From the President - IJC - Liberal Jewish Community in Brussels

A New Year, a New Home

Details: Created on Wednesday, 06 September 2017 17:49

Since its beginnings in 2003, the IJC has fostered a welcoming atmosphere geared mainly to the expat experience – that its members were strangers in a land not their own and were far from their own family and old friends. It has been a Jewish “home away home”.

Side by Side - IJC's New Home

Details: Created on Thursday, 31 August 2017 20:51

As many of you know, we have been searching for a long-term home ever since the IJC came into existence. This has proved to be extremely challenging given our needs and our resources. Our current location will not be available for much longer so the IJC needs a new home.

I am delighted to announce that we have an agreement to move to Beth Hillel from January 1, 2018.The boards of both communities are doing their utmost to make a co-habitation attractive and mutually fulfilling. Our Rabbis have met several times over the past months and our ‘Side by Side’ services earlier this year were viewed very positively by the vast majority of IJCers who attended.To be clear, this is not a merger. The IJC would share a location but operate separately from Beth Hillel; but of course there will be important synergies in terms of sharing space and in cooperating with each other.

Let me mention some key advantages for the IJC – and they are really substantial:

A home for all IJC activities with a quasi-permanent sanctuary, Hebrew School classrooms, a Rabbi’s office, library space, etc.
Visibility: IJC will have a public address and its name on the door.
Our community will have a real synagogue feel, atmosphere and energy.
Security - we can leverage all Beth Hillel’s security arrangements
Flexibility – the ability to plan events more easily and on days other than Shabbat.
Better public transport access and parking.

Given the times we live in, the IJC has constantly been delicately balancing security with (lack of) visibility. To have our name on the door, an address on our website, to be able to come ‘out’ is very exciting! We can openly say (including in writing) “this is us, this is where we are, find us here!” - an enormous departure from the past.

I am confident that sharing Beth Hillel’s space will help IJC not only to continue to exist, but to truly flourish.

We are guaranteed the right to use our current location through December. While IJC might be allowed to stay longer, planning and carrying out a move takes time. With the target date of January 1, 2018, we can organize the move in stages over the autumn.

If you have any questions or comments at this time, please let me know.

For the Board

Steven Brummel

September 1, 2017

Pesach - Reaching Across Time

Details: Created on Wednesday, 05 April 2017 15:37

Jews are commanded to celebrate Pesach each spring to remember the Exodus when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt over 3200 years ago. The Exodus is one of the defining moments of Jewish history and identity. The key way to observe this commandment is to tell the Pesach story at a Seder sitting around a dinner table with friends and family.

Back to the future

Details: Created on Sunday, 11 June 2017 16:45

On May 20^th, the IJC held a Welcome Shabbat service for the many new faces who have been popping up at IJC over the past few months. It replaced the annual Farewell Shabbat service normally held in May or June each year to say good-bye to the IJC members moving abroad. This year - surprisingly for an international congregation - none of our current members are leaving.

Grave Matters

Details: Created on Monday, 06 March 2017 21:07

The urgent telegram arrived at my grandparents’ Manhattan home just before Pearl Harbor Day (December 7, 1941) from Brummel relatives in Czechoslovakia. It stated: “GRAVE DANGER SEND MONEY”. As explained to me when I was very young by my grandmother, whether or not the telegram was actually sent by our Czech cousins, it was not meant to benefit them. It was probably sent by the Aryan administrator, masquerading as them.

Final Rest in Flanders Fields

Details: Created on Monday, 08 May 2017 13:48

The IJC performed its duty and paid a debt to the larger Jewish Community on Friday April 28th in a ceremony at the British War Cemetery at Heverlee, near Leuven. It was for a Jewish World War II UK airman, Sidney Smith, who died very close to the end of the War.

Visit to Wannsee: Exterminating Angels At Work

Details: Created on Sunday, 29 January 2017 13:34

The Syrian refugee family sang “When The Saints Go Marching In” after scrambling onto our S-Bahn carriage on a very cold and snowy morning as I rode from central Berlin to Wannsee station. My destination was the House of the Wannsee Conference in a large 1915 villa built by a German Industrialist on the shores of a lake on the outskirts of Berlin.