Photo: Tanguy Stichelmans
Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor has been re-elected as president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) for a 4-year term. At the General Assembly of the pan-European organization in Brussels, 55-year-old Kantor beat his challenger Roger Cukierman of France by 55 votes to 28. The 84 delegates representing over 40 Jewish communities in Europe also confirmed the vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Flo Kaufmann, as chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Jewish Congress.
In his speech preceding the vote, Kantor named his four goals for the EJC in the next years as being: the fight against anti-Semitism and racism in Europe, dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, strengthening Jewish life and communities in Europe, and supporting the State of Israel. "I believe in our great family of European Jewry," he told delegates. He also called for European governments to prevent next year's UN conference on combating racism from descending into an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatefest that characterized the first such conference in Durban in 2001. The EJC president described the April 2009 Geneva conference as a "challenge for world Jewry".
A prominent public figure, philanthropist and industrialist, Viatchelslav Moshe Kantor is founder and president of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, an international organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust. Earlier this year he launched, with former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, a new body aimed at instilling more tolerance throughout Europe, and organized at the EU Parliament a series of events commemorating the 70th anniversary of 'Kristallnacht', the 1938 pogrom in Nazi Germany. Kantor was first elected in June 2007 when he succeeded Frenchman Pierre Besnainou. He is also president of the Russian Jewish Congress.
Based in Paris, the European Jewish Congress was founded in 1986 as the European branch of the World Jewish Congress.
