|
|
|
|
|
« Return
|
|
German church leaders intervene in row over anti-Semitism
2002-157-4
6/18/2002
|
[Episcopal News Service]
The leaders of Germany's main churches have intervened in a bitter public controversy over anti-Semitism. Protestant church leader Manfred Kock and Roman Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann called for an end to what each described as a 'harmful' debate that has pitted a senior politician against the Central Council of Jews in Germany (ZJD).
The controversy has centered on Jurgen Mollemann, vice chair of Germany's small Free Democratic Party (FDP), who last month accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the ZJD, and its vice president Michael Friedmann, of being partly to blame for anti-Semitism. Mollemann claimed that anti-Semitism was on the increase because the prime minister, the ZJD and Friedmann were unwilling to tolerate any criticism of Israeli military actions in the Middle East, least of all from Germans--a charge Friedmann rejected.
Spiegel responded by saying that blaming anti-Semitism on Jews, a common practice by the Nazis during the Third Reich, was 'the biggest insult uttered by a party in the Federal Republic of Germany since the Holocaust.' Mollemann eventually apologize 'if I have injured the sensitivities of the Jewish people' but later he told journalists that he was excluding Friedmann from the apology.
The intervention by the church leaders followed a demand by ZJD's president Paul Spiegel for a public statement from them. He said that the churches were not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.
|
|
|
|
|
|
