The announced gathering of the Conference of European Rabbis, which was planned in Sarajevo in mid-June, was canceled after reactions from the domestic public. A heated response followed from the chief rabbi, in which the cancellation of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) European path was demanded.
In an interview, the secretary general of the Conference of European Rabbis Gady Gronich explained – the cancellation followed after a Sarajevo hotel canceled the group reservation of the organizers. There has been no contact with the authorities – to this day.
Gronich spoke about how the idea came about for this organization to gather in Sarajevo, about the cancellation of the event, and how he views the fact that they had no communication with the authorities.
“Sarajevo is a wonderful city”
“First, Sarajevo is a wonderful city. Second, the congress of the Conference of European Rabbis in its 70 years of existence has never been held in Sarajevo,” said Gronich, adding that the Standing Committee meets twice a year in places across Europe, but never in Sarajevo.
The proposal for the gathering in Sarajevo, he says, came from the High Representative Christian Schmidt, and the invitation was then extended by the then-mayor Benjamina Karic.
From the moment the idea to hold the congress in Sarajevo was accepted until today, he points out, he has had no contact with the authorities in Sarajevo.
The only official communication he had was with Karic and, as he stated, the Sarajevo mufti, with whom he spoke twice.
“After we agreed to come to Sarajevo, I came to Sarajevo at the beginning of May. I met with mayor Benjamina, the leadership of La Benevolencija, and the Jewish community, and the work on planning the conference began,” he said and repeated that he had no contact with the authorities.
Then came the disappointment in the form of the cancellation of the hotel reservation, and after what he called a campaign in the media and a campaign by the minister for social protection, referring to the minister of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy Adnan Delic, who reacted to the announcement of the event in Sarajevo.
“The cancellation came from the hotel. It was via an email from the hotel, they canceled our group reservation due to instructions that came from the secret service in the country,” claims Gronich.
Disappointment in the authorities
On several occasions, he repeated the lack of communication from the top of the state, that is, from the Council of Ministers. About the cancellation itself, he says: we are disappointed and did not expect this.
“And I wonder why the domestic media started a campaign, which was continued by the minister for social protection. No one contacted us before for information about us. Even now, as we are talking, almost a week later, we have had no contact with anyone from the government,” he emphasized.
In the end, he says: Sarajevo is a blend of different cultures and religions, but the disappointment in the representatives of the authorities remains.
“I always thought that Sarajevo is a city where different religions and cultures live side by side, unfortunately, the authorities disappointed us. Several people told me that we would be contacted by an official minister, who would call us and extend an invitation, however, we are still waiting,” he added.
It should be recalled that the first to react to the announcement of this event was Adnan Delic, minister of labor and social policy of the Federation of BiH (FBiH), who stated that Sarajevo must not be allowed to become a place from which genocide is justified.
Namely, the Conference of European Rabbis was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Munich, and its goal of operation, as they say, is the promotion of democracy, European unity, human rights, security, and peace in the Middle East.
Also, some media published that in Sarajevo as a topic of discussion the “renewal of the Jewish state, the state of Israel” was mentioned and that the main conclusion should be “strong public support for the Jewish people and their state, Israel, during their difficult times due to the two-year war in Gaza.”
However, the Jewish community in Sarajevo and the Conference of European Rabbis emphasize that the topics were supposed to be exclusively of a religious nature, N1 writes.
