JERUSALEM – Delegates at the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress General Assembly in Jerusalem today elected the British-Austrian businessman Julius Meinl, 54, as the organization’s new president. Meinl succeeds Vadim Shulman, who did not stand for re-election.
The assembly confirmed Josef Zissels of Ukraine as chairman of the General Council and Mikhail Chlenov as EAJC secretary general. Matvey Hutman was elected by the delegates as EAJC treasurer. Mikhael Mirilashvili and Mark Shabad were named as vice-presidents of the organization.
Meinl heads a family business which bears his name and which was originally built upon the production and retailing of food products. It was founded by his great-great-grandfather in Vienna in 1862.
In his speech to the EAJC assembly, he said the fight against anti-Semitism, whether “dressed up as criticism of Israel,” or “from the fist or the boot of a neo-Nazi,” or “in the form of Islamist terrorism”, would be one of his priorities. However, it was even more important to strengthen Jewish identity and self-identification. “Many young Jews have almost no connection to their own identity having grown up in homes where no-one mentioned their Jewish lineage, their Jewish heritage. The disturbing irony of the past 70 years is that being a Jew remained something to hide, like we were the ones who ought to be ashamed of what had happened,” Meinl said.
The EAJC is one of five regional affiliates of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), and its president is an ex officio member of the WJC Executive and Steering Committees. The EAJC was created in 2002 and aims to defend the rights and legitimate interests of the Jewish people, to aid in meeting community interests, and to represent Jewish communities of countries in the Euro-Asian region towards governments and international organizations.
