Rabbinical Centre of Europe
Brussels-based organisation of European Orthodox rabbis founded by Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis in 2000 and chaired by Menachem Margolin; it shares an address and staff with the European Jewish Association
| Rabbinical Centre of Europe
| |
|---|---|
| Logo |  Logo used on the RCE's website |
| Type | Rabbinical organisation |
| Founded | 2000 (according to the RCE) |
| Founder(s) | Rabbis including Gershon Mendel Garelik, Berel Lazar, Binyomin Jacobs and Jacob Biderman (per the RCE) |
| Headquarters | Rue du Cornet 22, 1040 Brussels, Belgium |
| Location | Branch office: Rabbi Isael Najara St. 25, Jerusalem |
| Area served | Europe |
| Key people | Menachem Margolin (chairman); Arie Goldberg (chief executive) |
| Website | rce.eu.com |
The Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), which calls itself the Rabbinical Center of Europe, is a Brussels-based organisation that supports Orthodox rabbis and Jewish communities across Europe and lobbies governments on religious freedom.[1] Its listed founders include several leading Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis. In 2005 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that Chabad co-ordinated its European work through the RCE, while the RCE's director said it was not a Chabad institution.[1][2] It is chaired by Menachem Margolin, founder and chairman of the European Jewish Association (EJA), and it shares its address, Rue du Cornet 22, with the EJA.[3][4]
Founding
The RCE says it "originated in 2000 as per the request of many European community Rabbis and the ruling of High-ranking Rabbis". It lists eight founders:[1]
- Rabbi Jacob Biderman, rabbi of the Heichal Menachem synagogue, Vienna
- Rabbi Azriel Chaikin, former chief rabbi of Ukraine
- Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelik (deceased), head of the rabbinical court in Milan, whom the RCE calls the "founder of the RCE"
- Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi of the Inter-Provincial Chief Rabbinate of the Netherlands
- Rabbi Shlomo Duber Pinchas (Berel) Lazar, chief rabbi of Russia
- Rabbi David Moshe Lieberman (deceased), chief rabbi of the Shomrei Hadas community, Antwerp
- Rabbi Hillel Pevzner (deceased), founder of the Sinai Lubavitch institutions in France
- Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Pevzner, head of the Sinai institutions and "Shaliach Chabad" (Chabad emissary) for Jewish education in France
In May 2005 Margolin told the JTA that the RCE had been in Brussels for four years.[2]
Organisation and activities
The RCE says it is led by a board of directors and a council drawn from "all types of Jewish backgrounds in Europe". Besides its founders, it lists a Rabbinical Presidium and a Rabbinical Council. It answers halachic questions from European rabbis by passing them to senior rabbis in Israel. It also runs training seminars, an annual conference, a mikveh-building programme, the EK (European Kosher) kashrut department, a government relations department, children's education programmes and a bar and bat mitzvah trip to Israel. It has a branch in Jerusalem.[1][3] The Matanel Foundation says it funded a professional training seminar for 40 young rabbis run with the RCE, covering management, coaching, psychology and government relations.[5]
The RCE lists the following staff:[1]
| Name | RCE role |
|---|---|
| Menachem Margolin | Chairman |
| Arie Goldberg | Chief executive (also called director-general) |
| Yosef Bainhaker | Deputy director-general; head of the European Chesed Center |
| Avraham Aba Torezki | Secretary of the Rabbinical Council |
| Yosef Minsky | Head of the EK kashrut department |
| Eliezer Shulman | Spokesman |
The RCE says Margolin "manages all the organization's diplomatic and government-related matters", including court appeals and lobbying of members of parliament.[1]
Is it a Chabad institution?
The RCE's relationship with Chabad-Lubavitch is disputed. In 2005 the JTA described the RCE's Brussels office, opposite the European Commission's headquarters, as having a wall map of Europe with pins that each represented "a Chabad rabbi affiliated with the center". Margolin, then secretary-general, told the agency: "We have around 700 rabbis across Europe who look to us for spiritual and technical guidance."[2]
According to the JTA, Margolin and his associates said that the organisations they headed were not Chabad institutions, "though they are proud Lubavitchers themselves". The RCE's director, Rabbi Moshe Garelik, told the agency: "I want to make it clear that the RCE is not a Chabad institution… Chabad helped us at the beginning with things like the Web site, but some of our supporters would not feel comfortable with the RCE as a Chabad organization."[2]
The JTA concluded that the RCE and the affiliated European Jewish Community Center "were created as Chabad institutions and are still so considered by Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn". It noted that Chabad-Lubavitch's official website listed the RCE as one of the movement's Brussels institutions, and that Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch said his organisation had placed Garelik in Brussels. Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky said Garelik's role "was and is to coordinate all the rabbis who are emissaries in West and Eastern Europe".[2]
Other Jewish leaders objected to the RCE's name and initials, which echo those of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER). Rabbi Avraham Guigui, chief rabbi of Belgium's Consistoire, told the JTA: "I'd want them to say that they are really Chabad in order not to mix up terms." Jonathan Joseph, president of the European Council of Jewish Communities, regretted the "duplication". Margolin said the name showed the RCE's "willingness to help any and all".[2] The historian David Berger, an Orthodox critic of Chabad messianism, wrote in 2008 that Chabad "has set up a new organization of European rabbis (the Rabbinical Center of Europe) to challenge and ultimately supersede the existing one (the Conference of European Rabbis)".[6]
Links with Menachem Margolin and the European Jewish Association
Menachem Margolin joined the RCE as programme director in 2004 and later became its general director. He now chairs it, and he also founded and chairs the European Jewish Association.[7][5][1] The RCE and the EJA both give Rue du Cornet 22, 1040 Brussels, as their address.[3][4] The EJA's leadership page lists four RCE officials: Arie Goldberg as director, Avraham Aba Torezki as secretary of the rabbinic council, Eliezer Shulman as spokesman and Yosef Minsky as director of European Kosher.[7] The World Socialist Web Site described the EJA as having "close links with the Chabad movement".[8]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "About Us", Rabbinical Center of Europe, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Philip Carmel, "In capital of European Union, Chabad wields great influence", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, republished by Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, 20 May 2005.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Contact us", Rabbinical Center of Europe, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "European Jewish Association", LobbyFacts (data from the EU Transparency Register, ID 707551412661-80), accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Building the Future", Matanel Foundation, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, paperback edition (London and Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008), introduction to the paperback edition, p. xxx.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Leadership", European Jewish Association, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Jean Shaoul, "European Jewish Association slanders left and urges dialogue with far-right", World Socialist Web Site, 24 November 2018.