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‘Unorthodox’ author Deborah Feldman is a lightning rod in Germany’s debate about criticizing Israel
(JTA) — The TV series “Unorthodox” took the world by storm in 2020. Now, recent comments about Israel by the story’s Berlin-based Jewish heroine, author Deborah Feldman, have created a storm of another kind.
Feldman, 37, a dual American-German citizen, rose to fame through her story of fleeing the Satmar Hasidic community of Brooklyn to the welcoming streets of Berlin. She is now making the rounds of German and British media, unabashedly criticizing Israel’s war against Hamas and taking umbrage at what she considers Germany’s misguided support for the Jewish state.
Her pet peeve: German eagerness “to lecture us on how any criticism of Israel is antisemitic.” On a recent talking heads TV program on the broadcaster ZDF, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said “Israel has the right to defend itself and Germany has the obligation to stand by Israel.”
“Israel must also adhere to international law and do everything in its power to protect civilians,” he said. “But Israel’s task is almost impossible since Hamas hides behind civilians.”
With Habeck listening remotely on a big screen behind her, Feldman, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors from Hungary, told him she was “appalled” that Jews are “selectively protected” in Germany. Though antisemitism is on the rise, she said, “sometimes empty synagogues” get police protection while other places where Jews gather — such as kosher restaurants or Jewish museums — have to take care of themselves. JTA has not confirmed this, and Feldman and her attorney have not responded to JTA requests for comment.
Feldman has garnered support from some, derision from others. The controversy hits a raw nerve in Germany, where criticism of Israel has been subject to intense scrutiny for decades after World War II. But there has long been a growing thirst for Jewish voices to break the supposed taboos.
Most Jews in Germany rush to Israel’s side in times of crisis, whether or not they like the country’s government and its policies towards the Palestinians. German politicians and mainstream Jewish organizations, such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany, usually dismiss voices like Feldman’s as an annoying fringe phenomenon — but Jewish leadership has become increasingly uncomfortable with the dynamic.
In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Berlin-based American Jewish scholar Susan Neiman decried Germany’s “silencing of critical Jewish voices,” including Feldman’s.
Neiman, director of the Einstein Forum foundation in Berlin, noted that several venues had canceled events promoting Feldman’s new book, “Judenfetisch” (“Jew Fetish”), which argues that German guilt over the Holocaust has distorted its relationship to Jews and Israel. Neiman also said the Chabad Lubavitch movement in Berlin is “suing Feldman to take the book off the shelves.” JTA has learned that Chabad won its suit on Nov. 1 over a false allegation related to state funding for Ukrainian-Jewish refugees in Berlin. Books on the shelves of shops can stay where they are, but the offending material will be removed from future editions, said Chabad’s attorney Nathan Gelbart.
Some book tour events may have been canceled, but Feldman, who moved to Berlin in 2014, has still been getting plenty of publicity, noted writer Mirna Funk — “more than any of us,” said Funk. The German-born Jewish novelist and journalist recently shared the Arik Brauer Journalism Prize from the Vienna-based Middle East think tank Mena-Watch for writing on the Middle East, with Israeli-German psychologist and author Ahmad Mansour.
“Deborah has no idea about Jews in Germany and no idea about Israel, but since Oct. 7 German media has dragged her onto many TV shows and quoted her in many newspapers,” Funk said in an Instagram post.
Author Mirna Funk, shown in 2020, thinks that Feldman is getting more air time than German-born Jews. (Gerald Matzka/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“The woman comes from an anti-Zionist sect in Brooklyn and is considered a representative of Germany’s Jewish community,” Funk wrote. “It’s slowly getting to the point where I can only stand it all if I can beam myself 15 years or so into the future and look back on this time, after the nightmare is over.”
Though German foreign policy has been overall very supportive of Israel, popular support for the Jewish state has waned steadily since the 1960s. Politics reflects that shift, with increasing government criticism of Israel’s settlement policy over the years. Germany no longer automatically stands up for Israel in European Union and United Nations forums.
Sacha Stawski, president and founder of the Frankfurt-based pro-Israel initiative Honestly Concerned, agreed that there is a distinct popular appetite for Jewish Israel critics.
“People like Deborah Feldman have made a business model out of being anti-Zionist, and being outspoken Israel haters,” Stawski told JTA.
Such critics are “well-received guests on all the major talk shows,” he said. “For somebody like Feldman to claim that people are trying to shut her up and that she’s not able to raise her voice is the greatest bullshit I have ever heard.”
Feldman and Neiman also are among the more than 100 signatories to a recent open letter in N+1 magazine from Jewish writers, artists and intellectuals in Germany, condemning what they describe as an indiscriminate crackdown on voices critical of Israel. The letter was also published in German in the left-wing daily Tageszeitung.
The letter was the brainchild of American writer Alex Cocotas, 36, who moved to Germany eight years ago after living in Israel for a couple of years. It started as a text message to a handful of friends who, like him, were “horrified about what was happening in Israel, but also about what was happening here in Germany as well,” he told JTA.
What triggered the action was a government ban on certain statements and symbols at pro-Palestinian demonstrations following Oct. 7. After participants in one Berlin rally celebrated the brutal attack, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the group that called for the rally would be banned. Schools in Berlin were told they could also bar the wearing of the Palestinian flag, keffiyeh headscarves and other pro-Palestinian symbols.
It was such broad measures that the open letter targeted. While condemning the Hamas attack, the writers said the banning of “public gatherings with presumed Palestinian sympathies” — including those called by Jews — serves to “suppress legitimate nonviolent political expression that may include criticisms of Israel.”
Cocotas said that despite his efforts to reach the mainstream Jewish community in Germany, most of the signatories were American or Israeli Jews living here.
In laws shaped by the post-war reckoning with its National Socialist past, Germany bars Holocaust denial and the use of Nazi slogans and symbols. Germany also has formally accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which includes the denial of Israel’s right to exist as a form of antisemitic hate speech.
“In the U.S. you can deny the Holocaust in public, and you will not be prosecuted,” said Cocotas, adding that he recognized the differences between German and American laws. But “I don’t consider ‘Free Palestine’ to be an antisemitic statement. It should be protected speech.”
His concerns echo those of Germany’s commissioner on antisemitism and Jewish life, Felix Klein, who recently told the Guardian newspaper that the broad restriction of protests was “worrying,” because “demonstrating is a basic right.”
“It’s unfortunate that it’s a very small group of Hamas supporters and people that are hating Israel that cause all this trouble,” Klein said.
Another American transplant to Berlin, William Glucroft, told JTA that he believes the restrictions are deeply problematic. “As a writer and journalist, I can only be for unfettered access to public expression,” Glucroft, who signed the open letter, told JTA in an email. “As a Jew, my safety and well-being are only thanks to democratic ideals of equal protection and rule of law. That has to be there for everyone.”
“Germany’s understanding of its history leads it to think it owes something to Israel, a country that did not exist” during the Third Reich, he continued. Germany itself “blurs the line between Jews and Israel, which endangers Jews and by the IHRA definition that Germany itself endorses, is antisemitic.”
Micki Weinberg, founder of the Berlin based SHIUR Jewish learning project, also received the open letter. But he declined to sign.
“I completely understand one’s interest to have empathy with the Palestinians — and I do — but that doesn’t mean ignoring attacks on Jews and denigrating a legitimate fear,” he told JTA by text message.
“If the letter simply acknowledged the real risk of antisemitism within Islamist and pro-Palestinian/Anti-Israel groups and asked for a separation between legitimate pro-Palestinian demos and antisemitic pro-Palestinian demos, then that would be fine.”
Funk, who calls both Berlin and Tel Aviv home, said she was surprised to find the name of an Israeli friend among the signatories.
“I texted him after I saw his name on the list: ‘What the f— are you doing?’ There is a huge disconnect between the established Jewish community in Germany and the Israelis,” she said. “They simply don’t understand Germany.”
“I would not sign, because Palestinians are not suppressed,” she said, noting that there are 5.5 million Muslims in Germany and about 100,000 registered members of Jewish communities.
“They are not being silenced,” said Funk. “They are demonstrating on the streets every f—ing day for Gaza. So I don’t know what they are talking about.”
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Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views
Former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally of Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, Nov. 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, faced scrutiny on Monday over her sympathetic views toward Bashar al-Assad, scurrying away from a press gaggle on Capitol Hill after being asked for her views on the Syrian president’s removal from power.
Gabbard, a combat veteran and former US congresswoman from Hawaii, was meeting with senators tasked with voting whether to confirm or deny her nomination to be the country’s top intelligence official. When asked by journalists for her thoughts on the overthrow of the Assad regime, Gabbard glanced up, smiled, and quickly left the room.
Exiting her Senate meeting, however, Gabbard made a brief statement in which she mentioned Syria but not Assad.
“I want to address the issue that’s in the headlines right now: I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard said on Monday.
Gabbard has previously been labeled an Assad “apologist” over her repeated refusals to forcefully condemn the Syrian government during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011. Assad has been accused of war crimes during his regime’s brutal crackdown on rebel forces, which ultimately prevailed in toppling him on Sunday. The long-time Syrian ruler was also an ally of Russia and Iran, allowing the latter to use Syrian territory to send weapons to terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
In 2017, Gabbard held a private meeting with Assad in Syria and refused to condemn him afterward, saying that it is “important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace.”
In 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Gabbard appeared to again give Assad the benefit of the doubt, saying, “The evidence needs to be gathered and, as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such.”
Gabbard has also made controversial comments on Russia, claiming that American and Western “hostility” motivated President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea. She also repudiated attempts to sanction Russia, stating that “Russian people are a proud people and they don’t want the US and our allies trying to control them and their government.”
Nonetheless, Gabbard has also espoused pro-Israel views. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, she has often defended the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza and accused pro-Palestinian protesters of being part of a “radical Islamist organization.” She has also criticized a UN resolution which would have called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group, stating that “we have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”
The post Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Lawmakers Celebrate Assad’s Fall, Stress ‘Vigilance’ in Monitoring Next Steps in Syria
US Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, May 21, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US lawmakers have celebrated the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria but also cautioned that many of the rebel Islamist groups who helped to oust the longtime president could pose further threats to the United States and its allies in the Middle East.
Assad fled the capital of Damascus on Sunday as a coalition of rebel groups stormed the capital, ending his family’s five-decade rule. The deposed leader, who has been accused of war crimes for his crackdown on rebel forces since 2011, was a partner of Russia and allied with Iran, which for years has used Syrian territory to send weapons to its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
However, many Western observers have expressed concern that the leading Syrian rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union, Turkey, and the UN.
Following Assad’s fall, US lawmakers were quick to call for both optimism and vigilance.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, posted on X/Twitter that he hopes for a “better future for the Syrian people” following the fall of Assad, but warned about the potential threat of the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) in the region.
“As we bid good riddance to Assad, and hope for a better future for the Syrian people, we must remain vigilant regarding the threat of ISIS and continue to support our partners the Syrian Kurds. This is not a time to let our guard down,” Van Hollen said.
On Sunday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the successful bombing of ISIS camps and fighters in central Syria, saying that the operation was carried out to “disrupt, degrade, and defeat” the terrorist group and prevent it from capitalizing on the fall of the Assad regime.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed optimism at the new “opportunity” that Assad’s departure represents. However, he added that Syria must adopt a democratic process to select its next leader.
“While it is a time for opportunity, it is also a potentially dangerous time for the region,” Risch said in a statement. “Moving forward, it is imperative the Syrian people choose their next government and Assad faces long-overdue justice for his war crimes.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for a “peaceful transition” of power in Syria and warned the country’s new leaders to “avoid the chaos that often follows the fall of a tyrant.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) stated that the US must remain “vigilant” in protecting its allies and citizens across the region.
“While it’s welcome news to see the humiliation of Russia and Iran and the end of Assad’s tyranny in Syria, we must be vigilant about protecting our citizens, interests, and allies in the region,” hewrote on X/Twitter. “Distrust but verify the intentions of anyone that might come to power.”
A US State Department spokesperson said on Monday that the Biden administration was seeking ways to engage with Syrian rebel groups and was reaching out to partners in the region such as Turkey to help launch informal diplomacy.
The post US Lawmakers Celebrate Assad’s Fall, Stress ‘Vigilance’ in Monitoring Next Steps in Syria first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Antisemitic Intimidation’: Pro-Hamas Vandals Strike Jewish University of Michigan Official’s Home, Car
Vandalized car belonging to the wife of University of Michigan regents members Jordan Acker. Photo: Screenshot
Pro-Hamas activists at the University of Michigan vandalized the car and home of a Jewish member of the school’s board of regents early Monday morning.
“Divest. Free Palestine,” said the message the group graffitied on a Chevrolet Traverse owned by the wife of Jordan Acker, a Jewish lawyer who describes himself as a center-left Zionist and supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Next to it the vandals spray-painted an inverted triangle, which has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”
Additionally, Acker confirmed with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, the protesters breached his property and threw what he believes were glass bottles filled with urine through his window.
“In the morning, I woke up to the sound of what appeared to be broken glass, and at first I thought one of my kids dropped a glass, but about 30 seconds later, the police rang the doorbell, and I came downstairs to find shattered glass all over our dining room and my wife’s car spray painted with pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas messages,” he said. “I was targeted because I am Jewish.”
The incident follows a semester of escalations by the pro-Hamas movement on the University of Michigan’s campus. In August, a group which calls itself the “Tahrir Coalition” roiled the campus with a demonstration aimed at sabotaging one of its biggest fall events. Some 45 students and non-students deluged the Diag section of campus for two hours, resulting in mass arrests by local law enforcement.
Weeks later, six people perpetrated a “Nazi like” assault on a Jewish student near the campus, kicking and spitting on him. Amid these developments, an anti-Zionist party which captured control of the student government during spring elections voted to defund student clubs, an ultimately unsuccessful measure its members hoped would force the university to boycott and divest from Israel.
More recently, the university, reportedly initiated disciplinary proceedings against one of its most outspoken and controversial anti-Israel groups, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), the result of which may be a suspension of up to four years.
Acker told The Algemeiner that he has tried to be a responsible and nuanced participant in the campus’ charged discussion about Israel and the future of the Palestinian people, conceding valid points to pro-Palestinian partisans for the sake of intellectual integrity and tempering polarization. However, doing so has not reduced the contempt anti-Zionists on campus harbor against him, and he believes they targeted his place of residence for seeing him as, above all, a Jew.
“I do believe that Palestinian rights are important, but I’m not willing to call for the destruction of Israel” Acker explained.
“I think they know there is nuance, but I don’t think they care. They’re focused on conformity with the idea that Israel should be driven into the sea, and as long as my answer is ‘absolutely not under any circumstances,’ they will continue to treat me as [an Itamar Ben-Gvir] supporter,” he added, referring to Israel’s far-right minister of national security.
Acker then noted that the vast majority of American Jews are to the left of the mainstream pro-Israel movement in America, which is largely supported by the Christian Evangelical community, and that the decision to protest — for example, outside reform “liberal” synagogues in his community — reveals that antisemitism is the primary motivation of most anti-Zionists.
“I had a conversation with a university professor who is deeply involved in this, and I asked him why his group did not protest at Evangelical churches. He looked at me kind of askew and asked, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, well look, there is no group in this country that is more empathetic and sympathetic to Palestinians and their rights than mainstream American Jewry,” Acker recounted. “The answer on this is pretty clear. There’s a substantial proportion of this protest movement, especially now, that is dedicated not to making Palestinian lives better but simply to harassing Jews.”
He continued, “There’s a group that protests outside a very liberal Ann Arbor synagogue every Saturday, without exception, and this has gone on for years. When I think about the people who attend a liberal synagogue, I know that they probably have very two-state solution, pro-Palestinian rights views. And yet, you know, they find the need to protest Jews on the holiest day of the week, right? It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with trying to make Jews feel uncomfortable in public spaces.”
The University of Michigan condemned the attack on Acker’s home and personal property as antisemitic in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.
“The vandalism of Regent Jordan Acker’s home early this morning is a clear act of antisemitic intimidation,” the statement read. “The University of Michigan condemns these criminal acts in the strongest possible terms. They are abhorrent, and, unfortunately, just the latest in a number of incidents where individuals have been harassed because of their work on behalf of the university. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We call on our community to come together in solidarity and to firmly reject all forms of bigotry and violence.”
This is not the first time that pro-Hamas activists on college campuses have vandalized property in the name of anti-Zionism.
In September, at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a pro-Hamas group placed a shocking antisemitic display targeting Jews and law enforcement on the gate leading to the private residence of university president Benoit-Antoine Bacon. “Pigs off campus,” said the large banner which People’s University for Gaza at UBC (PUG) tacked to the property. Next to it, the group staked on the finials of the structure the severed head of a pig.
In October, when Jews around the world mourned on the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, a Harvard University student group called on pro-Hamas activists to “Bring the war home” and proceeded to vandalize a campus administrative building. The group members, who described themselves as “anonymous,” later said in a statement, “We are committed to bringing the war home and answering the call to open up a new front here in the belly of the beast.”
Princeton University also saw a shocking vandalism for which an anonymous student group claimed responsibility in the same week. Targeting the building which houses the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), it involved splattering red paint on the entrance door and graffitiing the perimeter of the building with the slogan “$4genocide.”
At Cornell University, in August, ant-Zionists vandalized an administrative building, graffitiing “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on Day Hall. They also shattered the glazings of its front doors.
“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the student culprits told the Cornell Daily Sun during an interview granted in exchange for a guarantee of anonymity.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Antisemitic Intimidation’: Pro-Hamas Vandals Strike Jewish University of Michigan Official’s Home, Car first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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