Euroasian Jewish News

Josef Zisels' Open Letter to Creators of the European Jewish Parliament

Open letter of Josef Zisels to the creators of the European Jewish Parliament and to the organizators of the Internet vote on its membership.

There have been recent news of a newly-created Jewish organization, the European Jewish Union (EJU), that has recently been forming a certain “European Jewish Parliament.” The EJU reports that members of this parliament will be elected through an online vote at the EJU website from candidacies proposed by visitors of the website. My name has also been included into the “candidate list” from Ukraine.

Even leaving aside the question of the legitimacy of this kind of election and the competency of the future “parliament” to represent the interests of European Jewry, I must state the following:

I, as well as certain other “candidates” who found themselves in the list of potential members of this institution, have not only not given my consent to be nominated, but have not even been notified that I am a candidate for membership in some kind of new European Jewish representative organ. Not even considering other reasons, I am busy with many projects and programs in an absolutely different geographic part of the Jewish world, and thus do not plan and do not consider it possible to participate in the work of this organization. Thus I request to remove my candidacy from the online vote and to remove my name from the list of Ukrainian “candidates.”