European Jewish Association
Brussels-based Jewish lobby group founded and chaired by the Lubavitch rabbi Menachem Margolin, registered in the EU Transparency Register and working on antisemitism, religious practice and Israel
| European Jewish Association
| |
|---|---|
| Logo |  Logo used on the EJA's website |
| Type | Non-profit association; lobby group |
| Founded | c. 2010 (according to the EJA) |
| Founder(s) | Menachem Margolin |
| Registration ID | EU Transparency Register 707551412661-80 |
| Headquarters | Rue du Cornet 22 / Chaussée de Wavre 164, 1040 Brussels, Belgium |
| Area served | Europe |
| Key people | Menachem Margolin (founder and chairman); David Lega (secretary general); Alex Benjamin (vice-chairman for content and communications) |
| Website | ejassociation.eu |
The European Jewish Association (EJA) is a non-profit association in Brussels that calls itself "the Jewish voice of Europe" and lobbies European Union institutions and national governments on antisemitism, religious freedom, Holocaust memory and Israel.[1][2] It was founded by Menachem Margolin, who also chairs the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), and it shares its Brussels address with the RCE and with a Chabad-Lubavitch students' centre and fund.[3][4][5] Its critics include the journalist David Cronin, who described it as the wealthiest pro-Israel lobby group in Brussels according to the Transparency Register.[6]
History
The EJA's leadership page says Menachem Margolin founded the association and became its general director four years after becoming general director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe in 2006.[3] A biography published by the Matanel Foundation, which is undated, said he had been the EJA's general director "since 2 years ago" and described the EJA as "a federation of 15 European Jewish organizations".[7] The EJA's "About" page says it has worked "for almost two decades" and has branches in the United States and Israel.[1] It was first entered in the EU Transparency Register on 6 February 2014.[2]
In 2005, before the EJA existed, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the RCE and an affiliated European Jewish Community Center worked from the same Brussels building, and that other Jewish organisations saw them as rivals for political recognition and public funding.[8] The EJA now lists the European Jewish Community Centre as an affiliated organisation "located in the EU Jewish Building".[9] The EJCC has its own Transparency Register entry (ID 42699798177-53), which names the "European Jewish Associations" as a body it belongs to.[10]
Aims and activities
The EJA says it works to combat antisemitism, to protect religious freedom and practices such as kosher slaughter and circumcision, to preserve Holocaust memory and to promote "informed and balanced discourse on Israel", including "defending the world's only Jewish State". It also campaigns for governments to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.[1] Its Transparency Register entry lists its policy areas as antisemitism, freedom of religion, circumcision, ritual slaughter, public security and "EU foreign affairs in relation to the State of Israel". Its lobbying methods include events at the European Parliament and the European Commission and lobbying of MEPs and officials.[2]
In January 2020 the EJA and the Action and Protection League, led by Rabbi Shlomo Koves, brought about 100 European parliamentarians and ministers to Auschwitz and urged them to pass antisemitism legislation that the two organisations had drafted.[11]
Registration and finances
The EJA is registered as an organisation "representing churches and religious communities" and says it does not represent commercial interests. For the financial year August 2024 to July 2025 it declared a total budget of €400,000, mostly from donations, including €50,000 from the European Jewish Development Fund (EJDF). It declared six lobbyists (four full-time equivalent). The Commission has published 14 high-level meetings with the EJA.[2] The EJA also pays for consultancy from David Lega through his Swedish company Ranstam Lega AB,[2] and its leadership page names Lega as its secretary general.[3]
The EJDF is run by Rabbi Eli (Eliyahu) Edelkopf, whom the EJA lists among its leadership as "Director of the European Jewish Development Fund".[3] Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters lists the EJDF, with Rabbi Eliyahu Edelkopf as its emissary, as a Chabad centre at Rue du Cornet 22, the same address as the EJA and the RCE.[5][4]
Older lobbying-cost figures in the register, as archived by LobbyFacts, are:[2]
| Year | Declared lobbying costs |
|---|---|
| 2013 | €1,625,000 |
| 2015 | €75,000 |
| 2016 | €830,084 |
| 2017 | €849,678 |
| 2018 | €250,000 |
| 2019 | €250,000 |
Since September 2021, self-declared non-commercial organisations have not had to give a lobbying budget.[2]
Other accounts give much larger figures. David Cronin wrote that the EJA declared a budget of $8.5 million for 2016, compared with $1.7 million earlier, and said this made it the wealthiest pro-Israel lobby group in Brussels according to the register.[6] The World Socialist Web Site said in 2018 that the EJA had an annual budget of €10 million.[12] These figures cannot be reconciled with the register's lobbying-cost entries, which cover only lobbying spending, or with the €400,000 total budget declared for 2024–25.
Leadership
The EJA's leadership page, accessed in October 2026, lists among others:[3]
| Person | Role given by the EJA |
|---|---|
| Menachem Margolin | Chairman and founder |
| David Lega | Secretary general |
| Alex Benjamin | Vice-chairman for content and communications |
| Tal Rabina | Strategic director and head of the Israel office |
| Ruth Wasserman Lande | Senior adviser for international affairs |
| Eli Edelkopf | Director of the European Jewish Development Fund |
| Arie Goldberg | Director, Rabbinical Centre of Europe |
| Avraham Aba Torezki | Secretary of the Rabbinic Council, Rabbinical Centre of Europe |
| Eliezer Shulman | Spokesman, Rabbinical Centre of Europe |
| Yosef Minsky | Director, European Kosher |
| Joël Rubinfeld | Advisory board; president of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism |
| Riccardo Pacifici | Jewish Leaders' Board vice-chairman for Italy and Jewish heritage |
Four RCE officials therefore also appear on the EJA's leadership list. Some of its staff, including Oliver Bradley and Nir Natan, are listed with joint "EJA/EIPA" titles.[3] The page also lists former heads of state and government, including Andrej Babiš, Manuel Valls and the former European Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering.[3]
The EJA's leadership list includes Daniel Kapp, managing partner of the Vienna PR agency Kapp Hebein Partner, who was press spokesman for the Austrian ÖVP ministers Wilhelm Molterer and Josef Pröll from 2000 to 2011.[3][13][14][15] In 2017 Kapp told Die Presse that he handled press work for the Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash and denied working for Sebastian Kurz;[16] in 2018 Ö1 described him as advising Kurz.[17] In 2025 he received a special award from Israel's ambassador in Austria for his work on behalf of the hostage Tal Shoham.[18][19]
The EJA held its annual conference in Brussels on 6–7 November 2018. An exemption notice published by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that the ministry paid the "EJA – European Jewish Association" €96,000, without a tender, to organise a conference of European rabbis and communities in the European Parliament on those dates. The conference was to cover the "new antisemitism", BDS, the situation of Jewish communities and Jerusalem, and MEPs and Commission officials were to be invited. The notice gave as its reason for using a single supplier that the EJA was the only body organising such a conference of Jewish communities in the Parliament.[20]
The World Socialist Web Site reported that many delegates were invited by Israel's Foreign and Jerusalem Affairs ministries, which it said co-sponsored the conference, and that the Jerusalem Affairs minister Ze'ev Elkin attended. It said the conference approved Margolin's five "red lines", including that political parties should adopt the IHRA definition and reject BDS as antisemitic. It also said the EJA had "close links with the Chabad movement".[12] David Cronin wrote that the EJA campaigned for parties to declare BDS antisemitic, hosted the Israeli minister Gilad Erdan in 2017 and organised events jointly with the Israeli government, and that Margolin refused to tell him whether the Israeli government funded the EJA.[6]
In June 2024 the EJA held an "emergency summit" in Amsterdam with Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, the Dutch umbrella body Centraal Joods Overleg and others. The Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz sent a video message, and Margolin told Israel to be ready for European Jews to leave if governments continued to tolerate antisemitism.[21]
Critical reporting
In a blog post for The Electronic Intifada, David Cronin reported on the EJA's budget growth, its joint events with the Israeli government and Margolin's refusal to answer his questions about funding. He also reported that the EJA had issued a statement accusing his blog of "glorifying" Hamas, and that Margolin later said "everyone can make mistakes" but would retract it only if Cronin condemned Hamas.[6] The World Socialist Web Site called the EJA a "front for the Israeli government".[12]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "About", European Jewish Association, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "European Jewish Association", LobbyFacts (data from the EU Transparency Register, ID 707551412661-80), accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "Leadership", European Jewish Association, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Contact us", Rabbinical Center of Europe, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Brussels – Centers", Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters (lubavitch.com), accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 David Cronin, "Leading Israel lobby group sees massive rise in budget", The Electronic Intifada, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ "Building the Future", Matanel Foundation, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Philip Carmel, "In capital of European Union, Chabad wields great influence", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, republished by Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, 20 May 2005.
- ↑ "European Jewish Community Centre", European Jewish Association, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ "European Jewish Community Centre", LobbyFacts (data from the EU Transparency Register, ID 42699798177-53), accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Nitsan Keidar, "100 Parliamentarians gather in Auschwitz", Israel National News, 20 January 2020.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jean Shaoul, "European Jewish Association slanders left and urges dialogue with far-right", World Socialist Web Site, 24 November 2018.
- ↑ "Mr. Daniel Kapp", European Jewish Association, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ "Job für Pröll-Sprecher Daniel Kapp", Die Presse, 14 July 2011.
- ↑ "Kapp Hebein Partner GmbH, FN 391953b", Austrian company register (Firmenbuch), published via evi.gv.at, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ "Berater Kapp: Nummer zu klein für Kanzler Kern", Die Presse, 17 August 2017.
- ↑ "Wenn Aufdecker zum Werkzeug werden", Ö1 (ORF), 5 February 2018.
- ↑ "Israel Friendship Award 2025", Christen an der Seite Israels Österreich (israelaktuell.at), accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Oliver Papacek, "'Special operation' – Hamas hostage released: Who pulled the strings", Kronen Zeitung, 16 March 2025.
- ↑ "ארגון כנס רבני אירופה בפרלמנט האירופאי בבריסל" (exemption notice no. 628408), Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published on the Israeli government procurement portal (mr.gov.il), last updated 8 January 2019, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Amelie Botbol (JNS), "At 'emergency summit,' EJA head calls on Israel to prepare for influx of European Jews", European Jewish Press, 4 June 2024.