European rabbis bemoan antisemitism, brainstorm sustainability at Jerusalem confab

Security fears, surging antisemitism and growing uncertainty about the future of Jewish life in Europe dominated discussions as some 300 Orthodox rabbis from across the continent gathered in Jerusalem for the Conference of European Rabbis’ annual convention.

Several of these rabbis spoke with The Times of Israel to discuss the communal and personal challenges they face on a daily basis.

The conference, originally scheduled to take place in October in Baku, Azerbaijan, was canceled following what organizers described as “very real terror threats,” forcing them to relocate what was meant to be the group’s first-ever conference in a Muslim country. (In late January, three individuals were arrested in Azerbaijan on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in the capital Baku at the instructions of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State terror group.)

The conference was rescheduled for Jerusalem under the theme “Identity, connection and unity in a changing world.” It marked 70 years since the CER was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust to help rebuild Jewish religious life in Europe — a mission its leaders say has taken on renewed urgency.

“This was the first time we ever held the conference in Israel, and it has helped to strengthen Israeli ties to Europe,” said CER president Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. “European Jews are already very connected to Israel, but our countries have been growing farther apart, culturally and politically.”

The event took place January 25-27 at another precarious moment in Jewish history, in the aftermath of the bloody October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on Israel and the two-year war that followed. Leading rabbis debated how rising antisemitism, legal challenges to core Jewish practices, internal communal divisions and shifting migration patterns are reshaping Jewish life across the continent.

Spiritual leaders met with President Isaac Herzog and Israel’s Sephardic and Ashkenazi chief rabbis as they discussed solutions to fight social, political and legal threats to their local Jewish communities. Topics of debate included growing rifts between European and Israeli Jewry, emerging political alliances, and strategies for renewing Jewish life in Europe.

Founded in 1956 to help rebuild Jewish religious life in Europe after the war, the CER now works with some 700 Orthodox leaders throughout the continent to provide a network of training, assistance, and political advocacy. Key among the organization’s goals is working with European governments and institutions to combat antisemitism, and fighting against legislation that could restrict observance of Jewish practices like kosher ritual slaughter and circumcision.

Some rabbis charged that Israel’s government has ignored the needs of European Jewry in recent years and ceased to view its leadership as partners. As an example, CER director general Gady Gronich pointed to Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli’s efforts to embrace far-right European parties that are shunned by local Jewish leaders.

“I told Chikli we feel like Europe isn’t on his map,” Gronich said during a panel discussion at the convention. “These parties are using us.”

Some 1.3 million Jews live in Europe today, according to the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Under the definition of Judaism used in Israel’s Law of Return, which applies to anybody who descends from at least one Jewish grandparent, there are as many as 2.2 million Jews on the continent.

Two years after the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, upended Jewish life around the world, communities face a new set of challenges — including spiraling antisemitism and legal restrictions for Jewish rituals — and opportunities, rabbis told The Times of Israel.

“Overall, the larger communities are doing well culturally,” with increasing interest in Jewish life and institutions, Goldschmidt assessed. “But many smaller communities are having trouble.”

Spiraling antisemitism

Rising attacks and hateful rhetoric against Jews and Israel remain the most concerning challenges for most rabbis across Europe. Some 96% of Jews were already experiencing at least one antisemitic incident per year before October 7, and the frequency and intensity of these attacks have skyrocketed since then.

A blurring of boundaries between anti-Israel criticism and anti-Jewish hatred has “created a unique split within our community,” said Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, Chief Rabbi of Rome. “A line was crossed — questioning Israel’s existence, the supposed violent nature of Jews, even Judaism itself,” fostering a “very challenging” climate within the city, he said.

In France, home to the largest Jewish population in Europe, Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia described a 500,000-strong community facing mounting pressure from antisemitic attacks. Recalling the attack on the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in 2015 and the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, he insisted that antisemitism threatens not just Jews but all of France.

In Lyon, France’s third-largest Jewish community, the city’s chief rabbi, Daniel Dahan, said the community is “in a state of high alert.”

As part of his job, Dahan tries to go to a different synagogue every Shabbat to keep his finger on the pulse of his community. “The people are very afraid,” he said.

Switzerland’s strict immigration policies have made Zurich relatively safe from antisemitism, claimed the city’s head rabbi, Noam Hertig. While there have been incidents, including the stabbing of an Orthodox man in March 2024, members of the Jewish community generally feel safe wearing Jewish symbols publicly, he said.

Legal restrictions on Jewish ritual

Legal threats to fundamental Jewish freedoms, including kosher ritual slaughter and circumcision, are also worrying to Orthodox leadership.

Kosher slaughter has been banned in Switzerland since 1893, and several Belgian regions enacted animal rights legislation in 2019 requiring that animals must be stunned before they can be slaughtered for food — an unavoidable obstruction to kosher ritual slaughter, which mandates that animals must be free of injury prior to slaughter. Kosher food can easily be imported from France and other countries, Hertig noted, but there are fears that such laws could become more widespread.

Meanwhile, some countries have been pushing for greater medical regulation around circumcision, which is commonly performed by people who may not have undergone comprehensive medical training.

In May 2025, Belgian authorities conducted raids on unlicensed mohels, or ritual circumcisers, stirring panic in the Jewish community there.

“The problem is not that brit milah is not allowed,” Belgian MP Michael Freilich, the country’s only Orthodox Jewish lawmaker, explained at the time, using the Hebrew words for ritual circumcision. “It’s that there needs to be a clearer law about who can perform the procedure.”

To stave off further government intervention, the CER established a Union of Mohels of Europe 15 years ago to develop a system of self-regulation and licensing for mohels that Goldschmidt hopes will make government oversight unnecessary. The model is based on the Initiation Society in the United Kingdom, which has regulated circumcisions for three centuries.

Much of European opposition to these rituals is actually aimed at the Muslim community, stemming from anti-immigration interests, Goldschmidt noted.

“And at the end of the day, we know that they aren’t targeting the Jews,” he said, “We are simply collateral damage.”

Internal relations

How different religious streams within Judaism relate to each other can vary wildly between communities, with some enjoying harmonious interdenominational cooperation while others are plagued by infighting.

In some places, theological differences and competition for limited funding have led to fierce struggles between Orthodox and liberal communities. In others, Chabad outposts have sown disunity and rivalry inside the Orthodox polity, even as they offer additional community programming and provide invaluable services for tourists.

“Chabad is basically everywhere, and they create their own organizational structures,” Goldschmidt said. “Whereas the British community, for example, has a board with members, Chabad essentially runs like a franchise in which the rabbi is the president. While there are many things our rabbis can learn from Chabad, they create new challenges in many communities as well.”

Prague, Budapest, Vilnius and Krakow were among the communities singled out as having particularly problematic infighting.

In Warsaw, home to just a few thousand Jews today, rivalries between Orthodox, Reform, Chabad, and secular Jewish organizations center around money, property, and power, sources noted.

“The Orthodox synagogue has more people, but I’d say the Reform movement has more political power,” said Rabbi Itzhak Rapoport, who heads an educational institution in the city that was home to more than 300,000 Jews before the Holocaust.

Many communities manage to coexist peacefully, however. In Düsseldorf, Germany’s third-largest Jewish community with about 7,000 members, Orthodox and liberal Jews enjoy a peaceful coexistence, sharing communal spaces and joining together for kiddush after Shabbat services, said the city’s Rabbi Shimon Levin. “I think we can be a good example of how Jews with different views can respect and live together in one community,” he said.

In Switzerland, the 20,000-strong state-recognized Jewish community includes everyone from ultra-Orthodox Hasidim to secular Reform Jews under a “Big Tent,” Hertig said.

“One of the reasons is that we know where to cooperate and where to work separately, so we don’t fight over the same resources,” Hertig said. “I’m actually happy that we have a Reform community, because it provides a place for people looking for something more liberal.”

Shifting populations

Immigration to Israel and other countries as a response to rising antisemitism is a hot topic in places such as France and Italy.

In Lyon, France’s third-largest Jewish hub with 35,000 to 40,000 Jews, more and more people are looking to move to Israel, Dahan said. Unlike in past years when only the young or the elderly left, he said he now sees middle-aged parents with large families preparing to move.

“People want to sell their apartment and go to Israel,” Dahan said. “They don’t see a future for the children in France.”

Others described more of a mixed bag. While some 3,300 French Jews immigrated to Israel in 2025, there have also been “planes full” of Israelis moving to France after October 7 seeking peace and quiet, Korsia said. Many aspects of Jewish life in the country are thriving, including a bustling scene with 200 kosher restaurants in Paris, he noted.

In Italy, Di Segni said he has seen a spike in requests by congregants for “certificates of Jewishness” needed to immigrate to Israel. However, most are just talking about it instead of actually doing it, he said.

In Düsseldorf, meanwhile, a growing community of Israeli emigrants seems to be boosting the Jewish population, Levin said. But it’s hard to measure. Registering with any religious community in Germany requires the payment of a Kirchensteuer (church tax), so many secular immigrants have chosen not to register at all, potentially creating a “hidden” population of as many as 1,000 Jews that aren’t officially on the books, he explained.

For Levin, as well as others, a dearth of Jewish education in the community is a significant challenge. In Düsseldorf, many of the city’s Jews arrived from the former Soviet Union with very little knowledge of Jewish tradition, Levin said.

A lack of educators who can teach in German is one of the main issues that keeps him up at night, Levin said, and he sees the community’s future as tied to its ability to maintain a Jewish high school for the 800 children currently enrolled in the system.

Many communities have a thriving Jewish life. Rome has a bustling Jewish Ghetto area with excellent restaurants and synagogues. Lyon, despite local fears, remains a strong community with 40 synagogues, 20 kosher restaurants, and two large schools with a combined 2,000 students, Dahan said.

In Zurich, Orthodox residents can enjoy several kosher restaurants, and a new Shabbat eruv, supported by all city rabbis and the government, was set up for the first time about a month ago.

For Hertig, the primary threat in Zurich isn’t antisemitism, but assimilation and intermarriage.

“A Jewish identity built solely on a negative definition like ‘fighting hate’ is unsustainable,” he said. “An infrastructure of Jewish education helps create a community that is an attractive, fun, and meaningful place where Jews will want to stay engaged.”

“Continuation can’t be just for the sake of continuation,” Hertig said. “We have to ensure that Jewish life remains worth choosing.”