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Bulgaria: Israel’s Friend That You Didn’t Know About
Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Photo: Pexels.
In these challenging times, Bulgaria remains a key strategic partner for Israel in southeastern Europe. In July 2023, President Rumen Radev emphasized this by stating, “There exists a genuine sense of friendship and understanding between the peoples of the two countries based on deep cultural and historical ties, active partnership and mutual trust.”
Bulgaria has a history of low antisemitism, and has consistently supported the Jewish people. Its saving of the Bulgarian Jews during World War II was an unprecedented act that sealed the bond between Bulgaria and the Jewish people for eternity. At the time, Bulgarian politicians from across the political spectrum, members of Parliament led by Dimitar Peshev, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, writers, lawyers, doctors, artists, journalists, and many other prominent public figures stood up for their fellow Jewish citizens and opposed the government’s plan to deport them.
As a result, all of Bulgaria’s pre-war Jewish community who lived within the country’s borders — nearly 50,000 Jews — remained alive. A total of 11,343 Jews living in Bulgarian-occupied territories in Macedonia and Thrace were deported to concentration camps, with the participation of Bulgarian authorities.
After 1948, most Bulgarian Jews left Soviet-allied Bulgaria and immigrated to Israel. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Bulgarian Jews constituted 5% of all new immigrants in the 1948-1954 period. They created a living bridge between Bulgaria and Israel that has lasted for decades and should continue for many years to come.
Following the October 7, 2023 terrorist atrocities, Bulgaria demonstrated strong institutional support for Israel. The government condemned Hamas’s terrorist attack and expressed unwavering support for Israel. The National Assembly building was illuminated with the colors of the Israeli flag as a sign of solidarity. Bulgaria granted permission to Israeli citizens to fly to Israel and use the same planes to return without any restrictions, and at no additional cost. A “Prayer for Peace” was held at Sofia Central Synagogue that was attended by the president, the chairman of the National Assembly, and other high-ranking officials, along with leaders and members of all religious faiths, ruling majority members, and ambassadors.
In October 2023, the National Assembly approved a strong declaration in support of Israel, with no opposing votes. In November, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem, reaffirming Bulgaria’s full support for Israel and belief in Israel’s right to self-defense. A group of Bulgarian MPs visited Kfar Aza, Sderot, and the Shura military base to witness the aftermath of the October 7 massacre firsthand.
Bulgaria continued to stand by Israel in the following months. Pro-Palestinian rallies were banned by the authorities due to their indirect support for the terrorist organization Hamas. As antisemitism surged in the rest of Europe in the wake of October 7, its manifestations in Bulgaria have been limited to occasional hate speech on social media. Bulgarian universities have adhered to sound academic practices and provided a platform for Israeli voices to be heard.
On April 5, 2024, the UN Human Rights Council adopted an anti-Israel resolution condemning Israel for the war in Gaza, opposing its right to defend itself, and demanding that it be subjected to an arms embargo. Bulgaria was one of six countries, including the United States and Germany, that voted against the resolution. This was a strong demonstration that Bulgaria continues to be one of Israel’s most dependable global partners.
Economic and trade relations
Bulgaria and Israel cooperate in many fields, including politics, economics, strategic issues, culture, innovation, cybersecurity, energy, healthcare, and environmental protection. Many Israeli companies have offices in Bulgaria.
Bulgarian-Israeli trade and economic relations are founded on a robust bilateral legal framework established in the 1990s and strengthened by agreements such as the 2009 Economic Cooperation Agreement, the 2012 Agreement for Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Development, and the 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism, regarding defense industry cooperation. Israel recently ratified the Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Water, which is expected to take effect immediately.
In recent years, bilateral trade has grown and diversified. In 2022, Israeli exports to Bulgaria totaled $62.8 million, including copper scrap, non-woven fabrics, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, polymers, plastic elements, and fertilizers. In the same year, Israel imported $320 million worth of goods from Bulgaria, including petroleum oils, wheat, rye, barley, starch, plastic elements, passenger cars, and chemical elements. By the end of 2023, Israeli investments in Bulgaria amounted to €298.1 million, according to the Bulgarian National Bank.
Tourism
Tourism traditions between Bulgaria and Israel are longstanding. Israelis are warmly welcomed in Bulgaria, and the number of Israeli tourists has been steadily increasing. This positive trend was unaffected by Hezbollah’s terrorist attack on Israelis on July 18, 2012, at Burgas Airport in Sarafovo.
In 2022, more than 174,000 Israeli tourists visited Bulgaria compared to 54,342 the previous year, according to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Direct flights between Tel Aviv and Sofia are operated by six companies, varying by season. Israelis are drawn to Bulgaria’s natural beauty, rich history, warm hospitality, and cuisine. Popular destinations for Israeli tourists include Sofia, Nessebar, Varna, Bansko, Samokov, Borovets and Plovdiv. At the same time, Israel is a favored destination for pilgrims from Christian-majority Bulgaria.
In January 2023, the tourism ministers of Bulgaria and Israel, Ilin Dimitrov and Haim Katz, respectively, signed an agreement in Sofia to enhance cooperation in specific tourism sectors, such as spa and wellness, adventure, cultural-historical, and religious tourism.
Why strong ties with Bulgaria are important
Bulgaria is an important ally for Israel in the Balkans, especially after the deterioration in Israeli-Turkish relations over the ongoing war in Gaza. In 2023, Bulgaria and Turkey celebrated the 100th anniversary of their diplomatic relations. They enjoy good neighborly relations and are NATO allies. Turkey is Bulgaria’s largest non-EU trading partner, with trade between the two countries exceeding €7 billion in 2022. Bilateral tourism is also significant. Bulgaria supports Turkey’s EU membership bid and is often referred to as “Turkey’s gateway to Europe.”
When regional and global challenges arise, Bulgaria and Turkey look to each other for mutual support. After Russia cut gas supplies to EU nations via Ukraine, the two countries cooperated to ensure the energy security of southeastern Europe, with Turkey playing a crucial role thanks to its LNG terminals. Bulgaria is in the middle of several EU energy corridors and has its own extensive network of gas pipelines. This positions Bulgaria as an important transit country for potential pipelines that could transport non-Russian gas to eastern as well as central Europe, which would help Europe reduce its dependency on Russia.
On May 2, Turkey’s trade ministry announced that it was freezing all trade with Israel due to the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. (Trade turnover between Israel and Turkey amounted to over $7 billion in 2023.) To bypass these restrictions and maintain the flow of Turkish goods to Israel, importers are considering routes through European countries like Bulgaria and Romania.
Bulgaria, a co-founder of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), has been active in its development and regional cooperation efforts. Initiated by Turkey, BSEC has grown into a significant international organization that works to enhance regional economic integration. Bulgaria values BSEC’s economic cooperation, seeing it as vital for regional development with substantial trade and energy potential across two continents.
Since Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007, BSEC’s scope has expanded, integrating EU member states, strategic partners, candidate countries, and partner countries. Key priorities include energy and transport infrastructure, security, and the adoption of European democratic norms.
Bulgaria supports various strategic projects, including major pipelines and transport links, to enhance regional cooperation. Overall, BSEC has proven to be a successful framework for regional cooperation. Bulgaria remains dedicated to fostering synergy between BSEC and the EU, contributing to the region’s prosperity and stability.
Given these factors, Bulgaria could serve as a catalyst for the fostering of closer ties between Israel and BSEC member countries. It could also serve as a mediator between Israel and Turkey when those states are ready for a rapprochement. Additionally, Bulgaria could serve as a gateway to Israel for other Balkan countries, allowing them to replace Turkey’s significance for Israel in an assortment of sectors and strengthen their ties with Israel.
Prof. Efrat Aviv is a senior researcher at the BESA Center and an associate professor in the Department of History and at Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Petar Stoilov is a researcher at the University Center for Regional Studies and Analyses at Sofia University, “St. Kliment Ohridski”. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Trump Defends Plan to Accept $400 Million Jet From Qatar
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump on Monday defended his controversial decision to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, lauding the overture from Doha as “a great gesture.”
“I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much,” Trump said while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was — I thought it was a great gesture.”
The US president argued that the Qatari government gifted him the jet because he has “helped them a lot over the years in terms of security and safety.”
Trump announced on Sunday night that the US Department of Defense would receive a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a “gift, free of charge” from Qatar. According to Trump, the jet will serve as a replacement to “the 40-year-old Air Force One.” The jet will be considered property of the US federal government until the end of Trump’s term in office, after which ownership of the aircraft will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.
Trump’s decision to accept the gift from Qatar sparked immediate backlash, with critics accusing the president of violating the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries without the consent of Congress, and compromising national security.
The president’s plan to accept the lavish gift from Qatar has raised concern among foreign policy experts who worry that Doha could influence American policy in the Middle East. Qatar, a wealthy Gulf nation with substantial investments in US real estate and infrastructure, maintains a complex relationship with the Trump administration. Last month, Trump struck a deal to build a full 18-hole golf course in Qatar.
Moreover, Qatar maintains extensive financial links with Hamas, the terrorist group that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza after slaughtering 1,200 people in Israel and taking 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. Qatar has transferred an estimated $1.8 billion to the Hamas terror organization, according to reports. Doha also contributed $30 million per month to Hamas from 2012 to 2023, according to a Qatari official interviewed by Der Spiegel.
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Students for Justice in Palestine Awarded ‘Best’ Campus Group by University of California, Davis Newspaper
University of California, Davis in Davis, California, on May 28, 2024. Photo: Penny Collins/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Davis’s (UC Davis) official campus newspaper has named the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter the “Best Student-Run Organization or Club” for the second consecutive year, despite the group’s history of calling for violence against Jews and Israelis.
The Aggie defended granting SJP one of its highest annual honors, describing it as having “led some of the most prominent political organizing efforts at UC Davis” and fostering students’ interest in “global justice and university accountability.” The paper did not mention SJP’s links to Islamist terrorist organizations or its efforts across the US to advocate for the destruction of both America and Israel.
It continued, “Their advocacy, however, goes far beyond protest. Throughout the year, SSJP hosted film screenings, teach-ins, and information panels aimed at educating students on the historical and ongoing occupation of Palestine. They also continued to call out the University of California system’s financial ties to companies profiting from violence against Palestinians — pressuring administrators to divest and pushing for transparency in how student tuition is spent.”
SJP thanked The Aggie for the award.
“We are honored to receive this acknowledgement and humbled to be held in the high esteem of our peers,” the group said in a statement. “This acknowledgement is not ours alone — it belongs to everyone who continues to show up, speak out, and do the vital work in their communities. It is their dedication that shapes who we are.”
The Aggie has not responded to The Algemeiner‘srequest for comment on this story.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, UC Davis is a hub of anti-Zionist extremism in which faculty and staff regularly call for the destruction of Israel and acts of violence cheered as “resistance.” Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, for example, the university kept on staff a professor who appeared to call for violence against Jewish journalists and their children.
“One group of ppl [sic] we have easy access to in the US is all these Zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation,” American Studies assistant professor Jemma Decristo wrote on the X social media platform. “They have houses [with] addresses, kids in school. They can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” The message was followed by images of a knife, an axe, and three blood-drop emojis.
In 2024, UC Davis’s student government (ASUSD) passed legislation adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement and falsely accusing Israel of genocide.
“This bill prohibits the purchase of products from corporations identified as profiting from the genocide and occupation of the Palestinian people by the BDS National Committee,” said the measure, titled Senate Bill (SB) #52. “This bill seeks to address the human rights violations of the nation-state and government of Israel and establish a guideline of ethical spending.”
Puma, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Airbnb, Disney, and Sabra are all named on Students for Justice in Palestine’s “BDS List.”
Powers enumerated in the bill included veto power over all vendor contracts, which SJP specifically applied to “purchase orders for custom t-shirts,” a provision that may affect pro-Israel groups on campus. Such policies will be guided by a “BDS List” of targeted companies curated by SJP. The language of the legislation gives ASUCD the right to add more to it.
Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California, Davis is one of many SJP chapters that justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks In a chilling statement posted after the world became aware of the terrorist group’s atrocities on that day, which included hundreds of civilian murders and sexual assaults, the group said “the responsibility for the current escalation of violence is entirely on the Israeli occupation.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), SJP chapters — which have said in their communications that Israeli civilians deserve to be murdered for being “settlers” — lead the way in promoting a campus environment hostile to Jewish and pro-Israel voices. Their aim, the civil rights group explained in an open letter published in December 2023, is to “exclude and marginalize Jewish students,” whom they describe as “oppressors,” and encourage “confrontation” with them.
The ADL has urged colleges and universities to protect Jewish students from the group’s behavior, which, in many cases, has allegedly violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Communities in France, Germany, UK Form New ‘JE3’ Alliance Amid Surge in Antisemitism
From left to right: President Phil Rosenberg of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Josef Schuster of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Yonathan Arfi of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). Photo: Screenshot
The leading representative bodies of Jewish communities in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have formed a new alliance to amplify Jewish perspectives in international debates, amid a troubling rise in antisemitism across all three countries.
On Monday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), and the Central Council of Jews in Germany announced the formation of the new “JE3” alliance during a conference of the Anti-Defamation League’s J7 Task Force — the largest international initiative against antisemitism — held in Berlin.
This new alliance, inspired by the E3 diplomatic format that unites France, Germany, and the UK to coordinate on key geopolitical issues such as nuclear negotiations with Iran and peace in the Middle East, aims to provide a united Jewish communal voice on these and other pressing international matters.
The newly formed group also seeks to strengthen existing umbrella organizations, such as the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress, and the J7 initiative — a coalition of Jewish organizations in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States.
“It is our hope that the JE3 will become a powerful voice for our communities on issues that we care about together,” Josef Schuster of the Central Council, Phil Rosenberg of the Board of Deputies, and Yonathan Arfi of CRIF said in a joint statement.
“It is particularly significant that we brought together the new grouping in Berlin, 80 years after the end of the Holocaust,” the statement continued. “This is a show of intent by our three flourishing communities that we are committed to boosting Jewish life in our respective countries, cooperating in the fight against antisemitism, and enhancing bilateral and multilateral relations between our countries and Israel.”
Berlin: The largest representative organisations of European Jewish communities in France, Germany, and the UK have today launched a new ‘JE3‘ alliance. @Le_CRIF @ZentralratJuden pic.twitter.com/hXotcz6RDb
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) May 12, 2025
This new JE3 initiative comes as France, Germany, and the UK, as well as other countries across Europe and around the world, have reported record spikes in antisemitic activity in recent years, largely fueled by a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment following Hamas’s launch of its war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Last week, the J7 Task Force released its first Annual Report on Antisemitism, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when Nazi Germany formally surrendered to Allied forces on May 8, marking the end of World War II and the Holocaust.
The report, which echoes findings from recent studies, revealed a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents between 2021 and 2023. These increases include 11 percent in Australia, 23 percent in Argentina, 75 percent in Germany, 82 percent in the UK, 83 percent in Canada, 185 percent in France, and 227 percent in the US. Those numbers continued to spike to record levels in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.
Additionally, the data showed a concerning rise on a per-capita basis, with Germany reporting over 38 incidents per 1,000 Jews, and the UK seeing 13 per 1,000.
The seven communities identified several common trends, including a surge in violent incidents, recurring attacks on Jewish institutions, a rise in online hate speech, and growing fear among Jews, which has led many to conceal their Jewish identity.
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