The Conference of European Rabbis (CER), the umbrella body of rabbis in 40 European countries, has strongly condemned statements made by the far-right Austrian politician and member of the European Parliament, Andreas Mölzer, who attacked the Austria’s chief rabbi and senior member of the CER Standing Committee, Paul Chaim Eisenberg. Eisenberg had written to Israeli Knesset member Nissim Zeev asking him to refrain from participating at a conference in the European Parliament this week, co-hosted by Mölzer. The politician is a leading member of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). Eisenberg pointed out that the FPÖ had a long history of anti-Semitism.
Mölzer said that Chief Rabbi Eisenberg had “forsaken the expected moderation and bipartisanship of religious leaders expected in Europe altogether, by defamatory statements abroad” and “should be condemned in the strongest of terms.”
The CER endorsed the letter of Chief Rabbi Eisenberg to Knesset Member Nissim Zeev asking him to desist from attending this event. It also affirmed the chief rabbi’s duty to speak out forcefully in defense of the rights and values of his Jewish community. The CER also expressed deep concern that supporters of the State of Israel had chosen to attend events which are used as a platform by parties of the far-right in Europe to legitimize their views of intolerance and fomenting ethnic and religious strife.
“We should be under no illusions that parties and politicians with long histories of collaboration with Nazism and current policies of intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities in Europe are no friends of the State of Israel and no friends of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, adding: “It is of profound distress to us that friends of Israel in mainstream political parties in Europe and abroad, and including members of the Israeli Knesset, are drawn into seeking such alliances which affront the memory of the victims of the Shoah.”
Referring to the FPÖ, the head of the Austrian Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said: "A party whose leaders (though not their voters) may be called 'closet Nazis' according to the ruling of a court of law cannot be a dialogue partner for Jews."
