European rabbis cancel Sarajevo event after minister's boycott call
The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) has cancelled its upcoming meeting in Sarajevo after a minister called for a boycott of the event, the organization's president said on Wednesday.
Calls by Adnan Delić, the labour minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), led the hotel hosting the event to cancel the booking, CER President and Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt said.
The FBiH is one of the two political entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, alongside the Republika Srpska.
In a post on Facebook, Delić denounced Israel's role in the war in the Gaza Strip and demanded that Sarajevo not become a "venue for supporting genocide."
"We have been made unwelcome, and this last-minute, ministerial boycott of Jewish European citizens, dedicated to purely to promoting Jewish life in Europe and furthering dialogue and democracy across the continent, is disgraceful," Goldschmidt wrote in a statement.
He thanked the German city of Munich for agreeing at the last minute to host the meeting, planned for June 16-18.
During the Bosnian war from 1992-95, 11,000 citizens lost their lives in Sarajevo, when the city was besieged by Serbian troops. The war killed almost 100,000 people and displaced 2 million.
Today, Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to large populations of Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.
Delić wrote that the CER had misused Sarajevo as a place "to send a message legitimizing the occupation and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people."
Goldschmidt rejected this, emphasizing that CER events promote dialogue and calling the cancellation "Sarajevo's loss."
The CER has around 1,000 members and 800 active rabbis in its ranks. According to its own statements, it advocates for the religious rights of Jews in Europe and is committed to religious freedom and interfaith dialogue with other faiths.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business of Fashion
26 minutes ago
- Business of Fashion
Lead EU lawmaker on sustainability laws proposes more cuts
The European Union should further slash the number of companies subject to its environmental and corporate sustainability rules, the European Parliament member leading negotiations on the policies said on Thursday. The European Commission proposed a 'simplification omnibus' in February that it said would help European firms compete with foreign rivals by cutting back on sustainability reporting rules and obligations intended to root out abuses in their supply chains. Those proposals did not go far enough, according to Swedish centre-right lawmaker Jörgen Warborn, who has drafted amendments to scale back the laws further to only cover companies with 3,000 employees or more and over 450 million euros ($521 million) in turnover. The Commission proposal would exempt companies with fewer than 1,000 employees - already, cutting out more than 80 percent of the roughly 50,000 companies currently covered by the green reporting rules. The EU counts around 6,000 companies with more than 1,000 employees. 'Europe is falling behind the US and China in the global race for competitiveness. I'm entering this process with a clear ambition: to cut costs for businesses and go further than the Commission on simplification,' Warborn said in a statement on Thursday. His draft proposal must be negotiated in the European Parliament where other lawmakers can propose their own amendments. The Parliament will agree the final changes with EU member countries in the coming months. Warborn, a member of the centre-right European People's Party lawmaker group, is facing competing calls from some right-wing lawmakers to scrap the policies entirely, and Socialist and Green lawmakers vowing to preserve them. French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz have both demanded the EU scrap the supply chain law. But the walk-back on ESG rules has met resistance from some investors and campaigners, who have warned it weakens corporate accountability and hurts the bloc's ability to attract more investments towards meeting climate goals. Warborn said his proposed changes will not weaken Europe's sustainability standards, but rather free up resources that companies can instead invest in innovation. By Kate Abnett; Editor: Joe Bavier Learn more: Op-Ed | Dear Fashion CEOs, Stop Undermining Climate Action Too many brands have set ambitious emissions goals while their trade associations quietly work to block the regulations needed to achieve them, argues Maxine Bédat.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Impeachment? Deportation? Crazy? 6 takeaways from the wild feud between Trump and Elon Musk
WASHINGTON – Elon Musk, who led a scorched-earth strategy in recommending the dismantling of federal agencies and laying off tens of thousands of workers, continued burning bridges after leaving his special White House job advising President Donald Trump. Musk's lobbying days before the blowup to kill Trump's centerpiece tax bill spurred the president to voice his disappointment June 5. Trump later said on social media his adviser 'just went CRAZY!' Trump threatened to cancel billions in federal contracts with Musk's companies. Meanwhile, Musk endorsed a third Trump impeachment. Not satisfied with predicting Trump's tariffs would lead to a recession, Musk later accused Trump of consorting with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump's political adviser and former White House aide Steve Bannon suggested the president should deport Musk back to his native South Africa. Here are six takeaways about the feud and where it might lead: Musk has called the cost of Trump's legislative package of tax and spending cuts a 'disgusting abomination,' and urged lawmakers to kill it. Trump responded during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz by saying he was disappointed with Musk. Trump blamed Musk's criticism on the legislation aiming to end incentives for electric vehicles, which Musk's company Tesla manufactures, and for discarding his choice to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which works with Musk's SpaceX rockets. "I'm very disappointed with Elon," Trump said. 'I can understand why he's upset." "Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump added later. "I don't know if we will anymore." When someone else suggested on social media that Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, Musk replied, 'Yes.' The House impeached Trump during his first term. Once was for his urging Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. The second time was for inciting the riot Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol. The Senate acquitted Trump both times after failing to get a two-thirds majority for conviction. Musk upped the ante by predicting Trump's tariffs – the centerpiece of his economic policy – would cause a recession. 'The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,' Musk wrote on social media. Trump has argued the tariffs would bring the government billions in revenue and force manufacturers to bring jobs back to the U.S. He has also used tariffs as leverage to negotiate trade deals with other countries. Jeffrey Epstein was a financier charged federally with sex trafficking. He died by suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019. Conspiracy theorists have speculated that powerful people silenced Epstein rather than have their secrets exposed. Trump and Epstein were filmed and photographed together at parties. In 2002 Trump praised the wealthy businessman as a "terrific guy' but he has since distanced himself from him. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would declassify the government's files on Epstein but about 200 pages released Feb. 27 implicated no one else. "Time to drop the really big bomb," Musk said in a June 5 post on X. "@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" The White House responded that Musk was unhappy with Trump's legislative package. 'This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. 'The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.' Trump later threatened on social media to cancel Musk's government contracts and subsidies. "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump said. "I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" Tesla's shares dropped 14%, losing about $150 billion in market share, on June 5. Trump's legislative package seeks to end government subsidies for electric vehicles. Musk's SpaceX also relies on billions in contracts to transport people and supplies to the International Space Station. The government must rely on private rockets or the rockets of other countries for such trips after retiring the space shuttle program. 'In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,' Musk wrote. One of Trump's informal advisers, Steve Bannon, told the New York Times he was urging the president to launch several investigations into Musk, including whether he should be deported. Musk came to the U.S. on a student visa and has since become a naturalized citizen, but critics have raised questions about whether Musk overstayed the terms of his original visa. 'They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,' Bannon said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 6 takeaways from Trump and Musk's ruptured relationship and wild feud
New York Post
35 minutes ago
- New York Post
It's not just Trump — Biden found major civil-rights problems with Harvard too
Many people assume federal civil-rights scrutiny of antisemitism at Harvard is a recent, partisan development. Headlines shout about President 'Trump's War on Harvard,' 'Trump's Harvard Vendetta' and 'His Harvard Hate Campaign.' In fact, such oversight is required by law and has been enforced consistently by both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the last one. Advertisement The Biden team raised concerns that Harvard's response to antisemitic-harassment complaints didn't fully comply with the Civil Rights Act's Title VI — with some echoing those found in the Trump administration's April 11 demand letter. Harvard quietly entered into a voluntary resolution agreement with the Biden Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights Jan. 17, days before the university settled two lawsuits with Jewish students — and days before Trump re-entered the White House. 5 The administrations of both Donald Trump (left) and Joe Biden examined Harvard's civil-rights problems. POOL/AFP via Getty Images Advertisement I've been working directly with Jewish Harvard students since the campus exploded in October 2023, so these findings did not surprise me. I witnessed firsthand the distress and frustration many experienced and watched closely as the university failed to respond effectively. In one glaring example, two students charged with assault and battery of a Jewish student during an Oct. 18, 2023, anti-Israel campus protest weren't disciplined. Instead, Harvard rewarded them. The Harvard Law Review gave Ibrahim Bharmal a $65,000 fellowship. Advertisement Bharmal, featured on the law school's admissions website, will spend his fellowship at California's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — whose cofounder and executive director, Nihad Awad, said, 'I was happy to see people breaking the siege' with Gaza's Oct. 7 attack. The other student, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, was voted a class marshal by his Harvard Divinity School classmates. Harvard let both students graduate without consequence. 5 Two students charged with assaulting a Jewish student during an October 2023 anti-Israel protest weren't disciplined. Twitter/AvivaKlompas The resolution agreement, which should help all students, is significant, but it barely made news. Harvard made no public announcement. Most media outlets ignored the story. Advertisement Instead, much coverage misleadingly frames federal scrutiny of campus antisemitism as beginning with the new Trump-era task force. I strongly support the rule of law and its being applied equally to all. I champion — at the same time — the First Amendment, federal funding of lawful basic research and robust enforcement of civil-rights protections. But let's be clear: Assault, discrimination, harassment, vandalism, trespassing and support for terrorist organizations are not protected speech. I write this as an American citizen and registered Democrat. The Office of Civil Rights launched its investigation into Harvard in November 2023, following allegations of discrimination and harassment against Jewish students. While it later closed this investigation — a standard practice when federal lawsuits are proceeding — it maintained its oversight. In a heartening development, even as the Biden team reviewed Harvard's handling of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students' harassment claims, it continued to examine records and information directly related to the harassment of Jewish students. 5 Harvard gave a funded fellowship to Ibrahim Bharmal, one of the students. Instagram/betterdays_arecoming25/ The OCR's Jan. 17 letter referenced the two federal lawsuits filed in 2024 alleging Harvard's 'deliberate indifference' and noted several disturbing examples. A federal court cited in one suit an allegation of 'student-on-student harassment' and denied Harvard's motion to dismiss both lawsuits. Students repeatedly told me they struggled to find the appropriate channels to report harassment. When they did file complaints, responses were often slow, inadequate or dismissive — falling short of the prompt and effective response Title VI requires. Advertisement Even more troubling, Harvard would not pursue investigations unless students revealed their identities to alleged harassers. This policy had a chilling effect, discouraging students from coming forward. Besides violating Title VI, the university may have breached its duty of care to ensure students' physical safety. 5 Elom Tettey-Tamaklo (left) spent time in Palestine before attending Harvard Divinity School. The OCR confirmed these failures and found Harvard often failed to create or keep records of complaints — a serious compliance lapse that undermines accountability. Advertisement At many Harvard schools, the offices generally responsible for handling discrimination complaints — formerly called Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging — appeared not to have fulfilled their duties. Harvard has since renamed these offices, but a new name is not enough. Notably, the Biden agreement, which required Harvard to submit revised policies and procedures to the Office of Civil Rights by May 17 for review and approval, closely mirrors language from the Trump administration's April 11 letter — which also called on Harvard to 'immediately reform its student discipline policies and procedures so as to swiftly and transparently enforce its existing disciplinary policies with consistency and impartiality.' Both administrations focused on reviewing Harvard's response to reports of a hostile environment during the 2023-2025 academic years. Advertisement The Biden deal requires Harvard to provide 'all formal and informal reports or complaints, received by the University alleging harassment based on shared ancestry, and the University's response to those reports or complaints.' Similarly, the Trump administration required that 'Harvard must investigate and carry out meaningful discipline for all violations that occurred during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years.' 5 The author, Clarence Schwab, has heard from countless harassed Harvard students. The resolution agreement is a step forward. Whether Harvard's revised policies and efforts will be enough remains to be seen. Advertisement The findings of Harvard's own Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias vindicated these concerns and the need for decisive action. The task force further recommends that Harvard develop a central hub for pluralism, implicitly acknowledging the need to protect academic freedom from Harvard's own monoculture — a culture that has driven away distinguished scholars and researchers and led to documented discrimination against Jewish students and others. Harvard also has to do more to comply with its January 2025 settlement with suing Jewish students. While all terms are not public, Harvard did commit to hiring someone to oversee all complaints of antisemitism — but still hasn't announced anyone for that position. I'm committed to helping Harvard return to its stated mission and to improving everyone on campus' safety and well-being. Equal civil rights, as guaranteed the Civil Rights Act's Title VI and Title VII, should be a nonpartisan, uncontroversial American value. Clarence Schwab is the founder and managing partner of Kronor Capital and a cofounder of Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance.
