The seminar this year took place against the background of an unprecedented rise of antisemitism in Europe and worldwide after the 7th of October heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians.
Avi Tawil is director of the European Jewish Community Center in Brussels. Earlier this week he came out of a meeting on Antisemitism at the European Commission headquarter in Brussels, wearing a kippa as usual. ‘’Two people call me out “Yahud!” (Jew in Arabic), he recounted on Facebook.
He added: ‘’I came to Antwerp to pick up my daughter from school who wears the uniform of the Jewish school, and she was also insulted “Jood” (Jew in Flemish) by older kids.’’
‘’If I had to post every time these incident happen… Usually the insults we receive, especially when walking all the family together, are much worse,’’ he said.
The two-day meeting at the EU Commission gathered representatives from the Commission and Israel in the framework of the 15th EU-Israel high-level seminar on combating racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
The seminar this year took place against the background of an unprecedented rise of antisemitism in Europe and worldwide after the 7th of October heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians.
European Commission Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, who participated in the opening session of the event, said: “Antisemitism is incompatible with what the European Union stands for – it goes against European values and the model of society we represent. But today we are better equipped to fight antisemitism in Europe than before, drawing on the first-ever EU strategy on combating antisemitism we adopted in 2021. Now is the time to step up its implementation, with EU Member States and in collaboration with our key partners.”
The EU Commission and Israel reaffirmed their full support to European Jewish communities in these difficult times of post October 7 rise of antisemitislm, their determination to fight all forms of antisemitic manifestations and they agreed to strengthen their cooperation in fighting antisemitism, particularly online, as well as Holocaust distortion and denial in the digital sphere.