The two representative Belgian Jewish communal bodies have set aside recent tensions to issue a statement announcing increased cooperation in the fight against anti-Semitism and “calls for the boycott and delegitimisation of the State of Israel”.
According to a joint statement by the French-speaking umbrella group the Committee for the Coordination of Belgian Jewish Organisations (CCOJB) and the Flemish Forum of Jewish Organisations (FJO) on Tuesday, presidents of both groups met in Antwerp last week to “reaffirm their strong determination to fight against increasingly resurgent anti-Semitism”.
In May, the two organisations were forced to deflect allegations of a rift after press reports juxtaposed the contrasting responses of the Brussels-based CCOJB and the Antwerp-based FJO to the decision earlier this year of the Belgian government to vote with Austria as the sole EU member states in favour of a UN-led investigation into Israeli West Bank settlements.
Whilst CCOJB Maurice Sosnowksi met with a Belgian foreign ministry official “to demand an explanation as to this incomprehensible vote for the Jewish community of Belgium, both French and Flemish”, in its capacity as “a democratic association representing all strands of political opinion in the Jewish community”, the FJO released an independent statement, condemning the official Belgian stance and saying “the Jewish community was shocked and appalled” by the vote.
There were also recent reports of an alleged divide between the two groups over how to commemorate Belgian Holocaust victims, after the FJO objected to planned memorial cobblestones being placed across Antwerp to mark the former residences of Holocaust victims, with chairman Eli Ringer saying that “cobblestones are placed per request and cost hundreds of dollars. Not everyone can afford them,” adding that the issue is that “commemoration must be inclusive”.
Meanwhile, Belgian Jewish weekly Joods Actueel reported Sosnowski as responding to such claims in correspondence that “Antwerp’s Jews today are not the ones who lost their parents and grandparents”, adding in a statement that the “main issue (is that) there is no better way to commemorate those who were deported”.
Whilst the CCOJB officially represents the entire Belgian Jewish community, the creation in 1993 of a separate body to represent the Jewish community in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium but also the more Orthodox Jews of Antwerp is seen by many as a natural step in the process of political representation.
Committing in Tuesday’s statement to meet on a monthly basis, the two groups called on “public, political and academic authorities to rapidly reinforce education on the subject (of incitement and anti-Semitism) and the judicial system to be exemplary (in prosecuting perpetrators)”.

By Shari Ryness

FJC.ru