European rabbis unveil seven-point plan to confront ‘infrastructure of hatred’ amid rising antisemitic violence

CER’s new manifesto warns that the threat goes far beyond individual attacks, pointing also to hate marches, extremist networks, and foreign funding.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

As antisemitic attacks, threats, and extremist intimidation continue to unsettle Jewish communities across Europe, the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) is demanding a tougher response, urging governments to go beyond guarding Jewish institutions and confront the networks and ideologies driving the violence.

At a conference in Brussels on Friday, CER’s president, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, unveiled a seven-point manifesto—entitled “A Call to End the Violent Hatred”—urging European governments, the European Union, religious leaders, and civil society to confront the forces fueling antisemitism, religious extremism, and radicalization across the continent.

The new manifesto follows a previous CER initiative issued in 2015 in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, where Islamist gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical magazine and killed 12 people, including journalists and police officers.

Now, the latest call comes amid an alarmingly violent climate worldwide, with Jews and Israelis facing attacks, threats, and intimidation on an unprecedented scale over the last three years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

During the conference, Goldschmidt warned European leaders against an entrenched “infrastructure of hatred” spreading across the continent, stressing that guards and barriers around Jewish institutions are no longer enough and urging authorities to confront the extremist networks and radicalization driving the threats.

“Today the warnings are written in blood and fire,” he said.

Jewish communities across Europe have been hit by a series of violent incidents, including the burning of four Hatzola charity ambulances outside a synagogue in London, an explosives attack on a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, and arson attacks at several places of worship, including a Jewish school in Amsterdam.

Among the most serious incidents were the Yom Kippur terrorist attack in Manchester, which left two Jewish men dead, and the stabbing of two people in Golders Green, London, in April 2026.

CER’s new manifesto warns that the threat goes far beyond individual attacks, pointing also to hate marches, extremist networks, and foreign funding.

Specifically, it singles out Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s elite military force responsible for preserving the country’s Islamist, anti-Western system, which has been linked to plots and attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli interests across Europe.

“This is not a string of isolated incidents. It is an infrastructure of hatred, built on extremist organizations, foreign funding, radical institutions, and the digital world,” Goldschmidt told the Jewish Chronicle.

“Europe’s answer cannot be another statement of grave concern. Nor can it be higher fences,” he continued.

“Almost every Jewish school and synagogue in Europe now sits behind guards, steel barriers, and concrete blocks.”

Among the manifesto’s seven demands, CER calls on European governments to train and certify religious leaders, requiring clerics arriving from abroad to understand basic democratic rights and responsibilities and meet minimum language standards.

It also urges authorities to revoke visas, licenses, or permits from religious leaders who incite hatred or glorify terrorism.

The manifesto further calls on European officials to expose and block extremist funding, strengthen oversight of religious institutions, and appoint community safeguarding officers trained to identify and prevent radicalization and extremism.

The seven-point plan also demands swift action online against incitement and hate speech, zero tolerance for hate on the streets by confronting demonstrations and intimidation targeting Jewish communities, and a European Register of Responsible Institutions to recognize religious and community organizations that meet standards for transparency, accountability, and safeguarding.

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