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Governing Board

Plenary Session and Governing Board Meeting in Brussels, 09 to 11 January 2005

On 10 and 11 January 2005, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) held a Plenary Assembly in the Belgian capital Brussels. The meeting was attended by approximately five hundred delegates and observers, representing Jewish communities of more than seventy countries. The Assembly was preceded by a meeting of the WJC Governing Board on 9 January.

The main points on the agenda were matters of WJC governance, the election of WJC officiers, strategies to combat anti-Semitism and ways to promote the inter-confessional dialogue, including the formation of a non-governmental forum on the Jewish-Muslim relationship.

Belgium's prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the archbishop of Paris, and the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Harald Kuyat, addressed delegates.

The Plenary Assembly re-elected Edgar Bronfman as WJC president. Delegates also elected a slate of officers for WJC vice-president and others posts. Stephen E. Herbits was elected as the new secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress.

Upon completion of the Plenary Assembly, a delegation of WJC leaders flew to Strasbourg, where they met with European Commission president José Manuel Durão Barroso, and the EU commissioner in charge of External Relations, Benito Ferrero-Waldner. Barroso called the meeting "a symbol for my personal commitment to give the fight against anti-Semitism a high priority" and promised to discuss concrete actions in this respect.