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Annual Report 2017 - 2018 - 1 EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 1 - ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 2 - ABOUT EJF ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 3 - EJF Advisory Council Members CHAIRMAN ADVISORY COUNCIL Moshe Kantor Albert Aflalo Rolf Golombek Alexander Oscar Gabriel Steinhardt SECRETARY GENERAL The Jewish Community of Luxembourg The Jewish Community of Norway The Shalom Organization of Jews in Jewish Community of Lisbon President President Bulgaria President Ariella Woitchik President Yohan Benizri Ishak Ibrahimzadeh Arkady Suharenko The Coordinating Committee of The Jewish Community of Turkey Petr Papoušek The Jewish Community of Latvia TREASURER Belgian Jewish Organisations President Federation of Jewish Communities in President Vladimir Kantor President Czech Republic Alla Jakobson President Aurel Vainer Yaakov D. Bleich The Jewish Community of Estonia The Federation of Jewish Communities Jewish Confederation of Ukraine President Leslaw Piszweski of Romania Chief Rabbi The Union of Jewish Communities in President Poland Boris Cerin Ognjen Kraus President Marie van der Zyl The Jewish Community of Slovenia The Coordinating Committee of the The Board of Deputies of British Jewish Judovska Skupno Jewish Communities in the Republic Igor Rintel President Board Director of Croatia Federation of Jewish Communities in President Slovakia Aron Verständig Vladimir Chernitsky President The Jewish Community of Stockholm Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Faina Kukliansky President Associations and Communities Jewish Community of Lithuania Berta Romano-Nikolikj President Chairman The Jewish Community of Macedonia Herbert Winter President Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities Jakob Finci Yaron Nadbornik President Jewish Community of Bosnia and President of the Central Council of the Dan Rosenberg Asmussen Herzegovina Jewish Communities in Finland The Jewish Community in Denmark Ami Yeshurun President President The Jewish Community of Cyprus President EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 4 - ABOUT EJF ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 5 - Dear Friends, In the modern age, the concept of community is no longer restricted to a shared work place, religious gathering or social interaction. Community today takes on new meaning, one shared across and within continents, in physical spaces and in virtual ones. The Jewish imperative of philanthropy, looking after our communities, providing them the building blocks to enable development and local and self- sustainability, must also look beyond older models and embrace the wider concept of community assistance. This is what the European Jewish Fund seeks to do, to look at the broader picture, to seek to build within and across communities, to encourage creativity and to provide the fi nancial resources to new and important Jewish projects in Europe. Solidarity is our Solidarity is our responsibility as Jews, in the traditions and values we learned from responsibility as Jews, our forebears. Our role is to continue and in the traditions and enhance and to pass this message on to those who come after us. values we learned I thank all our grantees for enabling the from our forebears. European Jewish Fund to be part of this “ Jewish life in Europe and encourage you to provide further opportunities for us to assist all our communities in our collective mission. ” M t EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 6 - ABOUT EJF ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 7 - COMMUNITY BUILDING CULTURE & HERITAGE RESEARCH, EDUCATION & LEADERSHIP 14 Nisayon (Ukraine) 34 Empowering vibrant Jewish 42 Haver Srbija – communities in Europe via Educational program for 16 Annual Forum of Estonian Jewry Moishe House students and teachers “Jahad” 2018 (Estonia) “Knowledge=tolerance” (Serbia) 36 Famous Faces from Jewish 18 Summer U (EUJS) Places (Belarus) 44 College Hadracha Academy / Generation Next (Turkey) 20 Limmud (Czech Republic) 38 Mitzvah Day (UK) Contents 46 Moadon – the right camp for 22 Limmud Hungary Jewish children – building identity (Slovakia) 24 Help them help us campaign for elderly Jews (Estonia) 38 48 Jewish Education & Youth (Portugal) 26 LJC & EJF Mini Limmud 08 About the European Jewish Fund 50 Make it Happen Initiative 28 Chaverut (Norway) (Denmark) 10 Mission 30 Development of Hasmonea 52 EJF Leadership Programme 11 Objectives Jewish sports Club. Jewish Sports 2017/2018 (Paideia Institute: Education and Sports Activities European Institute for Jewish for Members of small Jewish Studies) Communities of Poland 56 TAU Kantor Centre for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry (Israel) 58 EU Activism Seminar (EUJS) 22 64 SHOAH MEMORY 62 Austrian Delegation for the March of the Living 2017 (Austria) 64 75th Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Minsk Ghetto 20 (Belarus) EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 8 - ABOUT EJF ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 9 - About the European Jewish Fund The European Jewish Fund (EJF) was founded in February 2006 by Moshe Kantor to help strengthen Jewish life and identity throughout Europe. Moshe Kantor firmly believes that assimilation is an existential and urgent threat to European Jewry, and must be addressed through programmes that reconnect Jews with Jewish life and values. The EJF focuses especially on young people and connecting them to their Jewish peers. It supports a range of educational and leadership programmes that reinforce Jewish identity, and foster pride in religion, culture and sense of community. The supported projects are often dedicated to educating our young people about Jewish achievements in all aspects of life, ranging from culture to science to medicine. EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 10 - ABOUT EJF ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 - 2018 - 11 - > Promoting respect, tolerance and cooperation between people of different Mission national, cultural, ethnic, racial and/or religious backgrounds or affiliations. > Supporting organizations and Promoting Jewish Identity institutions involved with Holocaust remembrance. The European Jewish Fund, initiated by Moshe Kantor, is committed to > Securing human rights throughout strengthening Jewish identity. Its Europe as stipulated by the International activities develop national pride Bill of Human Rights of the United and reinforce Jewish identity within Nations, the European Convention on communities. The EJF highlights and Human Rights and help implement celebrates Jewish individuals and their European Jewish Congress the “Let My human rights programs, including those remarkable contributions to European People Live!” international forums. in cooperation with UNESCO. and global society and culture. To date four of these forums have been held, the last two in cooperation with the Objectives > Developing closer ties between Bringing Jewish Communities Together President of the European Parliament: European Jewry, and its communal institutions, with the State of Israel. The EJF is a unique platform for January 2005 – The first forum, in Krakow, donors and community leaders to commemorating the 60th anniversary of > Fostering educational, cultural come together to discuss and analyse the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Association is established to pursue and welfare related programmes and the needs of European Jews. Annual the following objectives: activities for the benefit of Jews across EJF Advisory Council meetings foster September 2006 – The second forum, in the world, including the State of Israel. dialogue between Jewish communities, Kyiv, marked 65 years since the atrocity > Assisting Jews and Jewish Communities with open exchanges of experience in Babi Yar. throughout Europe in promoting > Organizing international conferences that produce cooperative solutions to activities relating to European Jewry, that openly discuss and help find shared challenges. The EJF supports and January 2010 – The third forum, in Jewish Communities, and communal solutions to the problems and challenges welcomes proposals and action plans Krakow, commemorating the 65th Pan-European organizations. facing European Jewry. for communal projects and regional anniversary of the liberation of and pan-European programmes. It Auschwitz-Birkenau. > Supporting European Jewish culture, also initiates programmes of its own tradition and highlighting key Jewish to address issues concerning specific January 2015 – The fourth forum contributors to society and their communities, or European Jewry as took place in Prague and Terezin, achievements in culture, art, music and a whole. These EJF activities help commemorating the 70th anniversary science. strengthen the relationship between since the liberation of concentration and Europe’s Jewish communities. death camps. > Supporting and contributing to Jewish institutions and organizations Shoah Remembrance The EJF helps organise these high-level throughout Europe, including national, international gatherings to preserve regional, sub-regional and communal. Moshe Kantor and the EJF are committed historical memory and evidence, and to promoting educational programmes encourage the international community > Fighting antisemitism and other that ensure the lessons and memory to unite in the fight against hatred and forms of religious, cultural and/or racial of the Shoah live on. One of the EJF’s xenophobia. discrimination. founders, the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, holds together with the EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND EUROPEAN JEWISH FUND - 12 - COMMUNITY
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