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ENGAGING JEWISH COMMUNITIES

Engaging Jewish communities

Many of the humanistic principles engrained in Europe’s cultural and philosophical heritage, as enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, are also core values of the Jewish tradition. As a leading European Jewish organisation, CEJI believes that the contribution of Jewish values, experiences and ideas is central to Europe’s future as a peaceful, integrated and just continent.

One of the key elements of CEJI’s work is to facilitate the involvement of Jewish communities in the European Union in order to ensure recognition for Jewish values, experiences and ideas at a European institutional level. To this end, we work to increase Jewish community organisations’ participation in the EU through capacity building in EU affairs, fundraising and project management and activities that strengthen local leadership in Jewish community organisations.

Current CEJI programmes for the Jewish community

  • Facing Facts! aims to improve monitoring and recording of hate crimes throughout the European Union. The project standardizes criteria for comparable hate crime data collection. We train civil society organisations to gather, analyze and report incidents of hate crime and hate speech, be they anti-Jewish, anti-Roma, anti-homosexual or other. We believe that the experience of Jewish communities in monitoring such behaviour can play a vital role in marshalling government and civic responses to that combat antisemitism and all forms of hatred.
  • The Diversity Tour is a training programme that travels to Jewish communities around Europe. The project aims to identify needs and activities for improving the local Jewish community’s intercultural relations. There is also the possibility to train trainers from within local Jewish communities.
  • Overcoming Antisemitism Training and Holocaust Education . CEJI’s training programmes draw upon the lessons of the Holocaust. It is an essential reference to the dangers of hate speech, the escalation of prejudice and discrimination and antisemitism.

We also bring issues affecting Jewish organisations to the attention of the EU institutions and act as a point of reference for matters related to the European Union, diversity education and anti-discrimination. For further details, visit our Advocacy page.