From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Sarajevo hotel cancels European rabbis’ conference after minister calls to ban event
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The Conference of European Rabbis has been forced to relocate its biannual meeting to Munich from Sarajevo, after a Bosnian government minister called to “ban the European Jewish event from its city,” says the body’s president, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow.
The CER’s biannual meeting was set to be held at a hotel in Sarajevo next week, “to discuss the most pressing issues facing European Jewish life today and matters of freedom of religion or belief,” Goldschmidt writes in a tweet. “Shockingly, the hotel has suddenly canceled on us.”
The cancellation follows an open letter published by Bosnian Federal Minister of Labour and Social Policy Adnan Delic, in which he calls on “citizens and civil society organizations not to remain silent in the face of this attempt to morally humiliate our capital and our country.”
He also reportedly refers in the letter to Israel as a “genocidal entity” committing “shameful crimes against humanity.”
“We have been made unwelcome and this last-minute ministerial boycott of Jewish European citizens, dedicated purely to promoting Jewish life in Europe and furthering dialogue and democracy across the continent, is disgraceful,” says Goldschmidt, noting that the CER has heard nothing from other Bosnian government officials.
“The CER’s biannual Standing Committee meeting was due to be held at the Swisshotel in #Sarajevo, #Bosnia and Herzegovina, next week. Chief Rabbis from all over #Europe, including France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, were due to convene to discuss the most… pic.twitter.com/nkpJVcuXYf
— Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt (@ChiefRabbiPG) June 11, 2025
The Times of Israel Community.