Editorial Office of the Magazine "Hatikwah" of the Zionist Federation of Belgium, Brussels (Fond 145)

Jews likely first settled in modern Belgium during the early-13th century, although the exact date of their settlement there cannot be ascertained. Today, the Jewish population of Belgium numbers approximately 30,000 - the 15th largest Jewish community in the world. In 1370, after Black Death, the brutal Brussel's Massacre wiped out the Belgian Jewish community. Jewish life did not flourish until the beginning of the 18th century, when Belgium became a part of Austria, subsequently of France and the Netherlands. In 1830, when Belgium was granted independence, religious equality was established, and for first time Jews were able to have their own communal organization with a chief rabbinate in Brussels. When the Allied armies entered Belgium in late 1944, they found 19,000 Jewish survivors. These were the remnants of a community numbering 100,000 before the German occupation. Another 30,000 survived by escaping, being hidden by Belgian neighbors, or by having false documents. In 2006, there were about 31,000 Jews living in Belgium, mainly in Brussels and Antwerp. The majority of Antwerp Jews work in the diamond industry. It is the center of Orthodox Jewry, while Brussels Jewry is mostly non-Orthodox. The Zionist Federation of Belgium is the only organized Jewish body conducting cultural, educational, and social programs on nationwide basis. The federation's biweekly paper is the "Tribune Sioniste", the only Jewish publication in Belgium.

Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Russian State Military Archive (Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv), Osobyi Archive, Fond 145. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in 2000. Note: Original records transferred to Belgium in 2002, and currently located at the Le Consistoire central israélite de Belgique (CCIB), Brussels.