Death threats made against Brussels Jewish leader

A Brussels-based rabbi who has lobbied for improved security for European Jews files a police complaint over death threats made against him.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the Israel-born head of the European Jewish Association lobby group, was threatened on his personal Facebook page shortly after the murder of a volunteer Jewish security guard outside the main synagogue of Copenhagen, according to a Feb. 12 report on the website of the Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism.

According to the news site kikar.col.il, the threat comes amid many anti-Semitic slurs posted on Margolin’s Facebook page.

Margolin attracted international attention recently by calling on Europe’s interior ministers to create regulations that would allow some Jews to carry weapons that would allow them to fend off violent anti-Semitic attacks.

“Menachem Margolin will be a dead man unless he stops,” kikar.co.il quotes the unnamed person who issued the threat. “We will put a bullet in his head.”

Margolin confirmed the report and added that he filed a complaint with police.

“We cannot afford to be intimidated by threats,” he says in an interview with kikar. “We will continue working with all-out might to ensure that every last Jew in Europe can live safely and with the freedom to practice their faith.”

— JTA