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The German Consulate in NYC welcomes its newest citizens: Jewish New Yorkers
(New York Jewish Week) — “Wilkommen,” David Gill, the German Consul General of New York, told a group of Jewish New Yorkers who had gathered at the Consulate last week. A slideshow behind him rotated through scenes of sweeping German landscapes, skylines and tourist attractions.
Nearly all of the 70 people in attendance had recently become German citizens under a law that allows for victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants to reclaim their German citizenship, of which Jews were stripped during the Nazi era. Though the law was enacted in 1949, sweeping changes in the last four years have allowed many more descendants to become eligible for citizenship.
Last Wednesday’s event, called “Discover Germany: Politics, Culture, and Jewish Life,” was the first of its kind to welcome these new Jewish citizens of Germany, and help them learn about German culture and the country’s Jewish life. (Both the United States and Germany recognize dual citizenship.) The aim, said Jordan Rothschild, a consulate representative, was to show these new nationals their future as German citizens, such as scholarship opportunities and a coveted EU passport.
“There is a German diaspora community in New York that has a very specific point of reference for Germany: their parents, grandparents, great grandparents were stripped of their citizenship — often they were survivors of the Holocaust and they have a very specific historical experience with Germany,” Rothschild, a Jewish New Yorker who became a naturalized German citizen 15 years ago at age 7, told the New York Jewish Week.
“There is a huge information gap about modern Germany because of that loss,” he continued. “So it’s very important that [the German Consulate] engages with this community because they’re German and it’s very important that we engage with them as the American Jews as well because that’s what we are.”
Among the event’s attendees, who sipped wine and snacked on German pretzels and mustard, were Harlen Pincus and Judy Pincus. The siblings grew up in New York with a German Jewish mother who fastidiously documented her German ancestry, despite losing her citizenship.
“Going back 200 years, she had all of the synagogue records, birth certificate and deaths and marriages; our grandparents’ original German passports,” Judy Pincus, 59, said. “In that we found letters that our great-grandfather had sent to the regional government talking about his persecution as a Jew and having to flee Germany and the losses he faced economically.”
Letters like that are exactly the type of evidence the German government looks for when extending naturalization. The Pincuses received their citizenship in 2022.
Although Judy Pincus said she has no plans to move there, the siblings traveled to Germany for a two-week trip to visit their grandparents’ hometowns in 2019. She became a citizen, she said, in part so that her two sons could easily travel and study there.
“I think she’d be happy,” Pincus said of her mother. “If she had the opportunity [to recover her citizenship], she would have done it.”
German Jewry has seen a major resurgence in its numbers since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; in the decades since, many Soviet Jews relocated there as well as survivors and descendants who came back. Today there are about 118,000 Jews in the country, according to the World Jewish Congress, including some 20,000 Israelis.
The national flags of Israel and Germany wave at the city hall in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 14, 2023. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
Germany is also a major ally of Israel — Chancellor Olaf Scholz was one of the first foreign ministers to visit the country after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. As Gill told the room in New York: “In this moment, we feel very close to our Jewish partners and friends, in a time of unseen threats against Israel and the Jewish people.”
Gill did not, however, mention the Molotov cocktails that were thrown at a Berlin synagogue earlier that morning. The firebombs landed on the sidewalk and caused no damage.
The event included a crash course on the German political system, an introduction to German cultural offerings in New York, as well as a presentation about scholarship opportunities for studying in German universities. Guests were a range of ages, from teenagers with parents to seniors.
“The night that Donald Trump was elected president, I was living in a Republican area and I came home that night and people were celebrating by shooting guns in the air to celebrate. I was terrified and wanted an option of somewhere else to go,” said Sarah Myerson, the cantor at Kane Street Synagogue, who became a German citizen last year. “I always had a positive relationship with Germany. I lived there and met my husband there. My grandmother always had a positive relationship with Germany, as well. Germany was her country.”
The New York Consulate naturalized roughly 900 citizens who are descendents of Holocaust survivors in the last two years. said Anna Miebach, a deputy consul who handles the naturalization applications. “German citizenship is often seen as an added sense of security, so if the political situation maybe is a bit troubling, we see an uptick in applications,” she told he New York Jewish Week. She said that in 2022, there were just over 8,000 naturalizations to German citizenship from around the world; roughly a quarter of them were American.
Miebach added that while the consulate doesn’t track the number of newly naturalized citizens who permanently move to Germany, she thinks it is rare. However, “visiting and studying is very common,” she said, and traveling to Europe with ease is a big part of the motivation of many who apply.
Miebach added that since 2020, there have been several changes in the naturalization law, called the Article 116 Par. 2 Basic Law. The changes allowed even more Jewish descendants to apply for and receive citizenship, including descendants who could trace their lineage through the matrilineal line as opposed to just the patrilineal line.
“We are here to support you in this journey, which can be very emotional,” Miebach said. “I think often when people want to start this process it feels a bit isolating. Every family member may not be on board with them getting citizenship. These outreach events are very important to make the whole process more personalized.”
The event concluded with a discussion between Rothschild and Sami Vingron, a German Jew who grew up in Berlin and is now in his final year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary uptown.
Vingron said that Jews in Germany find themselves in a unique position of being forced to acknowledge the atrocities of the Holocaust on a daily basis — as he put it, “I learned to windsurf at the Wannsee,” site of a meeting in which Nazi officials planned the genocide.
But this aspect of German Jewish identity makes the Jewish community feel a certain closeness and responsibility towards each other, he added. “There’s a very strong sense of collective identity, of being there for each other in Germany,” said Vingron, who plans to return to Germany. “Jews in our times want to preserve what was there but also want to go into the future and have a diverse Judaism.”
For Rose Freymuth-Frazier, a New York City based-artist who created a Facebook group for newly naturalized citizens, meeting other people who went through the same process as her has been a major bonus to the experience.
“When I walked into this room I got a bit choked up. Every time I walk into the Jewish space, I think, of course, we’re all related,” she said. “But the feeling is even more pronounced among German Jews. There’s a closeness here. We’ve all been through the same experience. It’s an amazing feeling.”
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The post The German Consulate in NYC welcomes its newest citizens: Jewish New Yorkers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints
It’s been a rocky year for relations between Toronto’s Jewish community and city hall following the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel—which led to an ongoing regional war in the […]
The post Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema attends a press conference following the violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer team, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
JNS.org – In the arsenal of the antisemite, denial is a key weapon. Six million Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust? Didn’t happen. The Soviet Union persecuted its Jewish population in the name of anti-Zionism? Zionist propaganda. Rape and mutilation were rampant during the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? What a smear upon the noble resistance of Hamas. And so on.
No surprise, then, that the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is now publicly regretting her use of the word “pogrom” in her summation of the shocking antisemitic violence unleashed by Arab and Muslim gangs in the Dutch city in the wake of the soccer match between local giants Ajax and visitors Maccabi Tel Aviv two weeks ago.
One day after the violence, Halsema noted that “boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli football fans, it was a hit and run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms.” She could have also mentioned (but didn’t) that the Dutch authorities ignored warnings from Israel that the violence was being stoked in advance in private threads on social-media platforms, resulting in a massive policing failure; that Ajax supporters were not involved in the attacks, undermining claims that what happened was merely another episode in the long history of inter-fan violence at soccer matches; and that the “boys” engaged in the assaults were overwhelmingly youths of Moroccan or other Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds, who gleefully told their victims that their actions were motivated by the desire to “free Palestine.” But at least Halsema grasped the nature of the violence. Or so we thought.
A few days later, she rolled back her initial comments. “I must say that in the following days, I saw how the word ‘pogrom’ became very political and actually became propaganda,” she stated in an interview with Dutch media. “The Israeli government, talking about a Palestinian pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. In The Hague, the word pogrom is mainly used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers, Muslims. I didn’t mean it that way. And I didn’t want it that way.”
On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.”
Halsema’s discomfort does not, of course, mean that what happened in Amsterdam was not a pogrom. Nor does she speak for the entirety of the Dutch political class. Both the center-right VVD Party and the further-right PVV Party, for example, continue to describe the violence as a pogrom and have suggested strong measures for countering further outrages targeting local Jews and visiting Israelis. Both parties have urged a clampdown on mosque funding from countries promoting Islamism, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and have called on the Netherlands to follow Germany’s example in denying or removing citizenship from those convicted of antisemitism.
But the mayor’s 180-degree turn speaks volumes about how the left in Europe enables antisemitism by denying that it is a serious problem. To begin with, there is a refusal to situate each incident in its historical context, which makes it all the easier to portray violent explosions as an anomaly. Listening to Halsema, you would never know that the Amsterdam pogrom was preceded in March by a violent demonstration at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum, where pro-Hamas protestors masked with keffiyehs and brandishing Palestinian flags—this century’s equivalent of a brown shirt and a Nazi armband—lobbed fireworks and eggs in protest at the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. What you will realize, however, is that Halsema is terrified of being labeled “Islamophobic.” That explains her pleas for understanding for a bunch of Moroccan thugs who express contempt not just for Israel but for the country that has provided them a sanctuary with housing, education and many other benefits.
Not only are Jews expected to take all this abuse lying down; they are then told by non-Jewish leftist politicians—often aided by Jewish “anti-Zionist” lackeys—that they have no right to situate the violence directed against them within the continuum of Jewish persecution over the centuries. What happened in Amsterdam, we are badgered into believing, was different because it wasn’t motivated by hatred of Jews but a righteous rejection of Israeli policy.
That’s why the behavior of some of the Maccabi fans is brought into the equation. Video showing fans descending into a subway as they chanted “F**k the Arabs” spread like wildfire on social-media platforms, along with reports that Palestinian flags adorning some private homes had been torn down. I am not going to endorse these actions, even if, as a Jew, I can understand and empathize with the feelings that motivated them, but I also consider them essentially irrelevant to this case. The advance planning of the pogrom, coupled with the wretched record of pro-Hamas demonstrations around the Netherlands in the previous year, proves that the Maccabi fans would have been hounded and attacked even if their behavior had been impeccable. Moreover, legally and morally, violent assaults are in a different league than acts of petty vandalism or the singing of distasteful songs. There can be no comparison, and nor should there be.
What the Amsterdam pogrom underlines is that the extremes of the left and the unreconstructed elements of the nationalist right are now at one in their attitudes towards Jews. On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.” Both terms carry the same meaning, but are expressed in language designed to appeal the prejudices of their respective supporters. For the left, claims of antisemitism are dismissed as expressions of Jews exercising their “privilege,” dishonestly seeking victim status at the same time as the “colonial” state they identify with is persecuting the “indigenous” inhabitants. For the right, claims of antisemitism are a tactic to shield the contention that Jews are superior to everyone else. Translated, both communicate the same message: The violence you experience is violence you bring upon yourselves.
To her eternal shame, Halsema is now trafficking in this noxious idea while presiding over a city in which no Jew can now feel safe, less than a century after their ancestors were rounded up and deported by the German occupiers. She should resign.
The post Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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On Academic Indoctrination in American Universities
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – On a site named “Slow Factory,” which serves as a resource for college pro-Palestine activists, its FAQ page poses the question: “Is ‘Free Palestine’ Antisemitic?” The answer, of course, is no. Why is that supposed to be a correct response? As they explain,
“First, antisemitism is a distinctly European cultural trait that has no historical equivalent in the Levant. … The movement does not single out or attack Judaism as a religion or people. … It hopes to create a truly democratic state in which self-determination and human rights are available for everyone.”
Before treating the claptrap quoted, we need to note that Slow Factory defines itself as “an environmental and social justice nonprofit organization” that works “at the intersections of climate and culture” to “redesign socially & environmentally harmful systems.” This is accomplished through “narrative change and regenerative design.” In short, mind control is supported by progressive funding. Influence Watch makes it clear that they are extremely anti-Zionist.
To return to the above-quoted excerpt, it is patently apparent that Slow Factory is presenting a false narrative. There is antisemitism in the Levant. While some of it could be traced to the influence of Christian missionaries, much of it is rooted in the Quran and accompanying Islamic literature. There are attacks on Jews by Muslims chanting itbah al-Yahud (“slaughter the Jews”) from Baghdad’s Farhud in 1941 to the massacre by Hamas in the Western Negev in 2023. Moreover, 31 years following the signing of the Oslo Accords, no democracy has developed in the Palestinian Authority; instead, it is a continuation and deepening of an authoritarian societal rule.
The “movement” indeed singles out Jews. It prevents them from crossing encampment lines. It attacks Jewish objects—whether people, institutions, places of business or customers at cafes. It seeks out the doors of Jewish students in dormitories. It lays siege to synagogues, hospitals named “Jewish” and Jewish schools. As for their vision of a democratic state, it is a movement that heralds the most undemocratic societies, whether in Gaza or Ramallah, Hebron or Shechem.
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As explained by Austrian-born essayist Jean Améry, already in 1969, the left on campuses has been captured by pro-Palestine rhetoric and framework referencing that aligned itself with, first extreme left-wing and then, in its eventual progressive mutation, melding with Islamist antisemitism. Améry (born Hanns Chaim Mayer) realized that Israel would be demonized since nothing could ultimately satisfy the eliminationist demands of anti-Zionists. Anti-Zionism was fashioned to be the new “honorable antisemitism.”
For those opposed to Zionism, Israel is a symbol of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism—the core evils leftists exist to oppose. This is the underlying layer of today’s debasement of anything pro-Israel, its pillars sunk into a feeling of intense and even depraved degradation of Jews and all things Jewish, especially an independent and successful Jewish state.
What has evolved is epitomized at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, where a director of counseling services can present antisemitic views at an international conference, describing Zionism as a “disease” that requires psychotherapy. FBI-style “Wanted” posters targeted Jewish faculty and staff members at the University of Rochester. The sheriff’s office in Walla Walla, Wash., was required to respond to a pro-Palestine student protest outside a Whitman Board of Trustees dinner at a winery forcing the college to relocate its dinner venue.
At De Paul University, supporting Israel landed one Jewish student in the hospital while a second student was lightly injured. At Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, the campus flagpole had a Hamas flag hoisted.
The deeper invasive connection between academia and anti-Zionism, however, is not in protests but in the educational content, or rather the indoctrination, that a student undergoes. For example, the University of California, Berkeley has announced that it is offering a course this coming spring semester describing Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force fighting settler colonialism.” More invidious, the course description reads as if a primer for a revolutionary underground:
“With the U.S.-backed and -funded genocide being carried out against Indigenous Palestinians by the Israeli Occupying Force, many have found it difficult to envision a reality beyond the one we are living in today.”
A second example is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seminar taught by linguistics professor Michel DeGraff. The course deals with “language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation and for peace and community-building.”
His position is that Jews have no connection to Israel and that Israeli textbooks “weaponize trauma of the Holocaust.” Israeli youth, he further asserts, grow up “with this trauma that made them fear that their existence is in threat.” That may be a fair observation, but he adds that the threat comes from “anyone who doesn’t believe in the superior position of the Jewish people in Israel.”
If you perceive some racism and black supremacist theory in this explanation, you are probably correct.
This is but one sphere of influence crushing on a student. In too many cases, his/her lecturers and advisors are those who sign pro-Palestine petitions, marshal the demonstrations and sit-ins, and provide support for campus groups when they are disciplined—or more correctly, when administrations attempt to do so.
The Capital Research Center has published a study titled “Marching Towards Violence” that investigated militant left-wing antisemitism on the campuses of U.S. colleges and universities. It has identified more than 150 campus groups that explicitly support terrorism or, at the least, emphasize violent anti-Israel rhetoric.
David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, sums up the situation:
“Anti-Israel forces focused on U.S. college campuses have transformed the American university into a vector for their activist agenda … playing the long game—what activists call “the long march through institutions”—in inculcating a stark ideological worldview that portrays anyone with power or success … as oppressors.”
Is there an antidote? One is the Deborah Project, which defends the civil rights of Jews facing discrimination in educational settings. Its aim is “to use legal skills and tools to uncover, publicize and dismantle antisemitic abuses in educational systems.” Other groups and individuals work on many levels of engagement; still, if the monied Jewish establishment institutions do not get behind this, then the anarchy, irrationality and hate will at some point come to overwhelm Diaspora Jewry.
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