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Meet Karin Prien, the woman who could become Germany’s first Jewish president
(JTA) — Living in Amsterdam in the years after World War II, Karin Prien’s parents’ bookshelves were lined with the works of Jewish authors like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. When she was a young child and her family moved from the vibrant and multicultural city of Amsterdam to Neuwied, a small town in Rhineland, their Jewish social life dwindled. In Germany, her mother was afraid to publicly declare her Jewish roots in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.
Fast forward five decades, and Prien is now a federal minister with the Christian Democratic Union in the German parliament, and one of the most powerful politicians in Germany. She is also the first person with Jewish ancestry to head a German ministry since World War II.
“The fact that I’m a person with a Jewish biography is something unusual in Germany,” Prien told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at a reception in New York this month. “It’s not normal.”
Now she is in line for another first: She has also emerged as a possible frontrunner as the successor to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the 2027 election.
Should Prien win the presidential election, she would be the first person with Jewish ancestry at the head of the German state. Distinct from the chancellorship, the federal president is a primarily ceremonial but still significant role.
“The development of the German-Jewish friendship we have today, some people describe it as a miracle,” she said. “But still, there is a lack of normalcy in the relationship between German Jews and non-Jewish Germans. I think it’s something special when a Jewish person, or a person with a Jewish biography, is in a leading political position in Germany.”
A staunch believer in liberal democracy and a supporter of Israel at a time when faith in both are declining, Prien represents the liberal wing of the center-right CDU as the minister for education, family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth.
“It would be a very strong symbol if a Jewish person would become president of Germany in 2027,” Prien said.
Prien, 61, was born in Amsterdam. Both her maternal and paternal grandfathers were Jewish Holocaust survivors. She identifies as a person of “Jewish biography.” Neither her maternal grandmother nor her paternal grandmother were Jewish, meaning that according to the strictest interpretations of Jewish law, she would not be considered Jewish.
But family members on both sides were persecuted for their Jewish heritage. She was raised on Jewish culture and literature and wears a star of David necklace while in public. And since 2018, has chaired the Jewish Forum of the CDU, a group that both combats antisemitism and liaises the Jewish community with the party.
She is not religious, but she describes her childhood and the childhoods of her parents as full of Jewish culture. Her parents, for example, played in the Maccabi tennis club while they were growing up in Amsterdam, Prien said. When she was about 16, Prien’s mother overcame her qualms and gave her a star of David necklace, which she wears in her official parliament portrait.
“I want to show that it has to be normal to show Jewish symbols,” Prien said. “It’s kind of a statement.”
Such normalization took place at the official level at the German parliament, which recently ran an exhibit highlighting its members with “Jewish biographies” from its early days to its reconfiguration after the Nazi era. In the latter case, some people with Jewish heritage served in the government alongside the very same party members who persecuted them.
On March 11, Prien met with a number of American and European Jewish organizational leaders at the official residence of the German consul in Manhattan to hear their concerns. (Following her New York visit, Prien headed to Washington, D.C., where she toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.)
“I really appreciated the fact that she took time to meet with the WJC and other Jewish organizations,” said Lauren Rose, executive director of the executive office of the World Jewish Congress. “It further shows the key commitment that Germany has when it comes to really taking the concerns of Jewish communities seriously.”
Prien has long said that her decision to become politically engaged is “closely linked” to her family’s history and experience during the Holocaust.
On her mother’s side, Prien is the great-great-granddaughter of a prominent Düsseldorf merchant, Salomon Hartoch, the owner of the Hartoch department store whose descendants moved to the Netherlands in 1935 to escape persecution. On her father’s side, she is the granddaughter of a Jewish lawyer from Prague.
“My parents were, in a sense, uprooted, and I consider it a great privilege to live in a free country where I now feel deeply rooted,” she told the German Jewish publication Jüdische Allgemeine in 2019.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, that connection only became stronger when Prien recognized a rise in antisemitism and extremism in her own country and around the world.
“I can see that authoritarian ideologies — they are attractive to people,” Prien told JTA. “And they are becoming more and more attractive. And not only in Germany, but also in other liberal democracies.”
One of those growing threats comes from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right political party now classified by Germany as an extremist group. Prien has said that she would emigrate, possibly to Israel, if the AfD were to take power in Germany’
Prien visited Israel for the first time in October, shortly after the final Israeli hostages taken by Hamas two years earlier were released. While there, she toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
Since the Hamas attacks, Germany has supported Israel’s right to defend itself and rejected claims that the IDF carried out a genocide in Gaza. Still, amid public clamor over the war, Berlin signaled concern over civilian casualties in Gaza, and for a time in 2025 put a temporary halt on military exports to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s important to explain to people in Germany that for the Israeli people, [the right to self-defense is] really about how to survive,” Prien said. “And that doesn’t mean that I or the German government is in consensus with every step that is made by the Israeli government.”
She added, “The obedience to international law is a very important point for us in Germany.”
As the education minister, Prien counts education as a key antidote to the growing interest in authoritarianism worldwide. She has promoted a federal educational program called “Demokratie leben!” or “Living Democracy!” which works to prevent extremism and strengthen democracy.
But she wants to show German citizens that liberal democracy can function in the first place.
Said Prien, “We have to make clear that it’s a real privilege to live in a free society, and that the consequences of giving up freedom are severe, and it’s worth fighting for a liberal democracy.”
The post Meet Karin Prien, the woman who could become Germany’s first Jewish president appeared first on The Forward.
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Brussels Airlines workers threaten strike over flights to Israel, citing ethical objections
(JTA) — A Belgian union has threatened to strike against Brussels Airlines for compelling staff to work on flights to Israel, saying that anyone with “safety or conscientious objections” should be able to refuse.
ACV Puls, Belgium’s largest trade union, said on Tuesday that the company was breaking previous agreements to rely on volunteers for flights to Tel Aviv. The airline resumed flights to Tel Aviv on August 3, following a five-month pause because of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, and its first flights were operated with volunteers.
“Serious concerns exist among the staff regarding both physical safety and the mental and ethical impact of these flights,” ACV Puls spokesperson Jolinde Defieuw said in a statement. She added that making staffing mandatory was “particularly serious in the context of the ongoing war and the genocide in Gaza.”
ACV Puls, which represents aviation employees including pilots, cabin crews and ground staff in Belgium, said that a strike could follow if Brussels Airlines does not reverse its decision to resume regular staffing. The union argued that flying to Israel could not be deemed sufficiently safe, citing Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which advises against “all non-essential travel to Israel and Jerusalem.”
They also said that workers should be able to decline the flights for ethical reasons. Those who have “safety or conscientious objections must be able to refuse these flights without financial, professional, or disciplinary consequences,” said the union.
Nico Cardone, a spokesperson for Brussels Airlines, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that safety was the company’s “highest priority, whether we operate with volunteers or not.” He added that the airline was “not a political party” and made decisions about flight operations based on safety and demand.
“We do not engage in political discussions about the governments of certain destinations, and we ask our staff to uphold this same professional standard,” said Cardone.
ACV Puls said the airline was compelling crews to work because it had not found enough volunteers. Cardone disputed that, saying the airline always aimed to return to regular crew scheduling over time.
Along with threatening a strike, the union called on the Belgian government to weigh in. ACV Puls said the government should take a stance on the availability of commercial flights to Israel “despite the ongoing war, the massive civilian casualties, and the serious accusations of war crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian population.”
Belgium has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Israeli settlements in the West Bank since 2023. Earlier this year, Belgium banned aircraft carrying military equipment bound for Israel from crossing its airspace. The government in July approved a ban on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Haiti saved Jewish lives then. Our silence is not an option now.
In the late 1930s, as Nazi Germany intensified its persecution of Jewish people and the warning signs of a far darker future became increasingly clear, Jewish families searched desperately for countries willing to receive them. While many nations turned their backs, Haiti did not. It issued life-saving visas and offered them safe haven.
Nearly 90 years later, history has come full circle.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have lived and worked lawfully in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) now face forcible deportation to a country engulfed in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
This moment is deeply personal.
My mother survived a Nazi forced-labor camp, where she was forced to manufacture explosives. My father and three of his nephews survived Auschwitz. The rest of my family perished. I grew up with that history and with a profound awareness of what it means to be uprooted, persecuted and abandoned by the world.
That history shaped not only who I am, but the course of my life. I began my career as an art historian, but eventually felt called toward a different path: working alongside communities confronting abject poverty, famine, conflict and disaster.
My humanitarian career began in 1988 at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), under the mentorship of Aryeh Cooperstock, who in the spirit of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world – led JDC’s international development work with non-Jewish communities around the globe. Aryeh fundamentally influenced my professional practice by instilling the conviction that true development starts with humility and listening to local partners who know their own challenges best.
While at JDC, its archive revealed a truth I never forgot. In the late 1930s, Haiti said yes to desperate Jewish refugees while bigger nations said no. My family wasn’t among those saved, but the grace of that gesture stayed with me forever.
Thus, in 2009, after working extensively across 24 countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, I founded EcoWorks International to work in Haiti, as an enduring expression of profound gratitude.
For the past 17 years, we have worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Haitian professionals and communities in a broad range of sectors. Following the devastating 2010 earthquake, and with a generous grant from JDC, we built and equipped a physical rehabilitation center at Bernard Mevs Hospital, Haiti’s leading trauma center, restoring mobility and hope to thousands of victims.
Near the capital of Port-Au-Prince, we helped local farmers establish the first regional agricultural cooperatives that they own and manage.
After the 2021 earthquake, we worked with coastal fishing communities to rebuild the underwater systems that their livelihoods depend on. Today, in Haiti’s northern region, we work with 2,500 rice farmers to adopt a sustainable farming method that uses significantly less water, relies on organic fertilizer, and can nearly double yields.
Yet, in nearly two decades of standing with Haiti through natural disasters and socio-political upheaval, I have never witnessed such a level of unchecked violence, widespread displacement, and profound despair as now.
Armed gangs control almost all of Port-au-Prince, key regions, and major transit routes. Murder, kidnapping, rape, extortion and arson are daily instruments of terror. More than 1.5 million people are displaced and 5.7 million face severe hunger. Hospitals and clinics have been attacked, burned or forced to close.
Recently, Bernard Mevs Hospital, where we worked following the earthquake, was attacked and burned. In Ganthier, where our organization worked for years, the 400 Mawozo gang drove some 20,000 people from their homes. Their victims now live homeless and in hiding and our friends, partners and colleagues are still unable to return.
Today, Haiti has not one elected official. Basic institutions and services have collapsed. Parents struggle to feed their children. Pregnant women may have nowhere to give birth safely. Simply traveling to work, school, a market, or a hospital puts people at risk of kidnapping, rape or death.
This is the abyss to which some 350,000 Haitians in the United States now face forcible deportation, a process that has already begun.
The Haitians who lost their TPS are our neighbors, coworkers, healthcare professionals, teachers, business owners, taxpayers and friends. They built dignified lives and raised families here under a legal humanitarian program created to protect people from precisely the nightmare Haiti is experiencing today.
As we approach the High Holidays, a sacred season of Cheshbon HaNefesh, a call to reflection and duty, moral fortitude and a choice of who we choose to be, we are commanded not to stand idly by while our neighbors suffer.
In the past Haiti chose compassion over indifference toward the Jewish people. Today, the moral choice is ours. Write to your senators and representatives demanding the extension of TPS for Haitian people. Ask your rabbi, synagogue, Jewish Federation, and community leaders to issue public statements and take action. Share Haiti’s historical connection to our people.
Yesterday, Haiti opened its doors to save Jewish lives. Today, Haitians desperately need our voices. May history remember that when they needed us most, we did not remain silent.
The post Haiti saved Jewish lives then. Our silence is not an option now. appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Israel is politics’: Was a woman kicked out of a salon for supporting Israel or being Israeli-American?
An Israeli-American woman who was denied service at a Northern Virginia eyebrow salon is now taking legal action against the business.
The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is filing a civil rights complaint on behalf of Jessica Walton, who was at Karimi Brows in Alexandria, Virginia, on Aug. 6 when Fatana Karimi, the shop’s owner, recorded and posted a video of her telling Walton to leave the store. The video has received more than 270,000 likes and garnered concern from antisemitism watchdog groups.
“This case is about a basic civil rights principle,” says Omer Wiczyk, senior counsel at the Brandeis Center. “A business that is open to the public cannot reclassify a customer’s Israeli identity as objectionable politics.”
The two sides disagree about whether Karimi’s decision was made based on Walton’s ethnicity, identity or politics.
Karimi said in a TikTok video that her decision to deny service to Walton was not about Walton’s identity but her politics. “Any ethnicity or nationality or person who comes from a certain religion, any religion, comes to me and tells me that they support Israel, I would kick them,” she said.
Karimi said she “would have, you know, let it slide by” if Walton had denounced the Israeli government and called the Israel-Hamas war a genocide.
Walton, in the video taken at Karimi Brows, characterized the dispute as being about her identity. “I had no idea that you would do this based on my ethnicity,” she said.
According to the complaint, Walton said she did not discuss politics and only mentioned she was Israeli-American before Karimi asked her to leave the studio.
In another video, Karimi explained that Walton said she was Israeli-American “three different times” before Karimi started “throwing shots back at her.” Karimi said that in that moment, she was imagining Palestinian people, “looking at me saying, ‘But I thought you supported us? Why are you playing nice with the girl that is the reason we’re going through this?’”
“I was like, ‘the gloves are f—ing off,’” Karimi said. “‘I’m not doing your f—ing brows. Get out of my f—ing face.’”
The complaint also says that before the camera started rolling, “Ms. Karimi stated that, for her, ‘Israel is politics.’ ”
Politics-based discrimination would not necessarily constitute a civil rights violation, said Michael Helfand, a professor at the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. However, if Karimi was placing special scrutiny on Walton’s beliefs because of her Israeli identity, it would — facts that the parties dispute.
“I think this gets you into the question of how you want to classify anti-Zionism,” says Helfand. “I think that’s a bigger question that the law hasn’t fully wrapped its head around.”
Both women said they have received violent messages online following the incident, including death and rape threats. Karimi said her Yelp reviews were spammed with negative comments from users she doubted had been to the store.
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