Rabbi Binyamin Jacobs, recently appointed to supervise the district rabbinates of Holland, has stated that one of the major tasks in his new position will be to seek out Jews who were adopted by Christians during World war Two.

At the recent general assembly of the representatives from 11 Jewish communities in Holland, Rabbi Jacobs, one of the veteran rabbis of Holland and a member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), was nominated as the chief rabbi of the 11 districts of Holland. This means that he is the only Chief Rabbi who is a permanent resident of the country.

The Rabbinical Centre of Europe, based in Brussels, is the most prominent rabbinical body in Europe.

The last time a rabbi served in this position was in 1986. Rabbi Eliezer Berlinger, who passed away that year, was not replaced until now by any official successor.

Rabbi Jacobs upon assuming his position as chief rabbi is determined to locate thousands of individuals residing in Holland, whose parents perished in the Holocaust and who were adopted and raised as non-Jews.

“It’s quite shocking for me as a rabbi, to realize that people were born, raised and even passed away, without knowing that they were Jews”, said Rabbi Jacobs.

During WWII many Dutch citizens came to the assistance of oppressed Jews. One of the means of assistance was to adopt the children of Holocaust victims. Since the war, this has lead to a series of court cases between adoptive families and the relatives of the children who were adopted. The latter returned to the country following the war to reclaim and return the children to their surviving relatives. In most cases the judges ruled in favor of the adopting families.

Rabbi Jacobs related that he had information about his own relatives who had remained under the auspices of their adoptive families until quite an advanced age.

“There are many archives and documents that contain information that may lead to the whereabouts of those children who are now quite elderly”, said Rabbi Jacobs. “As a rabbi with a significant degree of authority, I may access this sensitive data smoothly and I shall demand that this material is made available to me”.

Another issue Rabbi Jacobs attempts to deal with is the restoration and maintenance of Jewish cemeteries dispersed throughout Holland. These cemeteries were first created as early as in the 17th century, when Jews began settling in Holland, mostly escaping oppression and Inquisition from the Iberian Peninsular.

Rabbi Jacobs believes that the government ought to participate in the funding of the maintenance of these cemeteries due to their special historical value which render their preservation worthy of government support.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)