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German Anti-Semitism Comes from New Place
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
October 4, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Today’s
European Jewry need to take a breath before leaping to conclusions about what
looks like a rising tide of anti-Semitism.
Jews living in Germany harbor a genetic wariness from Nazi atrocities
before and during WWII, begun officially on Kristallnacht Nov. 9, 1938 when
Hitler’s storm-troopers and vigilantes began torching Jewish businesses,
rounding up and shipping Jews off to concentration camps. While Jewish sensitivities to the
Holocaust still persist, today’s anti-Semitism is driven largely by Europe’s
growing Islamic population, largely coming from the Middle East and North
Africa. Recent anti-Semitic attacks
in Europe stem largely from Muslim populations expressing outrage with Israeli
policies toward Palestinians, especially the recent Israel-Hamas conflict [July
8 to Aug. 26] costing over 2,100 lives, causing billions in damage to the Gaza
Strip.
Faced with growing Mideast populations in Europe, Jews can expect a
backlash from Muslim vigilantes unable to distinguish between Israel’s Mideast
policy and ordinary Jews living, working and raising families in Europe. Speaking at a rally at the
Brandenburg Gate Sept. 14, 60-year-old German Chancellor Angel Merkel told
Germans it was their duty to fight anti-Semitism. Merkel urged Germans to show
“tolerance,” 75-years after the start of WWII.
Sponsored by the World Jewish Congress [WJC] in Berlin, the Brandenburg
rally featured the banner, “Stand Up:
Jew Hatred-Never Again,” putting Merkel at the forefront of world leaders
fighting anti-Semitism.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted anti-Semitic slogans at a rally in July
after the latest Israeli-Palestinian war broke out. Merkel needs to work with the German
parliament, the Bundestag, to enact laws against anti-Semitism.
Merkel needs to lead a German
media campaign that tells Germans that Israeli Mideast policies have nothing to
do with Jews living in Germany.
Neither should any Muslim face discrimination because of atrocities committed by
renegade Islamic criminal gangs like ISIS in the Middle East. “Jewish friends, neighbors and
colleagues, consider yourself at home here,” Merkel told the 5,000-strong crowd
at the Brandenburg Gate. Merkel
admitted that “not a single Jewish institution” in Germany does not have some
kind of police protection, insisting it was “every German’s duty” to take a
stand against anti-Semitism. Merkel
tried to make the distinction between Israel’s Mideast policies and
anti-Semitism, discrimination or attacks against Jews having nothing to do with
Israel’s policies. Merkel reminded Germans that anti-Semitism runs against “basic rights of freedom of
opinion and assembly.”
Worried about anti-Semitic acts, Berlin Technical University’s Monika
Schwartz Friesel examined thousands of emails to German-Jewish institutions. “We saw that more than 60% of
writers, who clearly evoke anti-Semitic stereotypes come from the middle of
society and many of them are highly educated,” concerned that the anti-Semitism
comes from more than the Muslim community.
Whatever lingering anti-Semitism lurks in Germany, Merkel has made it
clear it’s unacceptable. “The
legitimate criticism of the political actions of a government—be it ours or the
State of Israel—is fine. But if it
is only used as a cloak for one’s hatred against other people, hatred for Jewish
people, the it is a misuse of our basic rights of freedom and assembly,” said
Merkel, putting Germans on notice that anti-Semitism won’t be tolerated. Jews living in Germany need to hear
Merkel’s ironclad commitment.
Expressing worry about anti-Semitic attacks, the president Germany’s
Central Council of Jews Deiter Graumann mirrored Jews’ fears. “They are worried,” said Graumann. “And many Jews here ask the
question. ‘Has our Jewish population a future in Germany?’ I haven’t heard that question for
many years,” said Graumann reflecting on the latest spate of hate speech coming
largely from the Muslim community. Merkel and colleagues in the Bundestag need to work on laws that make hate
speech—including anti-Semitism—punishable crime in Germany. Unlike Arab countries, it’s a crime
in Germany to deny the Holocaust.
With Merkel pushing to expand the Jewish population in Germany, she’s got a ways
to go. After Hitler took power in
1934 the Jewish population steadily shrank from over 500,000, to under 200,000
by 1939, and around 22,000 by the end of WW11.
Today’s German Jewish population has grown to around 120,000. Merkel and German lawmakers have
done a lot to bring Jews back to Germany.
Merkel knows that many of Germany’s great accomplishments in arts,
science, medicine, literature and journalism for over 1,000 years were
indistinguishable from Jewish accomplishments.
German Jews, AKA Ashkenazi Jews, were at the top of prestige heap when it
came to the worldwide Jewish diaspora.
Today’s anti-Semitic sentiment in Germany—and Europe in general—stems
largely from Mideast Islamic immigrants, not from lingering neo-Nazis or
skinheads. “Zionists are fascists,
killing children and civilians,” said pro-Palestinians protesters during the
Gaza War, saying, “Jews should be gassed.”
References to the Holocaust are clearly hate speech and should be
prosecuted by German authorities to the fullest extent of the law.
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