Rabbis’ conference cancelled by host country for ‘legitimizing genocide’

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis: “Any meaningful apology must come from those responsible. Federal Minister Adnan Delic, who led the public barring of our rabbinic meeting.”

By Canaan Lidor, JNS

A prominent European rabbinical group on Wednesday rejected an apology offered by an official from Bosnia and Herzegovina for the cancellation of the group’s event scheduled for earlier this month.

In a statement, the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) said it expects the apology to come from the anti-Israel Cabinet minister whose intervention is thought to have caused the cancellation on June 10.

Any “meaningful apology must come from those responsible. Federal Minister Adnan Delic, who led the public barring of our rabbinic meeting from Bosnia & Herzegovina, should be the one expressing regret,” the group’s president, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, wrote.

The rejection came after Borjana Krišto, the chairwoman of the Balkan country’s Council of Ministers, that is the country’s head of government, wrote to Goldschmidt to express her “sincere regret regarding the recent cancellation of events,” and invited him to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to a statement from CER.

“We appreciate Chairwoman Borjana Krišto’s letter of apology,” Goldschmidt wrote, but he insisted on an apology from Federal Minister of Work and Social Welfare Delić.

The Swissotel in Sarajevo suddenly pulled the plug on the biannual Standing Committee meeting of the Conference of European Rabbis following political pressure from Delić.

The cancellation followed a statement by Delić calling the conference an attempt at “legitimizing a genocidal creation and their shameful acts of crimes against humanity,” referencing Israel. “This is directly contrary to everything Sarajevo is and has stood for throughout history,” he said, urging local and government authorities to block the gathering.

Goldschmidt condemned the cancellation as antisemitic, and called for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s E.U. accession to be reconsidered in light of a “disgraceful castigation of a European faith group.”

If Delić does not apologize, Goldschmidt added in his statement on Wednesday, the government should “publicly dismiss him. Anything less shows tolerance for intolerance at the heart of the government, despite letters they may send to us privately.”