Until the outbreak of World War I, Brussels enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity, which was surely a relief for the city’s residents but leaves the historian with little to say. However, perhaps the Jews were too comfortable in this elegant capital known for its rich chocolates and beautiful parks, because there was a high rate of assimilation.
The Holocaust and After
During the 1930s, many Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe sought refuge in Belgium. In fact, by the time the war reached Belgium in 1940, only 6 percent of the Jewish population had Belgian citizenship; the rest of the approximately 70,000 Jews living in the country were refugees.
Many of Brussels’s Jews fled to France, in advance of the German invasion, although some were later deported and sent to the death camps; abut 37 percent of those who remained perished during the Holocaust. Yet, that city’s Jews fared better than those who lived in Antwerp, where some 67 percent of the Jewish population was deported and killed. While those numbers are grim, Belgium was one of the few countries where the local populace did make heroic efforts to hide Jewish children and adults for the duration of the war.
After the war, some 800 Jews who had gone into hiding in Antwerp began to rebuild their community, as well as their diamond-related businesses. They were joined by other survivors, many of them Chassidic Jews from Eastern Europe, and thus Antwerp retained its Orthodox roots. Today, there are about 15,000 Jews living in Antwerp. Although the city is no longer the center of the diamond industry – much of the work has moved to India – Antwerp is home to Europe’s largest Chassidic community and it has retained its shtetl feel.
Brussels’s Jewish community was rebuilt by the city’s survivors and Jews who came there from displaced persons camps. Today, Brussels’s is the unofficial capital of the European Union and perhaps one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Most of the city’s 20,000 French-speaking Jewish souls are decidedly secular and the community has a 50 percent intermarriage rate.
But despite their differences, the rise in anti-Semitic incidents – including the murder of four people at Brussels’s Jewish Museum in May 2014 – has left both communities feeling worried. Muslims comprise about 20 percent of Brussel’s population and about 15 percent of Antwerp’s residents. The Washington Post called Belgium the most fertile ground in Europe for recruiting jihadists to join ISIS.
Some European and Jewish officials point out that this is not the 1930s; the Belgian government doesn’t condone acts of violence against Jews. Yet, at a time when many Jews are afraid to openly identify as Jews, more and more are finding that argument about as thin as a traditional dish: Belgian waffles.
