is
now being challenged.

What is the right approach to dealing with this concern? It surely should
not lead to buying into the notion that this is the same old church, so what do
you expect.

Of course, the implementation and filtering down to the pews of
the Vatican II changes and subsequent reforms have been uneven and require much
hard work and good will. Recent polls of attitudes toward Jews in five
European countries and the extreme level of anti-Semitism found in two of them
– Poland and Spain – can surely be attributed to the survival of old church
prejudices and teachings. We know this to be true of Latin America, as
well.

Yet in many places, particularly in the United States, students in Catholic schools are being exposed to positive views about Jews. Most important the
Vatican, a hierarchical system, had put in play a conceptual basis for change
on the ground wherever the church was present. In the United States,
Catholic-Jewish relations are strong – a testament to the variety of interfaith
programs involving students, lay teachers, priests and nuns.

So, to be clear, the Vatican is not an enemy of the Jewish people, nor is
Pope Benedict XVI.

Rather, the current controversy speaks to the need for direct and honest
communication based on the friendly relations that have evolved. The church
must be true to itself and its teachings, and it must understand that
reintroducing this prayer – it was removed by Paul VI in 1970 and replaced
with a positive one recognizing the Jews’ eternal covenant with God – will play
into the hands of those who are against better relations between Jews and
Catholics.

The wider use of the Latin Mass will make it more difficult to implement the doctrines of
Vatican II and Pope John Paul II, and could even set in motion retrograde forces
within the church on the subject of the Jews, none of which are in the interest
of either the church or the Jewish people.

What is important now is for good people within and outside the church to
stand up and make these concerns heard. Much is at stake: for the
progress already made, for the implementation of Vatican II and the legacy of
John Paul II, for the future of Catholic-Jewish relations, and for the
rejection of anti-Semitism and recognition of the legitimacy of Judaism.

It is our hope that the decision is not one written in stone and that
Catholics and Jews of good will can work together to persuade the Holy See
to re-examine its decision.

Abraham H. Foxman is national director of the Anti-Defamation League and
author of the book “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and
the Myth of Jewish Control,” to be published in September by Palgrave
Macmillan.

Israeli officials came to blows in parliament when one likened the other to a Nazi.

Amnon De Hartuch, a Justice Ministry official who oversees state subsidies to various Israeli sectors, had a heated argument with United Torah Judaism lawmaker Yaacov Cohen in the Knesset on Tuesday.

Cohen assailed De Hartuch for his scrutiny of funding for Orthodox schools, saying: “The Germans destroyed our bodies, and you want to destroy our souls.” That prompted De Hartuch, himself Orthodox and the son of a Holocaust survivor, to slap the parliamentarian.

De Hartuch, who was questioned by police and may face assault charges, apologized to Cohen and the Knesset. But he said in his defense that he had long been unfairly excoriated by the religious press and believes that Nazi comparisons should be taboo in the Jewish state.

De Hartuch has taken a leave of absence at the urging of Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz. 

NEW YORK (JTA) – A measure intended to promote greater unity within the
Roman Catholic Church by increasing the use of the Latin Mass is sparking confusion
and controversy among Jewish groups as they scramble to understand the full
extent of the decision.

On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI issued a Motu Proprio,
literally a declaration in the pope’s own name, authorizing wider use of the
Latin Mass, an older form of Catholic worship that includes a prayer read only
on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews. The pope removed a rule that
had required a bishop’s permission before the mass could be used. Now, the
liturgy can be used on the authority of an individual parish priest.

Reaction in the Jewish world was divided between those
warning of possible setbacks in Jewish-Catholic relations and others saying
clarification was needed from the Vatican before judging the pope’s
declaration.

Leading the charge of those voicing alarm was the Anti-Defamation
League, which even before the pope’s decision had been made public, issued a statement
calling it a “body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations.”

The main question for Jewish organizations is whether the
pope intends to permit churches to recite the conversion prayer on Good Friday.
Allowing the prayer to be read, Jewish communal officials said, would appear to
run counter to the spirit of Nostra Aetate, the landmark 1965 Vatican
declaration, and subsequent reforms that absolved Jews of responsibility for
the killing of Jesus and laid the groundwork for four decades of
improved Catholic-Jewish relations.

In particular, Jewish groups say that a prayer to
convert the Jews would undermine previous steps taken by the church recognizing
the validity of Judaism.

According to a Vatican translation of the pope’s decree,
masses celebrated “without the people” – that is, when priests
celebrate mass on their own – may be used at any time except for the three
days prior to Easter, including Good Friday. No similar restriction is placed
on the use of masses celebrated “in the presence of the people.”

Some Jewish groups took a more cautious approach than the ADL, as they sought
to gain a clearer understanding of the pope’s decision. In a letter to the
Vatican’s point man on Jewish relations, Walter Cardinal Kasper, the
International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations sought
clarification of the pope’s ruling that the older liturgy not be used in the
days leading up to Easter.

The letter, signed by Rabbis David Rosen and Richard Marker
and Seymour Reich, noted that the pope’s commitment to the Catholic-Jewish
relationship would seem to preclude the use of the Good Friday prayer, but
seeks confirmation that this is indeed the case.

“We appreciate that limitation has been made on the use of this liturgy
leading up to Easter, but it is not clear as to whether or not this is
general,” the letter stated.

Vatican observers broadly agree that reinstating the prayer for Jewish
conversion is incidental to the pope’s larger goal, which the pontiff himself
said was to come “to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the
church.” The Latin Mass is seen as possessing a certain spiritual grandeur
that some Catholics – even those who accept the wider reforms that did away
with the mass – have an emotional attachment to.

“It comes from an acknowledgment on the part of the Holy Father, Pope
Benedict, that there were many Catholics that had a difficult time in the
transition,” said Father James Massa, executive director of the
Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops. “They had a difficult time in transitioning to the new
mass. What they were attached to was the beauty, the solemnity, the majesty of
the older form of Catholic worship.”

The problem, some Jewish observers said, is that on the surface it would seem that
the Good Friday prayer runs counter to Nostra Aetate and other reforms.

“It is as if the document Nostra Aetate had never been promulgated and
placed in the body of official Catholic teaching,” said Rabbi Gerald
Meister, an adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Christian affairs.
Though praying for the conversion of the Jews represents “a rather
primitive form of spiritual anti-Semitism,” Meister said, he added that he doubts that
the prayer will be found in widespread use on Good Friday.

“If not, we will have to examine this further,” Meister said.
“I’m not going to the barricades right now.”

For their part, the bishops conference maintains that Nostra Aetate remains in
force as the focal point for relations with the Jews. As to how the church
reconciles the seeming contradiction, Massa told JTA that alternative
understandings of the liturgy would likely be forthcoming from Catholic
commentators.

“I think this document is going to be interpreted over the next few
weeks,” Massa said. “I think we do owe an explanation as to what
the Motu Proprio implies about the use of the 1962 Missal with respect to the
Good Friday liturgy.”

Massa stressed that concern for the future of Catholic-Jewish relations are
unfounded. “I firmly believe that our relationships with our Jewish
partners are deep and abiding,” he said. “I think we will be able to
weather the tensions that might arise from certain understandings of the Motu Proprio.”

The criticism of the Vatican by the ADL and its national
director, Abraham Foxman, was assailed by conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan.

In an article published Tuesday on the conservative Web site Human Events,
Buchanan challenged the ADL’s claim that it was “hurtful and
insulting” for Catholics to pray for the conversion of Jews.

“What is Abe talking about?” wrote Buchanan, an erstwhile
presidential candidate. He argued that it would be anti-Semitic not to pray for
Jewish conversion if one truly believed that Jesus was the only path to heaven.

“Indeed, if one believes, as devout Catholics do, that Christ and his
Church hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,” Buchanan said, “it
would be anti-Semitic not to pray for the conversation of the Jews. Even
Abe.”

Copper thieves flooded a 103-year-old New Orleans synagogue that became unusable after Hurricane Katrina. The thieves sliced several pipes in the Congregation Beth Israel building last week, according to the congregation president, Jackie Gothard.A real estate agent and a prospective buyer discovered the
flooding on the morning of July 5. The cleanup process began Sunday.”We lost everything in the flood,” Gothard told
JTA. “There was nothing more to lose expect
the aggravation of it all.”
Gothard did not believe anti-Semitism motivated the crime.She said the sanctuary was filled with four feet of water and did not know what the cleanup costs would be. Gothard said it was unclear when the thieves entered the
building because the neighborhood is desolate.Most members of the congregation lost their homes in the neighborhood a half mile from the levees. They have continued to worship together at an area Reform congregation in a social hall with a mechitza.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill condemning the proposed British boycott of Israeli academics.

The measure, to be voted on Wednesday, censures the University and College Union of the United Kingdom for its proposal to boycott Israeli academic institutions. It also urges governments and educators to reaffirm the importance of academic freedom.

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) proposed the bill, which has strong bipartisan support with 62 co-sponsors.

Senior Israeli diplomats in the United States will switch to hybrid gas-electric cars to cut down on petroleum consumption.

The move, to be made this fall, was announced Monday by Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. The change will affect vehicles from the Washington embassy, Israel’s nine U.S. consulates and Israel’s mission to the United Nations, in New York.

“Reducing oil dependence and protecting the environment are key factors in improving international security,” Meridor said. He said he’s proud Israel is among the first countries to reduce oil dependency throughout its entire fleet.

In the years ahead Israel plans to advance energy cooperation with the United States by collaborating in the development of alternative-energy technologies.