Jewish Institutions in Belgium

JEWS IN BELGIUM

Centre Communautaire Laïc Juif

The CCLJ is recognized as an Organization of Continuing Education and Youth House by the French Community of Belgium. In 1959, a handful of young people, soon followed by others, thought that the rebirth of the Jewish community had to go through its moral reconstruction. They could not be satisfied with working, marrying, and starting families. They could not conceive of themselves without political and cultural activities. Nor could they be satisfied with a Judaism that was recognized only on the religious level. They wanted with all their strength to rebuild a Jewish life in Belgium. This is what they did, first through small activities, then through larger ones. This is how the CCLJ was born.

Centrale d'Oeuvres Sociales

La Centrale was born in 1952 from the will of organizations, men and women to respond to the social emergencies of the time.  La Centrale subsidizes in particular the retirement home l'Heureux Séjour. This institution, created in 1875, was first located on avenue d'Auderghem (Etterbeek), then rue Bara (Anderlecht) before moving to rue de la Glacière in Saint-Gilles in 1901. Av Henri Jaspar 91/1 - tel (02) 538 80 36

De Centrale

De Centrale, or Koninklijke Vereniging voor Joodse Weldadigheid, was founded in April 1920 on the initiative of Professor Nico Gunzburg. De Centrale offers material and moral help to the "poor and needy of our society".

Cercle Ben Gourion

The Ben Gurion Circle, founded in 1979, is a non-profit association, whose purpose is to organize, coordinate, and undertake all events and festivities in the cultural, political, social, recreational, and sports fields, and to disseminate information. The Ben Gourion Circle fights against anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and promotes, by all means, Jewish education and this, among the Jewish community in Belgium or abroad and the Belgian population in general.

Comité de Coordination des Organisations Juives de Belgique (CCOJB)

The Coordination Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB) federates the Jewish organizations in Belgium and represents them, independently of the different political, social or religious tendencies that may exist between them. The establishment of the union of the Jewish organizations of Belgium dates from before the war but it is necessary to wait until March 26, 1969 so that this last one is refounded under the name 'Belgian Section of the World Jewish Congress'. In 1984, the organization gave up its name for its current name: Coordination Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium.

Consistoire Central Israélite de Belgique

The Consistory perpetuates the idea of a federation of the religious communities of the whole country and, therefore, of the entire Jewish population of Belgium. It maintains and guarantees the synthesis of the opposing currents that manifest themselves within it. Finally, it personifies the model of Jewish integration into modern societies, to the point of inspiring projects in this area for religious minorities who have recently settled in our regions.

Forum der Joodse Organisaties

The Forum is a umbrella organization created at the end of 1993 and grouping all Jewish associations and institutions in Flanders.

Institut d'Etudes du Judaïsme (Institut Martin Buber)

The Institute of Judaic Studies is a university institution in the country that offers an education - in staggered hours - entirely devoted to the study of the multiple dimensions of the Jewish world from antiquity to the present day, as well as to the study of its various forms of artistic, linguistic and literary expression.

Service Social Juif

The Jewish Social Service draws its specificity from the history of an immigrant community decimated by the genocide in 1940 and whose survivors owed their survival to their own resources and also, for the most part, to solidarity. As early as 1944, the Association des Israélites victimes de la Guerre (AIVG) enabled the survivors to integrate into an emotional, social and professional life. It is in this context that the SSJ was founded in 1961 by a team of social workers.

The SSJ is today marked by an original multicultural vocation whose social action is inserted in the aid network of the French Community.

Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

In 1939, in Brussels, Jewish revolutionary activists, immigrants from Eastern Europe, Communists or from anti-fascist circles (former members of the International Brigades, MOI, Patronatn, Kultur Farayn, YASK, Secours Rouge) came together and created Jewish Solidarity, Sol. Under the German occupation, Jewish Solidarity was behind the creation of the Comité de Défense des Juifs, the CDJ. Many militants fought in the ranks of the Front de l'Indépendance, the FI. After the liberation, Solidarité Juive became a non-profit organization under the name of Solidarité Juive AVON (Aide aux Victimes de l'Oppression Nazie) and undertook important socio-cultural work to rebuild the destroyed Jewish life. Jewish Solidarity asserts its ideological adherence to communism, notably through its press, in Yiddish. Its leading members are almost all members of the Belgian Communist Party (PCB).

In 1969, Solidarité juive, weakened, decided with some former members of the different generations of the Union Sportive des Jeunes Juifs (USJJ), the Amicale des Moniteurs de ses colonies de vacances (Association of the monitors of its vacation camps), the Comité des Parents et Amis de l'Union des Jeunes Juifs Progressistes (UJJP), to create the Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique (UPJB), which broke away from the PCB but remained faithful to the values of the left.