“The Israeli government must take action, in the form of encouraging the enactment of laws against anti-Semitism, and not be satisfied with European governments’ condemning of anti-Semitic acts when they are perpetrated,” said Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg, deputy director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, at an urgent meeting of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and the Diaspora. The meeting took place this Tuesday in the Knesset, following the attack in Brussels in which Emanuel and Mira Riva, Hy”d, were killed.

Rabbi Goldberg said that anti-Semitism is rearing its head in almost every corner of the European Union member states. The elections for the European Parliament demonstrated the increase in radicalization and the rise in the power of fascist and anti-Semitic parties.

He called on the Israeli government to appeal to the heads of all EU member states, and to the members of the new European Parliament, to enact laws calling for criminal penalties in an effort to stifle anti-Semitism – to raise the level of internal security by enforcing the existing laws and improving the methods of collecting and sharing intelligence, and to invest more to educate the general population about anti-Semitism. He revealed that at a meeting held two months earlier between members of the RCE’s presidium, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Harav David Lau, and the president of Hungary, the president promised to enact a law stating that the punishment for any racist statement would be imprisonment.

He added that last month a meeting was held between the heads of the European Jewish Association (EJA) in the European Union and ambassadors and representatives of 23 European countries. He related that ambassadors were shocked to hear about the level of anti-Semitism in their countries, and each of them said that there is no excuse for this in any country, and that action must be taken. “The Israeli government has the ability to spearhead a general movement to stanch the progress of anti-Semitism,” Rabbi Goldberg said.

When he finished speaking, a number of Knesset members who were appointed to this committee came over to shake his hand and promised to take action on this matter.