Jews in the European Community: Sociodemographic Trends and Challenges by SERGIO DELLAPERGOLA /\T MIDNIGHT OF DECEMBER 31, 1992, the European Commu- nity moved one important step ahead in bringing about the economic inte- gration of 12 Western European countries (EC-12): Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. 1 Implementation of the Single Market, following the 1987 Single European Act, opened the borders of EC member states to free, mutual circulation of people, goods, and services and advanced the EC one step forward toward what could become, in due course, fuller political integration. At the same stroke of midnight on De- cember 31, Czechoslovakia, a country having common borders with the European Community, was in the process of splitting into two new sover- eign states, the Czech and Slovak Republics, putting an end to a union that had lasted since the end of World War I. Even more dramatically, a devas- tating civil war accompanied by episodes of atrocity and "ethnic cleansing" was ravaging what was once Yugoslavia, another of the EC's close neigh- bors. Thus, at the start of 1993, the European continent was emitting ambiva- lent and troubling political signals. Even as some areas were advancing toward the dream of peace and harmony envisioned by the fathers of European federalism after World War II, their neighbors were burying the thousands killed in the merciless destruction of Sarajevo and many more places in Bosnia. At the same time, the ramifications of major geopolitical changes, such as the crisis and dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the unification of Germany, were not yet fully Note: Research on Jewish demographic trends in Western Europe reported in this article was supported by a grant from the Vigevani Fund of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Research on Jewish educational statistics was supported by the L.A. Pincus Jewish Education Fund for the Diaspora. 'For an introduction to the concept, legal framework, and main socioeconomic aspects of the European Community, see L. Gladwyn, The European Idea (London, 1967); Jacques Delors, Le nouveau concert europeen (Paris, 1992); Dennis Swann, The Economics of the Common Market (Harmondsworth, 7th ed., 1992); G.N. Minshull, The New Europe into the 1990s (London, 1990); The Economist, Pocket Europe (London, 1992). 25