Belgium’s defense ministry denied reports that some soldiers had guarded synagogues in Brussels without ammunition in their rifles. The denial last week by the press department of Belgium’s Ministry of Defense was in reaction to a claim that a senior Brussels rabbi, Menachem Hadad of the Shomre Hadas haredi Orthodox community, made on March 24…
One of the more obscure words I know in Flemish is besnijden. As in, my son is besnijden. Circumcised. I’m an American Jew living in Belgium, in the Flemish-speaking north, and sometimes I feel the need to give the heads-up to his caretakers that he is, well, a little different from the other kids. Last…
It was the end of the summer of 1994 when my family and I left Israel for the Zaventem airport in Brussels. Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. Murmurs of peace still permeated the air, muddled with the tumult and rise of terror: Muslims praying at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron had been murdered…
Belgian Jews have gotten used to fearing for their safety. Every morning when parents drop off their children at Jewish schools across the country, they are greeted by heavily armed soldiers, stationed to protect the students. And Jews know not to be too open about their faith, avoiding wearing kippahs or Stars of David on…
Jewish Newspaper Slams Belgian Daily’s Interview With Holocaust Denier Complains over Holocaust denier interview in daily January 19, 2016 8:26am ANTWERP (JTA) — A Belgian Jewish newspaper complained to the country’s watchdog on journalism about a daily that published a Holocaust denier’s claim that no one died in Nazi gas chambers. The Antwerp-based Joods Actueel…
(JTA) — They warn you that parenting means doing a bunch of stuff you never imagined yourself doing. I had always assumed this applied to saying to children things like, “You watch your tone of voice, young lady” or, “Let’s not eat things we find in our underwear.” But in my case, the moment came…
He said he was from Damascus. Camped out two flights below, speaking a mix of French and Arabic, he wasn’t hard to understand. I caught a glimpse of him in late August, on my way to the laundromat. Sitting on top of a pile of blankets, covered by a sleeping bag, the immigrant from Syria…
Dismissal proceedings have been launched against a Belgian police officer identified as Mohamed N. who said on Facebook that he would kill “each and every Jew.” The mayor of Molenbeek, Belgium, Françoise Schepmans, already has initiated the dismissal proceedings, the French-language daily Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported on Saturday. Molenbeek is located in the Brussels-Capital…
