Reading the Forward, the following quote, from an expert in this area, jumped out: "'[T]he fact that 20% of Germans have anti-Semitic attitudes does not necessarily mean the remaining 80% do not also harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.'" I should have prefaced this with, I recently began receiving the Forward, unsolicited, and was feeling kind of profiled, until I learned that it is in fact a gift from my parents. In any case, the quote left me lost in time and place. Was this the 1840s French-Jewish press? The 1970s British-Jewish? What could make for a more classic line in a Jewish newspaper than something about the possibility of 100% of Germans being anti-Semites?
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Yes, yes, I confess I'm a parochial if exiled New Yorker, but would it really be that different, in this day and age, to be Jewish in Minnesota than in Germany? This story about an American-Jewish hockey player whose German citizenship - via reparations - led to his presence on a German hockey team is at any rate possible evidence that those Düsseldorf ads worked. And gosh, the nose anecdote.
But are young American Jews really that wary of Germany? I suppose it's different if your very presence in Germany relates to the Holocaust, but overall? My impressions are no doubt skewed, because a) American Jews I've met who live some or all of the time in Germany are academics and thus not wearing a uniform with the German flag or otherwise representing Germany, and b) I know far too much about the unsavory history of other European countries to be unnerved in Germany but not, say, Paris, where the plaques commemorating all the children rounded up in various schools have a way of making the 21st-century croissant-to-ballet-flat-hopping somewhat less carefree. Of course, the nightmares that I - a child of parents who didn't believe in waiting until I was 'old enough' to learn the gory details, and now, an adult who can't remember a time when I hadn't known them - had throughout my childhood never involved Céline and Drieu la Rochelle chasing me through Europe.
Sorry. That should read There is a method to their madness.
ReplyDeleteGermany has paid her dues and more. It's time to let her move on. Must future generations bear this collective burden for the rest of eternity, while other cultures proudly display their ill gotten gain? Germany culture should not be defined by the holocaust and neither should jewish culture.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I would also be interested in a greater demographic breakdown, including age (if very old people are anti-Semitic and young people not so much it would be unsurprising and not particularly worrying, since we already know that about them and they're dying off anyways), region (my W. German friends like to talk about how Neo-Nazis are all in E. Germany, which might have some truth, though also smacks of some snobbery and also a slight anti-Slavic vibe which is still more socially acceptable (i.e., my German friends similarly like to talk about how Poles are anti-Semitic, which again, may be true but is also uncomfortable coming from people whose not so distant ancestors who declared Slavs "untermenschen" tried to wipe Poland and its people off the map.)) Also, it would be interesting to look at ethnic background, because Germany's population is about 20% immigrant/non-ethnic German, and unfortunately it's not unlikely be the case that Muslim Germans might be more anti-Semitic than non-Muslim Germans.
ReplyDeleteThere is the phenomenon of holocaust fatigue, but I don't think it translates as anti-Semitism, but more that young Germans don't want to hear about Hitler 24/7 or to be defined by Nazism, not that they think the holocaust was no biggy. To be honest, I have a tiny bit of holocaust fatigue just from being mistaken as a German in the US or other countries and having random strangers/bare acquaintances (yes, this happens) ask me if I'm related to Hitler, or if my grandfather was an SS officer, or if I feel bad about the War, or "did you know you look really Aryan/like a Nazi" or even just shout "Heil Hitler" etc. Having really ignorant people say things like this on even an irregular basis is really annoying and offensive, regardless of actually being German or not, and getting ticked off rather than apologizing profusely says absolutely nothing about one's actual feelings about the war (or even willingness to talk about the war in a different setting.)