An American Jewish – German News & Information Digest

edubow@optonline.net

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AMERICAN EDITION

May 31, 2010

Dear Friends:

I’m back from my nine day trip to Germany during which I accompanied the 30th
annual AJC delegation which participated in the Exchange Program AJC has
with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The group started out in Hamburg for a
couple of days and then spent the rest of the time in Berlin. The trip gave me
some genuine insights into what is happening in Germany these days.

The biggest problems Germany is facing have nothing to do with Jews, Judaism
or Israel but, as in the U.S., they are economic. The bailout of Greece has not
gone down well at all. The vote in favor of it was close with many in Chancellor
Merkel’s own party abstaining. The weakness of the Euro is frightening to many.
The worries about the fiscal and currency problems that racked Germany in the
1930’s have not dissipated. There is great unhappiness in the coalition
government itself. Some say the Chancellor’s political strength is ebbing in both
Germany and in the EU as well. You can read more about it by clicking here.

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,696435,00.html But it’s
not only in the coalition that concern resides. Those in the Social Democratic
Party (SPD) aren’t happy either. Click here to read about their unhappiness.
http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100529-27511.html

If I had to describe the national mood I would say they’re in a funk. A close friend
told me that one of her grandsons is reading a children’s book called, “It Could
Be Worse”. I’m going to recommend it to my German friends. Incidentally, don’t
take what I have to say as gospel. Read the results of a recent poll about how
Germans feel about their government and the economy. Click here.
http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100528-27481.html

In spite of the Chancellor’s outstanding support of Israel, and that of almost every
high ranking politician we met with, the reports of disintegration of Israel’s
position vis a vis the Palestinians among the general population were troubling.
In spite of legitimate arguments to the contrary, the settlements issue, the Gaza
blockade and the “militarism” of Israel are having a profound impression on a
very pacifist country. Trying to improve Israel’s image is a tough sell these days.

Almost everywhere we went we heard much about a “Two State Solution”. It was
more the way it was said rather than the words themselves. To a person, I’m
pretty sure that all the members of our group are in favor of peace and a two
state solution. I am! However, the rejoinder to almost any positive about the
current Israeli government is met with “Two State Solution”. It’s become almost a
code word. I think you get the idea. Not good!

Islamic terrorism is very much on the minds of the various local and national
German agencies that deal with this sort of threat. In Hamburg alone, since 9/11,
the percentage of time spent on this particular kind of activity has gone from 5%
to 40%. The message is clear and the government is trying to do something
about it.

Extremism on the right is alive and well. In fact, not surprisingly (as I have
reported previously) it is catching on with younger people. That’s not going away
either. Neo-Nazis remain active and their message is seductive to the young,
unemployed especially is the former East German states.

In Berlin I visited the newly opened Topography of Terrorism Museum built on

the ruins of the Gestapo Headquarters. It continues to amaze me that the
Germans keep building and opening public displays about all the awful things
that have happened in their past. The need to publicly exhibit their terribly tainted
history seems to be a national necessity. I’m not enough of a group psychologist
to understand it but I do offer my applause.

One of the highlights of the trip was the “Home Hospitality” aspect. In Hamburg
the entire group had dinner in the home of a former German exchange

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participant. In Berlin we split them up into small groups and the Adenauer
Foundation had them invited to people’s homes for the evening meal. Out of
such meetings friendships arise and that is an important facet of what exchange
is all about.

The most important gathering was the 30th anniversary formal celebration at the
Adenauer Foundation Building in Berlin. Speeches by AJC’s President Robert
Elman, its Executive Director David Harris, KAF’s President Hans-Gert
Poettering and State Minister Eckard von Klaeden topped the program. It was a
grand event.

I’m back home to my normal duties of taking out the garbage and the recycling
as well as doing my newsletter. So, let’s get on to the news…

IN THIS EDITION

AN OPEN LETTER TO GERMAN CHANCELLOR MERKEL – A personal (but

open) letter to the Frau Merkel.

LIBERALISM AT A “CROSS” ROADS – What happens in a Christian country

when an Islamic woman or Turkish descent becomes a Minister.

MAY DAY! MAY DAY! – There are no maypoles on May Day – only
demonstrations and counter demonstrations

A EUROPEAN J-STREET – We’ve got one. Why shouldn’t they?

BERLIN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL – Its 5th birthday.

THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. GERMANY – A battle of words on a sensitive

subject.

NORTH RHINE WESTPHALIA – The election outcome. Still up in the air.

AN OPEN LETTER TO GERMAN CHANCELLOR MERKEL

AJC’s Executive Director David Harris wrote an “open letter” to Chancellor

Merkel which was published both in the Jerusalem Post and in Huffington Post.
Much of it spells out AJC’s feelings about the current German government and
much of it is about David’s personal relationship to Germany. If you haven’t
already seen it, I think you should take the time to read it. Click here.
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?

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LIBERALISM AT A “CROSS” ROADS

In the last edition I lauded the State of Lower Saxony for appointing a young
German woman of Turkish descent as a Minister in their government. As The
Local puts it, “For five days, seven hours and 38 minutes, the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) seemed to be just the party Chancellor Angela
Merkel has always wanted.

That’s how long it took between the appointment of Aygül Özkan, a Muslim born
in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents as the new the social affairs and
integration minister of Lower Saxony, and the call by a conservative Bavarian
parliamentarian questioning whether she was in the right party.

During that brief period, the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies
appeared to be a tolerant, modern political party. A party even gays, Muslims,
and career women with children could support. A party that could occasionally
put ideology aside while searching for fair solutions for the common good. But
Germany’s conservatives have now once again embraced the divisive narrow-
mindedness of right-wing hard-liners like Roland Koch and Edmund Stoiber.

How did it come to this? Özkan found it hypocritical that despite Germany’s
alleged separation of church and state, the country’s schools are allowed to nail
crucifixes to their walls. In a matter of hours, her new boss, Lower Saxony’s state
premier Christian Wulff, angrily denounced her comments. The state welcomed
crucifixes on its school walls but was against Muslim headscarves for teachers.
Full stop. Wulff didn’t even feel the need to explain the glaring double standard
he was promoting.

Özkan was even forced to repudiate her call to ban Christian symbols from
Germany’s public schools.

The hanging of Crucifixes in very Catholic Bavaria is actually illegal. It hasn’t

stopped the practice. In Lower Saxony it’s still legal. The problem is very
complex. There’s a great deal of anti-Muslim feeling in Germany and while
technically there is separation between church and state, in practice, well, it’s
frequently not the practice. No doubt! Germany is a Christian country. It’s not the
United States where even we have problems over separation. In Germany when
you have an alleged lessening of a long term Christian practice brought forth by a
Muslim you have a prescription for trouble – and that’s exactly what happened.
There’s more to the story. Click here to read about it.
http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20100427-26815.html

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

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“Mayday” is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in
voice procedure radio communications. However, in Europe May Day is
synonymous with International Workers' Day, or Labor Day, a day of political
demonstrations and celebrations organized by unions and other groups.

In the U.S. our own Labor Day which comes in September hasn’t got much to do
with “Labor” any longer. It’s mostly a “backyard grill day” and the unofficial end of
summer. However, in Germany May 1st seems to be the day that right wing neo-
Nazis and left wing counter-demonstrators try to “get it on” with each other. This
year according to The Local.de, “More than ten thousand demonstrators
demonstrated against neo-Nazi marches on Saturday across Germany. Around
200 extreme right wingers were detained. Fearing riots, police across Germany
made efforts to separate leftist and neo-Nazi demonstrators in several cities
across Germany.

In Berlin, neo-Nazis and people from the far-left spent hours vying for control of
May Day demonstration routes through the German capital, although by early
evening on Saturday, confrontations had mostly ended peacefully. Violence, with
brawls between leftists and rightists, burning barricades and damage to banks
and shops, has been an annual ritual on May Day for more than two decades in
Berlin, Hamburg and other German cities.

In Berlin, about 500 of the far-rightists marched through a northern district of the
capital, although they were outnumbered by thousands of opponents. Police had
expected around 3,000 neo-Nazis to march, and some 7,000 police were
deployed along with a water cannon. Leftists claimed 10,000 people had turned
up to confront the neo-Nazis.

It does my heart good to hear that so many people come out to demonstrate
against the neo-Nazis. And, I don’t think they are all “leftists” even though the
main organizers of the counter activity are. I’m usually concerned that these days
that the leftists, who are not at all friendly to Israel, might connect their anti-Nazi
stance with their feelings about the Jewish State. However, in all the reports I
read on the Berlin demonstration this was not the case.

A EUROPEAN J-STREET

Most American Jews who follow Middle Eastern – Israeli events (Doesn’t
everyone?) know about the more liberal, center-left leaning American Jewish
lobbying group – J-Street. It is the left’s answer to AIPAC. It took a little while but
now a very similar European group has come to life. It is called (Why am I not
surprised?) J-Call. JTA recently reported, “A new European Jewish lobby
modeled after J Street will present a petition criticizing Israeli policies while
defending Israel’s right to exist.

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JCall will present its “European Call for Reason” petition in the European
Parliament in Brussels on May 3. The document underscores Israel’s right to
exist “as a Jewish and democratic state” but criticizes Israeli policies and calls for
a “viable and sovereign Palestinian state” alongside Israel. It has collected more
than 2,000 signatures online.

The petition was launched in the Le Soir newspaper on April 20, Israel’s 62nd
Independence Day.

JCall co-founder David Chemla, chair of Peace Now in France, told JTA that J
Call was inspired by J Street, the U.S. lobby group that calls itself pro-Israel and
pro-peace.

“Diaspora Jewry is not monolithic,” Chemla said in a telephone interview, adding

that members of JCall—for now primarily in France, Belgium and Switzerland—
had fought against European attempts to boycott Israeli scholars and trade, but
“we also criticize the politics of Israel in the territories.”

While J-Call may have some strength in France, I couldn’t find anything about
their ability to organize in Germany. They certainly have members and
supporters and will probably have more in the not too distant future. The “peace
oriented”, to a large extent pro-Palestinian feeling in Germany is quite strong.
Pacificism and pro-underdog sentiment runs pretty high in Europe. As the U.S.
led current peace “negotiations” go along, we’ll just have to wait and see what
sort of impact J-Call will have. Stay tuned!

BERLIN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

Time flies! It has been five years since the Berlin Holocaust Memorial was
constructed (It’s official name is “The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”)
and because of that DW-World.com has published an opinion piece by their
culture editor, Cornelia Rabitz.

Frau Rabitz notes that there was much discussion and argument about whether
Berlin needed such a memorial and what it should look like. But now that it’s up
she sees that it was needed after all. She notes, “The field of pillars lies at the
heart of Berlin in quick walking distance to the Brandenburg Gate - arguably
Germany's most famous national symbol. Open to visitors at all times, the
memorial is not fenced off, there's no entry fee, and it requires no more from its
visitors than a willingness to engage with it.”

Even if it is just one more sight to see on their tour of Berlin, the number of
visitors the memorial receives daily testifies to the monument having become just
as part of everyday life as it is part of Germany's larger culture of remembrance.

One should not forget, as the memorial marks its fifth anniversary, that it was not

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something forced on the country from above or by the descendents of the
victims. Nor did its conceptualization begin at an official level. In fact, the idea
was born twenty years ago in a citizens' initiative spearheaded by journalist Lea
Rosh and historian Eberhard Jaeckel. And so the monument is, in the best
sense, a manifestation of personal dedication and historical conscience.

Frau Rabitz’s concluding paragraph is priceless and so totally apt.

This memorial replaces neither live conversations with those who endured the
Holocaust, nor the private mourning of individuals. And it certainly doesn't
absolve us from our responsibility of coming to terms with the Holocaust,
National-Socialism and war in general in our schools, scholarship and society. It
is, however, an example of how intensively - after a long period of concealment
and sugar-coating - Germany is dealing with its Nazi past.

I’ve never heard it said better.

THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. GERMANY

I don’t have enough economics background to know how to judge, as The New
York Times did in an editorial, how Germany handled the recent bailout of
Greece. Regarding the way Germany is facing the fiscal problems of Europe, the
NYT said, “Now, at the worst possible moment, Germany is turning to nationalist
illusions. Europe’s past economic successes are now viewed as German
successes. Europe’s current deep problems are everyone else’s except
Germany’s. That is neither realistic nor sustainable. But German politicians and
commentators are callously and self-destructively feeding these ideas.

Earlier this year, when Germany was still refusing to participate in a bailout, the
country’s largest newspaper by circulation, Bild, suggested Greece should sell
the Acropolis to pay off its bond market creditors. (It estimated the monument
could bring in $140 billion.) A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party
suggested auctioning off some of Greece’s Aegean islands. Meanwhile, a Bild
poll showed a majority of Germans in favor of expelling Greece from the euro.

One might expect that even the mention of Germany having “nationalist illusions”
would elicit a very strong reaction. It did! The Local, a highly respected English
language news website featured a reply entitled, “Flagellating the Fatherland”
The Local’s Marc Young argues in an editorial rebuttal. I know The New
York Times is facing painful cutbacks these days, but putting a Bild story
through Google translate is no basis for an inflammatory editorial.

America’s paper of record on Thursday published a blistering critique of

Germany’s response to the euro zone emergency sparked by Greece’s debt
woes. Titled “Germany vs. Europe,” the opinion piece painted an ugly picture of
a callously selfish Germany returning to petty nationalistic tendencies in times of

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crisis.

It then quoted Bild, Germany’s biggest and – rather more importantly – most
sensationalist paper, as evidence how the country was rife with absurdly anti-
Greek sentiment.

The barbarous Germans are demanding the Greeks sell the Acropolis! The
Germans want to kick the lazy Greeks out of the euro!

In truth, Bild’s anti-Greek campaign was simply a classic tabloid effort to sell
papers with populism. Would the New York Times base an editorial on US
healthcare reform on Fox News reporting? The boys in the Axel Springer tower
must be giddy with glee for managing to hoodwink America’s most important
daily with such transparently silly coverage.

On the back of this breathtaking journalistic lapse, the editorial goes on to attack
Germany for refusing to simply open its chequebook and pay off the European
Union’s problems as it has for much of the post-war era.

Young concludes by saying, “The next time the New York Times op-ed page
cares to devote so much space to Germany, perhaps they should read The Local
first. We’d be happy to educate them about what’s going on here – and they
wouldn’t even have to use Google translate.

There is more to each of the two pieces quoted above and at the end I’ll give the
URL’s for both.

The reason I decided to copy parts of the argument here has nothing to do with
economics but, rather, nationalism. If you have read DuBow Digest for any
period of time you know where I stand. Germans have so sublimated their
national pride, let alone, nationalism because of the shame of the Nazi era. It has
involved itself in the EU and NATO (plus other European and international
connections) almost to a fault. Maybe in terms of their Middle East policy, indeed,
to a fault.

There is almost nothing worse than accusing it of “nationalist illusions” and as far
as I can tell they bend over backwards so they cannot be accused of such
actions. Of course, Germany has “national interests”. Every country has them.
However, I think the record is pretty clear that the Germans see their interests
fulfilled best by subsuming them in European or international groupings and not
in “nationalist illusions”.

Since starting this newsletter about two years ago I have learned how careful one
must be with the use of words. In this case, no matter the rights or wrongs of the
economic issues, The New York Times should have been more careful with the
language it used.

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For The New York Times click here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/opinion/27thu1.html?hp

For The Local article click here. http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100527-

27471.html

NORTH RHINE WESTPHALIA

In my last edition I noted that the State election in North Rhine Westphalia could
be disastrous for the ruling CDU/CSU/FDP coalition headed by Chancellor
Merkel. A bad loss could have had a profound affect on her majority in the Upper
House of the Parliament (Bundesrat). Well, the loss was bad but not quite bad
enough. The opposing major party, the Social Democrats, came out one seat
short. They tried to form a coalition with two smaller parties but because of issue
differences it could not be worked out. So, at the moment the two big parties are
trying to work out a compromise where both of them would form the NRW
government in what is called a “Grand Coalition”. If that happens, the Chancellor
will be able to hold on to her Bundesrat majority by the slimmest of slim
majorities. Of course, it’s more complicated than that. To get a better
understanding, click here. http://www.dw-
world.de/dw/article/0,,5612989,00.html

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See you again in mid-June.

DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be

contacted at edubow@optonline.net Both the American and Germany
editions are also posted on line at www.dubowdigest.typepad.com.

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