An erosion of the post-war consensus on antisemitism in the Federal Republic of Germany is well underway, and Der Spiegel, the leading weekly German news magazine, is not helping.
Since antisemitism is symptomatic of a greater societal malaise, it should be made clear that antisemitism is not a "Jewish" problem, but a hatred that eats away at the foundations of our society. In this fight, nothing less than the future of an open, liberal, Europe is at stake.
These are hard times for those who reject the polarization of public discourse. Not only in the U.S.A., but also in Germany, there is practically no room left for nuance and differentiation.
The latest European Union report on antisemitism begins with a stark warning. “These findings make for grim reading,” writes Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in the foreword.
In the early and mid-1980s, I saw up close some of the remarkable Israeli efforts, supported by the United States government and a few American Jewish groups, on behalf of Ethiopian Jews.