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Europe's Jews deserve better By Antony Lerman Tags: Israel, Moshe Kantor  You wouldn't know it from the ignorance and unjustified alarmism about Europe in Israel and America, but European Jewish life has experienced a remarkable revival during the last 20 years. Day schools, and informal education and academic Jewish studies, cultural festivals, book fairs and film festivals, theater, music and art; textual study and the reinvigoration of Orthodoxy, social action and human rights groups, astonishing growth in these areas is a fact of European Jewish life. Communities face serious and complex challenges, yet the opportunities to build a positive Jewish future are there for the taking. To exploit the opportunities and finesse the challenges, Europe's 2 million Jews need wise and independent leadership. But if Moshe Kantor thought he was providing it when he said in February, "Israel's leadership should recognize that all the Jews in the world have the right to vote inIsraeli elections," he goofed. Kantor is president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), the umbrella organization of national Jewish representative bodies that pursues Jewish political concerns vis-a-vis national governments and European institutions. At a stroke, he both undermined the status of Jews in Europe, by calling into question their loyalty to their countries of citizenship, and breached the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the State ofIsrael. A few weeks later, Germany, France, Austria and Portugal suspended their EJC memberships, signaling their lack of confidence in Kantor, surely the right move, but one that only served to highlight the systemic weakness inEuropean Jewish leadership and its failure to meet European Jewry's needs. Advertisement The very fact that Kantor, a Geneva-based Russian businessman, who is also president of the Russian Jewish Congress, was elected EJC president at all, the third in as many years, speaks volumes about the confusion among Europe's Jewish leaders as to what Europe is and what Jewish Europe should become. True, the other main pan-European Jewish body, the European Council of Jewish Communities (ECJC), which deals with welfare, education and culture, has had four years of stable leadership. Nevertheless, it has yet to develop a self-sustaining independent structure. No surprise then that an idea was recently floated to set up a new representative body comprising the Jewish communities of the E.U.'s 27 countries. While the EJC and the ECJC would insist it's unnecessary, Glyn Ford, a non-Jewish veteran Labor MEP who strongly supports Jewish concerns, vehemently disagrees. Contributing to a Jewish Policy Research seminar in London in February, he wrote that "the Jewish lobby [at the EU] has increasingly disappeared and its absence has pushed the centre of the debate in the wrong direction." When communism collapsed, in 1989, the EJC and the ECJC were given an unprecedented opportunity to cooperate in reviving Jewish life in the East and turn Europe into the third pillar of world Jewry. Had they seized the moment, they could have boosted their advocacy roles with European institutions and led the coordination of investment by the West of expertise and resources in Jewish education, culture, welfare and religious life in the East. They tried, after a fashion, but failed. And the consequences of that failure are still being felt today. American Jewish and Israeli organizations have free reign, and some pursue, rather effectively, narrow political and ideological agendas in Europe that are of very little benefit to European Jews; deliberately exaggerating anti-Semitism, warning against a manufactured Euro-Muslim "threat"; pursuing aged Nazi war criminals; promoting aliyah. Bodies like the Conference of European Rabbis and B'nai B'rith are active, but they, too, are narrowly focused and have little impact. European Jews have only themselves to blame, but they deserve better. The starting point must be a frank assessment of what's gone wrong. Take the EJC and the ECJC; the first has been funded and controlled for decades by the now disgraced New York leadership of the obsolete World Jewish Congress; the second was founded, funded and ultimately answerable to the Joint Distribution Committee, and has been struggling to achieve independence. The major Jewish communities; France, UK and Germany; give these bodies very little backing. And operating funds are hard to come by. Examine the vision most Jewish leaders offer: Statements, speeches and campaigns invariably focus on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and defense of Israel, and what Europe owes to its Jews. Important issues, to be sure, but a backward-looking agenda that wrongly assumes that European Jews see themselves primarily as victims. A fundamental transformation is required. Leaders must recognize that the pooled sovereignty, multilateralism and liberal pluralism of the EU is good for the Jews, and good for all minorities and contribute actively to its further advance. They need to democratize and be accountable; to empower the multiplicity of creative Jewish groups by getting them access to the resources they need, not strut about making grandiose demands. They should represent Jewish interests and facilitate cooperation by reflecting European Jewish diversity, not trying to create a monolithic single voice. They must acknowledge that, while positive external interest in European Jewry is welcome, only European Jews can understand their own needs. And they must question Israeli leaders' claims to speak and act on behalf of Jews worldwide and the policies they pursue that worsen European Jewish security. It's time to nurture a new generation of wise and independent European Jewish leaders who can make this transformation happen. Antony Lerman is executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) in London, a think tank developing policy ideas to strengthen Jewish life in Europe. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Lost giant Endangered sea turtle washes up on Gaza's shore and is eaten. 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