No Jews Included In German Anti-Semitism Commission

Jewish groups in Germany harshly criticized a new government commission on anti-Semitism on February 10, saying that the lack of a single Jewish member on the panel was scandalous and pledging to set up a rival body.

Germany’s interior ministry set up a group of experts last year to help fight anti-Semitism and boost Jewish life in Germany amid concern that hostility towards Jews was growing, partly due to Muslim radicals responding to Israeli politics.

Despite the fact that increasing anti-Semitism also worries other European countries, like Britain and France, anti-Semitism is a particularly sensitive subject in in Germany, even 70 years after the end of the Holocaust.

“It is an unrivaled scandal (that no one among the experts has a Jewish background),” said Julius H. Schoeps, founding director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam.

“German lawmakers and the Interior Minister must ask themselves why … clearly no value is placed on experts from Jewish organizations and communities,” he added in a statement.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC), Moses Mendelssohn Center, and Amadeu Antonio Foundation will therefore set up their own commission on anti-Semitism in Germany, they said.

The independent group of experts appointed by the interior ministry in 2014 consists of eight people, mainly academics, who are due to submit a report in two years time that will form the basis of the discussion in the German parliament.

“At a time when Jewish institutions need more protection after numerous terror attacks and anti-Semitic views are rife in schools and in society, we need more instruments and .. an ongoing debate on the topic,” said Deidre Berger, director of the AJC Berlin Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations.

Just two weeks ago, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany had an eternal responsibility to fight anti-Semitism and racism.

Members of the commission, which first convened on January 19, included Werner Bergmann, sociology professor at Berlin Technical University’s Center for Research on anti-Semitism, and Patrick Siegele, director of the Anne Frank Center in Berlin.