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Head Shliach Inaugurated as New Chief Rabbi of Holland

By Kobi Nahshoni for Y Net News

HOLLAND — Twenty-two years after Holland’s last chief rabbi Eliezer Berlinger passed away, the country’s Jewish public is finally getting a new spiritual leader. Representatives of Holland’s Jewish communities assembled last week and picked Rabbi Binyamin Jacobs to serve as the chief rabbi of 11 of the 12 provinces in the country.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

Jacobs is a member of the Rabbinical Committee at the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, an organization that includes some 700 communal rabbis in the continent.

Upon his election to the position, Jacobs declared that one of his first objectives would be to locate Holocaust survivors who were adopted by Christian families during World War II and are unaware of their Jewish origins.

Adopting Jewish children was one of the rescue methods used by Dutch citizens during the Holocaust.

After the war there were many cases in which the children’s families and the adopting families engaged in legal battles over the children, many of whom remained in the custody of their non-biological parents.

Tracing people through state archives

According to Rabbi Jacobs, hundreds of these adopted children – now very old people – still live in Holland today and could be traced through state documents.

“For me as a rabbi it is shocking to think that there are people who were born, raised and even died without knowing that they were in fact Jewish,” he stated. “As a rabbi holding an official position it should be easier for me to gain access to such delicate information, and I plan to insist on getting it,” he added.

Rabbi Jacobs said that he himself had several relatives who grew up not knowing they were Jewish.

Holland’s new rabbi also pledged to work for the restoration and preservation of some 200 Jewish cemeteries across the country. Jacobs claimed that the government must also contribute to the conservation of the cemeteries, some of which date back to the 17th Century. “This is an inseparable part of Dutch history, and one that must not be neglected,” he concluded.

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6 Comments

  • a attender

    Interesting to note: A Chiefrabbi is inaugurated by the president of the Dutch Jewish  communities and by the oldest Rov of the country. In this case the oldest Rov in function that also inaugurated Rabbi Jacobs was his spiritual mentor Rabbi Jitschak Vorst who is the other Head-Shliach (and the first shliach) to the Netherlands. Isn’t this a major fulfilment in what the Rebbe told both of them to build up Dutch Jewry from WITHIN the existing jewish structure. Though Rabbi Vorst and Rabbi Jacobs mentioned chabad very carefully in their speeches it was very interesting to hear that it was especially the Presidant of the NIK (umbrella organisation of the  Dutch jewish communities) that mentioned chabad and their shluchim constantly. He also said that the succes  the dutch rabbis (shluchim) have is due to their Chabad philosophy. For anyone that knows the jewish western-european  (especially the yekkishe Dutch) way of thinking this is a very very big achievement.  Rabbi Vorst mentioned in his speech that he was very happy to inaugurate his talmid as the Chiefrabbi. He told the audience that he consideres Rabbi Jacobs not only as a friend and colleague but mainly as a son. Rabbi Jacobs (whom just as Rabbi Vorst originates from one of the first Dutsh-Jewish families) thanked Rabbi Vorst and his wife for leading him on the path of Chabad and on the road to the Rebbe. He also thanked, mentioning individually, all the shluchim of the Netherlands, for their dedication and mesiras nefesh to rebuild that what was once destroyed.