William Echikson, at The Blogs

Apr 18, 2024, 11:58 AM

Celebrating a Special Bar Mitzvah in Brussels

It's a bar and bat mitzvah tradition -- throw a big party, collect gifts, and celebrate. But our small synagogue in Brussels, the International Jewish Centre, recently feted the Jewish journey into adulthood without big gifts or big parties. Instead,...

Dec 27, 2023, 2:34 PM

Light amid the darkness in troubled Belgium

As war rages in the Mideast and antisemitism rises in Belgium, a much-needed, rare layer of light spreads over the International Jewish Center’s Brussels synagogue: Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish leaders gather together to light Hanukkah candles. The celebration is part...

May 13, 2023, 1:47 PM

Teaching Their Chapter: Meaningful Bnei Mitzvahs

Learn about a new Bar and Bat Mitzvah training program

The communities are different, but they face a common challenge: how to prepare their students for one of the biggest days of their Jewish life - the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Chaim from the UK manages 100 students in his...

Nov 30, 2021, 12:09 AM

Meeting Our Brussels Neighbors

The International Jewish Centre synagogue in Brussels resembles a fortress. Its facade is a windowless concrete wall. The front door is so forbidding and thick that it seems designed to withstand a tank attack. Guests must send in their...

Sep 19, 2021, 1:41 PM

Europe’s Jews Mobilize for Afghan Refugees

As Afghan refugees fled the Taliban takeover, Europe rushed to evacuate thousands, yet simultaneously shut its door to prevent others from finding safety. Fortunately, HIAS and the European Council of Jewish Communities have launched an emergency campaign to offer support. Though American in origin, HIAS...

Aug 3, 2021, 12:22 PM

In Search of France’s Famed Camondos

The Nissim de Camondo museum is an elegant French decorative arts house museum located in the Hotel Camondo in Paris, France, on 1 September 2020.(Photo by Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

When I lived in Paris, I often walked through the Parc Monceau and passed the gilded Hôtel Camondo. Inside was one of the world’s greatest collections of eighteenth-century French furniture and art, testimony to the rise and fall of...

Jul 28, 2021, 6:24 PM

Climate change: How should Jews respond?

From floods in Belgium, where I live, to a scorching heatwave in the United States, where I grew up, the threat of climate change seems everywhere. How should Jews respond? That was the question we asked at our most recent...

Jun 7, 2021, 11:14 PM

Featured Post

Europe’s unequal treatment of its Jewish denominations

Brussels' Grand Rabbi Albert Guigui speaks during a ceremony at Brussels' Great Synagogue on June 2, 2014, following the May 24, 2014 fatal shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. (AFP Photo/Belga Photo/Laurie Dieffembaco)

Letting governments pick and choose which Jews they like and dislike affects not only Progressive Jews, it impacts the future of all European Jewry

May 6, 2021, 6:22 PM

Let’s not save all synagogues

More than 3,000 synagogues dot Europe’s countryside and cities. Many are abandoned. The Jews who used them were murdered or emigrated. Some lie in ruins; others have been transformed into cafés, sports halls, shops, and even a saloon, in...

May 4, 2021, 11:37 AM

Saving Jewish Languages: Yiddish to Judeo-Tat

Wherever Jews have settled, they have adopted local languages and added a Jewish twist – from Yiddish and Ladino to the lesser-known varieties such as Judeo-Tat (Azerbaijan and Dagestan) and Judeo-Malayalam (Southern India). Over the past two centuries, migration...

About Me

William Echikson, a founder of the International Jewish Centre of Brussels, served for three decades as a foreign correspondent in Europe for a series of US publications including the Christian Science Monitor. Wall Street Journal, Fortune and BusinessWeek. He is the author of four books, including works on the collapse of communism in Central Europe and the history of the Bordeaux wine region.