The heads of Jewish communities in the West will have to take a fast-track course in Russian, said a Jewish activist from London upon his return from the annual conference of the European Council of Jewish Communities (ECJC) held last week in Berlin. Russians occupied important posts at the conference and are willing to pay for them and to maintain Jewish communities with their own money.
Council Chairman Jonathan Joseph of South Africa, who lives in London, has yet to learn Russian, but during the course of the conference he managed to enlist a Jewish billionaire from the Ukraine, Igor Kolomoisky, granting him the honor of being elected president of the ECJC. Kolomoisky, 48, was unanimously elected — if it can be called an election — based on Joseph's recommendation.
The ECJC represents communities from 40 European countries, including Russia and FSU states. The choice of Kolomoisky reflects "a new paradigm that really draws together East, Central and Western European Jewry as a united front," said Joseph in the inauguration speech.
Delegates from France and Britain responded wryly to the appointment, recalling that the European Jewish Congress has been headed for several years by a Russian oligarch by the name of Dr. Moshe Kantor, who managed to unseat Pierre Besnainou, a French billionaire who heads the Socialist Foundation.
The problem is that the Jewish billionaires from the West, who are willing to fund the activity of Jewish organizations, are gradually becoming fewer. With the exception of barons Arik and David de Rothschild, western billionaires are leaving the Russians to take their places as leaders of international Jewish organizations. According to the Jewish Chronicle Joseph was in a bind and faced bankruptcy when Kolomoisky was summoned from Dnepropetrovsk, where he used his own money to build the strongest Jewish community in Eastern Europe.
"We had to turn to the East in order to survive," Joseph told delegates who lodged criticism against the appointment. Three members of the leadership resigned in protest over the faulty democratic procedure. "If that's a crime, I'm to blame," he said.
Kolomoisky did not address the delegates in Berlin at all. After he was chosen president of the ECJC he declined to deliver a speech on his plans, but released a statement pledging to spend millions of euros to strengthen European Jewish life.
