The series of terrorist attacks in Brussels turned world attention to a city that is often in the headlines since it is where the headquarters of the European Union is situated, the place where they issue rulings and condemnations against Israel on a regular basis. * Thousands of people, including Jews, were in the metro and the airport during the attacks. Many of them were saved by open miracles. * Beis Moshiach interviewed members of the community and heard about the local mood, about what’s going on in the streets, and whether it is possible to feel secure in Western Europe these days.
“Ten minutes before the attack, I passed by that train station on my way to Antwerp to visit my wife who is in a convalescent home there after giving birth,” said R’ Shmuel Nisselevitz, a member of the Chabad community in Brussels. “The station is located near our house and I pass it nearly every day. It is frightening to think about what would have happened if I had been delayed by a few minutes.”
In the wake of the horrific attacks, the most serious in the history of Belgium since World War II, the country is on high alert. The airport was closed, flights were canceled, public transportation, including buses, was halted. Areas of the capital which are usually bustling with people were cleared out in fear of additional attacks.
The director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, R’ M. M. Margolin and his staff were able to hear the sirens outside the windows of the organization’s offices. They were preoccupied in ascertaining that nobody from the Jewish community was among the victims.
“We heard everything in real time because the metro station where the second attack occurred is only a few minutes-walk from our offices.”
His colleague, R’ Nisselevitz, described the tense atmosphere in the streets, although he thinks the tension was greater after the attacks in Paris.
“After several days when there was no transportation, everything has returned to normal, including the train station where the attack took place. The army and police are on constant alert and are working within those neighborhoods that have large populations of Moslem immigrants. In our area, we see less of the security personnel.”
The attack caught the people at the Rabbinical Centre of Europe just as they began their day of work.
“We immediately evacuated our family members from the Jewish school. We were afraid of additional attacks and we contacted other families to take their children one at a time, not all at once. From then until after Purim, all the families remained at home and awaited instructions from security,” said R’ Margolin.
What are the feelings of the community in the face of the attacks and the difficult security situation in Europe?
Our offices are a few minutes away from the metro station where one of the attacks occurred and there’s no question that this has affected us. The truth is, the Jewish community in Brussels and Europe in general are not surprised. We have been witnesses to repeated alerts for quite some time.
It was only a matter of time until an attack like this happened. The fact that the terrorist from Paris hid here in this city for several months and they were unable to find him, tells us that people are helping him and other terrorists, which leads us to the obvious conclusion that this won’t be the last attack here, may Hashem protect us. Tension is routine here. There is a feeling in the air of not being safe. Purim events that were planned for a long time were canceled in accordance with instructions from security.
Tell us about the events that were canceled.
For the Shnas Hakhel we planned a big gathering in collaboration with all the Jewish communities in the city and we expected about 1000 people. We spent a fortune on this event which was going to include a concert, but it was all canceled at the last minute. On the morning of the attack we were asked by the police to cancel the event. They said that an event that big in an enclosed venue makes it hard for them to secure. In addition to which, the country raised the alert level to the highest level and there weren’t enough policemen and security people to secure the event.
Apparently, as long as the security forces do not have the third terrorist who escaped the airport, there is fear that he will return and attack somewhere else and so we complied with the request and canceled the event. The truth is, even before we got the request from the police, we considered canceling it. You have to remember that people lost their lives and there was an atmosphere of national mourning in the streets, so it is not a good time to hold a festive concert and ignore what is going on around us.
Are people afraid to walk in the streets? How would you describe the feeling in the Jewish community?
The problems that the Jewish community in Europe contends with can be divided into two. There is classic anti-Semitism, mainly hooligans who spray-paint offensive messages, break synagogue windows, break Jewish gravestones and try to burn shuls and Jewish centers. In addition, there are those wearing fancy suits and ties that fight Jews in a more gentlemanly fashion, like by passing laws against circumcision and sh’chita.
In recent years a new and more difficult problem has cropped up, namely, terrorists seeking to kill. They have no problem giving up their lives in order to do so. These terrorists look for what they consider high quality targets that are symbolic and densely peopled, and they are armed with assault rifles and bombs. The police and security forces in Europe do not know how to fight this.
We know that among the targets the terrorists have their eye on is the Jewish community, as we saw with the Jewish museum a few years ago in Belgium. So the concern level is high. It is not certain whether an armed soldier or policeman can prevent an attack by a terrorist who doesn’t care if he dies. Fears are greater in enclosed places and not so much on the street. Remember, the latest attacks were not against Jews in particular but against all European citizens. We believe that G-d watches over us and we do what we can to make sure that all Jews in the community are careful and safe.
Are Jewish institutions in Brussels properly protected?
There is close collaboration with the police. Every Shabbos during davening, armed soldiers stand in front of the shuls. There are soldiers at the preschool and school too. Yet, not all Jewish institutions are protected. Then again, as I said, I am not sure that a soldier poses a serious threat to a terrorist who is willing to blow himself up. He can be a deterrent to the classic anti-Semites who want to cause damage and trouble and run away, and he can stop a terrorist who comes with just a knife.
Furthermore, the rules of conduct for soldiers toward civilian citizens are not completely clear. For example, soldiers stationed at the entrance to synagogues cannot examine those who go in and out. This is not like Israel where every security guard can conduct a search of anyone who wants to enter. In the airport and metro station there were soldiers who were unable to prevent the terrorists’ entry. They themselves were hurt. So my answer is that the only protection we have is Hashem and we rely only on Him.
In Eretz Yisroel you hear, here and there, that people are happy that the Belgians who are leaders in the boycott movement are themselves suffering from terrorism. Do you, who speak a lot to local politicians, hear them speaking any differently now?
I heard and read about people’s joy over the attacks in Belgium and I think it’s a mistake and not a Jewish attitude.
From my conversations with politicians I still don’t hear any signs of sobering up. The average Belgian does not draw a connection between the two. They think the attacks Moslems carry out in Europe are in the name of their religion or because of improper treatment of the Moslem population that pushes them toward doing things like this, while the terrorism in Israel is because of the so-called occupation.
But I do hear politicians and security people saying that even if the Israeli government is wrong in its views, we should learn from its experience against terrorism. I also heard people say it’s not worthwhile boycotting Israel when we should be aligning ourselves with them, if only to learn how it fights terror.
MIRACLES IN THE AIRPORT AND THE METRO STATION
We heard about Jews who were saved by miracles and divine providence. What can you tell us?
There were some inspiring stories. There is a ger Tzedek in our community who bought a ticket for Eretz Yisroel for Tuesday morning. When he came over to me, I asked him to stay another two days until after Purim. We needed his help in arranging the big Purim event, which I told you did not happen in the end. He readily agreed. When he agreed, he postponed his flight to Thursday. When we heard about the attack that took place Tuesday morning, we spoke about how he was saved thanks to his willingness to help with Mivtza Purim, because he would have been in that terminal at that time.
I heard from someone else, also a mekurav to the community, that he had already undergone the security check and had boarded the plane minutes before the bombs went off where he had just been standing. If he would have stayed there a few minutes longer, he could have been hurt. We must thank Hashem, for there definitely were miracles in the midst of the devastation. Tuesday morning there are regularly scheduled flights to Eretz Yisroel and the United States and they are always full of Jews. The fact that hardly any Jews were among the wounded and killed is incredible divine providence.
How do you provide strength for people in these difficult times?
From Purim we learn how life depends on Hashem. It wasn’t Achashverosh or the EU that saved us or took care of us. Even in these difficult times we don’t place our hopes in the police and the army nor on intelligence information. Our response to the wave of terror attacks is to increase the light; to do more. We are planning on opening a new preschool and a kosher restaurant and this is after recently dedicating a new shul and mikvaos.
We will soon be starting new shiurim for broad segments of the Jewish community. This is our armor.
I SUDDENLY REALIZED MY BROTHER-IN-LAW WAS NOT WITH ME
As R’ Margolin pointed out, there were quite a few Israelis and other Jews in the airport on Tuesday morning with destinations divided between New York and Eretz Yisroel. Two of them, residents of Eretz Yisroel, who belong to one of the large Chassidic groups and live in Yerushalayim, were injured, one moderately, while the other, his brother-in-law, was treated for shock.
R’ Chaim Winternitz, who was lightly injured, is recovering after an operation on his foot to remove shrapnel. According to his family, he is already walking around and is significantly improved. His brother-in-law, R’ Mendel Farkash, is still considered moderately to severely injured after being under heavy sedation and on a respirator for most of the week. Now his family reports about a slight improvement in his condition. Shortly before Shabbos (following Purim) they took him off of sedation and he reacted to his surroundings. The family sang Shabbos z’miros with him and when they said a bracha he tried to answer amen.
In an interview with the website B’Chadrei Chadarim, the lightly wounded man spoke about the reason for his injury:
“I was on my way back to Eretz Yisroel from a wedding that my brother-in-law made in Antwerp. We arrived at the airport in Brussels and everything was calm. I was in the entrance to the arrivals terminal, before the security check, when we suddenly heard a thundering explosion. I ran and a minute later there was another powerful explosion and I fell. I tried to move but could not; it hurt so much. I could not move my legs. I lay there bleeding for a long time until two private individuals came to help me. They put me on a bench on the side of the airport.
“My brother-in-law, Mendy Farkash, who was also injured, was hospitalized in Brussels where they are trying to wean him off the respirator. We were there together in the airport. After the first explosion we ran together as I told him to take our suitcases with him. Then I suddenly realized he was gone and then came the second explosion when I fell and was hurt. I don’t know what happened to the luggage. The big miracle was that when my wife went to take care of the customs tax I told her to take our daughter with her and they were thus both saved. After the bombs went off, they took shelter in the area.”
As the days go by, we learn that the attacks that took the lives of dozens could have been even more devastating and a more serious attack was prevented at the last moment. The three terrorists who carried out the attacks in the airport ordered a large taxi that would take them from their apartment in northern Brussels to the airport on Tuesday morning. But when the driver arrived, they saw that the dispatcher had sent a small taxi and they couldn’t put all their suitcases with explosives in the trunk and they had to leave two suitcases behind.
We can only imagine how much greater the tragedy would have been if they had been able to take all their explosives with them. A few days later we also learned that the terrorists planned on also attacking a Belgian nuclear power plant and that their co-conspirators had taken twelve hours of videos in the course of which they followed a highly placed nuclear official, perhaps with the intention of kidnapping him and forcing him to help them penetrate the place. And more serious than that, Belgian forces discovered that two of the people who work at the reactor, Moslems, are also members of the terrorist organization.”
Some of Anash, members of the community in Brussels, as well as the rav of the community, R’ Michoel Rosenblum, visited the Jewish wounded:
“There is a Belgian Jew whom we know, an irreligious fellow, who lost one of his legs as he stood next to the terrorist as he was about to board a flight to Tel Aviv. Together with another person we went to read the Megilla for him. At first we heard that he did not want visitors, but I informed them that I was a rabbi and not a visiting friend. When we walked into his room, he reacted emotionally and asked how we had heard about him. Later on, after we spoke for a long time, he agreed to hear the Megilla and he was given mishloach manos.
“He told us that despite the explosion right near him, he had not lost consciousness. It was important to him to emphasize that he thanked G-d for keeping him alive. He said he was on the check-in line when he heard a powerful explosion which threw him into the air. He landed on the ground with only one foot. As he lay there, he saw a soldier near him who was also injured by the blast but less seriously. The soldier immediately took out a tourniquet from his vest and stopped his bleeding, thus saving his life. If not for the soldier, it is unlikely he would be here today.”
R’ Rosenblum also told of a mekureves to the community, who during the explosion at the metro station was putting her card into the machine to get in, but the card was rejected time and again for no apparent reason. “If she had arrived a minute earlier and had gone downstairs, she would definitely have been among the victims.”
Among the members of the Chabad community in the EU there is a man who arrived at the airport Tuesday morning on his way to visit his family in Eretz Yisroel and was called to complete a minyan in the shul at the airport. He walked there with his children, and in the middle of the davening he heard the explosions and found out that they had taken place at the check-in area. If he had remained there with his children, they too would have been among the victims.
Along with the devastation, many Jews experienced miracles and open divine providence.