Since its establishment twenty years ago, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) has grown along with an enlarging European Union, and developed to confront the challenges and cultivate the opportunities presented to European Jews in the third millennium.

As the sole representative body of democratically elected European Jewish communities throughout Europe, the EJC works with national governments, European Union institutions and the Council of Europe.

Based in Paris, with offices in Brussels, Strasbourg, Berlin and Budapest, the EJC federates and co-ordinates the 40 elected leaders of national Jewish communities in Europe, encompassing approximately 2.5 million Jews.
 
Moshe Kantor EJC President
Please follow this link for Biography of Moshe Kantor

The President of the European Jewish Congress is elected every two years renewable by a “General Assembly” of Jewish community representatives and works in consortium with an elected “Executive” of community presidents.

The EJC gives a unified voice to Jewish communities around Europe, representing their common interests and concerns, but at the same time allowing smaller Jewish communities a wider platform to express their specific needs. It acts as an intimate forum between communities, where ideas can be easily exchanged, and internal elections and referenda decide future leadership, projects and goals.

There is an enormous diversity of Jewish communities within Europe, but they share common needs and interests, which in turn are the EJC’s primary objectives :

 To combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism through education, justice and security, in cooperation with governments and European institutions

 To promote a balanced European policy towards Israel and the Middle East, and to assist in the construction of a healthy dialogue between Europeans and Israelis

 To foster inter-religious dialogue and understanding.

 To ensure memory and education of the Shoah.

 To contribute to a democratic European society based on peace, understanding and tolerance.

 To assist in the revitalisation of the once rich Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe.

Brief History

The Founding of the European Jewish Congress

1986

 In the year that the Single European Act launches a Europe without internal frontiers, the European Branch of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Paris decides to adopt a new and independent structure, the European Jewish Congress. (EJC)

1989 until present

 The EJC initiates educational field trips for European public school students to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the first Jewish institution to do so.

1991

 The EJC holds a two-week training seminar for Jewish leaders from the former Soviet Union, on a ship that sails the Volga river from Moscow to Kazan. Co-organized with the Jewish Agency for Israel.

1994-1995-1996

 The EJC holds ground-breaking seminars in Russia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, on democratization and the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the region.

1997

 At the initiative of the EJC, the European Union (EU) establishes the European Union Monitoring Center (EUMC), an institute in charge of providing clear and objective data on racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Europe.

2002-2003-2005

 EJC organizes three European symposia between Jews and Catholics, in cooperation with the French Bishop’s Conference and the Vatican.

2003

 To foster better understanding of the Middle East conflict among Europe’s leaders, the EJC co-organizes a trip of 160 Members of the European Parliament to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

2004

 In response to increased attacks against Jews throughout Europe, the EJC requests from the EU European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to furnish the EU with reliable data on anti-Semitism in Europe. The EUMC eventually publishes the crucial eport “Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the EU 2002 - 2004”.

 In cooperation with the European Commission, the EJC convened an important Brussels seminar entitled Europe, Against anti-Semitism and for a Union of Diversity

 Hosts two high-level dinner meetings with Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg

2005

 As part of the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the EJC organizes an educational and memorial forum in Krakow, brining together over 40 world leaders with Holocaust survivors and liberators, to formulate a vision for future teaching of the Holocaust.

 The European Parliament adopts a resolution almost unanimously on rememberance of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, initially submitted by the EJC.