Abbas ignites, Scholz is silent: What do Jews say in Germany?

“As a Hamburger and as a German citizen, I am disappointed by this moment.” 38-year-old Eugen Balin is a lawyer. And Jew. On Tuesday evening he saw the final scene of the press conference by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinians accused Israel of holocausts on the Palestinian people. And the German Chancellor – was silent.

“It’s not about Abbas, it’s about Scholz,” Balin told DW. “Abbas would have said the same thing anywhere in the world, you always have to reckon with that. The Chancellor should have been prepared for it. The problem is that he didn’t react immediately, didn’t position himself immediately. And then he even handed Abbas that Hand. It shouldn’t have happened like this.” Scholz only spoke to the “Bild” newspaper after the press conference, the next morning he tweeted in German, English and Hebrew: “Unspeakable…, unbearable…, unacceptable…”. 14 hours after his silence.

Never again?

Abbas caused outrage in Germany and internationally with his anti-Semitic furore in the Federal Chancellery and his hatred of Israel. During the night, Israeli Prime Minister Jair Lapid expressed his dismay. In Germany, Scholz in particular has been criticized for his silence – as a chancellor who stands for German solidarity with Israel. Politicians are now arguing about the further course towards the Palestinians.

But what do the Jews in Germany who are building on a clear line in German politics say? In the past year and a half, this country has celebrated “1700 years of Jewish life in Germany”. Events up and down the country, lots of Sunday speeches. Also about what should never be repeated about hatred of Jews. But now Abbas’s Holocaust comparison – and the chancellor’s silence.

In the morning after the scandalous scene, official representatives spoke out. “I think it’s scandalous that a relativization of the Holocaust, especially in Germany, at a press conference in the Federal Chancellery went unchallenged,” tweeted the President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster. A President of the Central Council rarely criticizes German politics so clearly. “What matters are actions. What matters far less than actions: tweets. Yesterday was a dark day,” commented popular pianist Igor Levit in a tweet.

Was Scholz missing the “civil courage”?

And those Jews in Germany who live here, who are used to the fact that synagogues have to be guarded, who occasionally very consciously do without features like the yarmulke in the street scene? “Disappointed,” the term comes up again and again when you talk to half a dozen of them all over the country. And again and again they mention the “civil courage” that politicians so often remind citizens of – and which Scholz was missing at the moment.

There is Igor Matviyets (30) from Halle. he is jew And a social democrat, chairman of the “Integration and Diversity” working group in the SPD in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. He told DW that he was “not at all surprised that Abbas is an anti-Semite and denies the Holocaust.” That is generally known. He was only surprised that he was offered a stage for his theses in the Chancellery “without being classified because he had the last word.”

Unfortunately, the federal government always looks the other way when it comes to money payments to the Palestinian side or hatred of Jews in Palestinian textbooks. Abbas’ current appearance is just “the sad cherry on the cake”.

Matviyets says he is not lacking in the conviction “that Olaf Scholz is on the right side”. But many Germans obviously find it difficult to “react harshly at the crucial moment”. Many of those who experienced racism or anti-Semitism said afterwards: “There is a lack of people who have civil courage.” He would have “of course wished that Scholz would answer immediately and react immediately”. Afterwards and hours later, it is always easy to express affected solidarity. In Germany there are around 200,000 Jews. “If a majority behind us doesn’t straighten its back, then you just feel attacked.”

“The late reply came too late”

Elias Dray is an orthodox rabbi in Amberg in north-eastern Bavaria, his hometown. In January 2021, he was among those who were the focus of a special session of the Bundestag in Berlin. The last Hebrew letters of the more than 200-year-old Torah scroll from Sulzbach near Amberg, which had miraculously survived the Shoa and had been restored, were painted on paper in the prayer room of the parliament. And in the cramped little room stood next to Dray the Federal President and the Chancellor, all other leaders of the state. And some had wet eyes from emotion. Jewish life!

Dray also saw the scenes with Abbas and Scholz. “I would have expected him to say something straight away,” he told DW. And he also comes up with the concept of moral courage. “Couragement doesn’t start with writing something on Twitter afterwards.” He finds “the late answer too late” and is therefore disappointed. Especially since Abbas only openly said “what everyone could know”.

Irith Michelsohn, chairwoman of the Jewish community in Bielefeld (in the picture at the top) makes a similar statement. She felt “disappointment and astonishment” at the moment. “You have to intervene vehemently.” She doesn’t know “whether Olaf Scholz was speechless at the moment and couldn’t counter.” But one thing, says Michelsohn, is important to mention. Neither with the federal government nor with the members of the Bundestag – with the exception of the AfD – did she have the feeling that she was “left alone”. As a Jew, she does not feel left alone in civil society.

“We must be prepared”

Andrei Kovacs, a Jew from Cologne, also found Abbas’ statements to be “bold and anti-Semitic”, but not “surprising”. We know of earlier statements by the Palestinian President. It showed “that we have to be prepared on the other side”. Because representatives from abroad occasionally tried to spread their hatred of Israel on a German stage.

Germany celebrated “1700 years of Jewish life” for a year and a half until this summer. There were hundreds of events. As managing director, Kovacs played a leading role in the project. The theme year “contributed a little to strengthening society’s sensitivity”. And it is about sensitivity not only for a Jewish perspective, but for a broader perspective of those who have a migration background and experience exclusion. “Part of it is that you should simply be alert, even if you’re in a press conference.” “Alert”, that sounds like an alarm. He uses the word several times in this context.

Once again to Hamburg, to the lawyer Balin. He becomes very fundamental when Scholz remains silent. At that moment it was “not a political question, but the basic consensus of society”, “an essential feature of the free democratic basic order and our democracy”.

From the Chancellery to the Documenta

And Balin addresses the controversial Documenta show in Kassel. In this context, he can also praise where the essentials of society are concerned. Anti-Semitic depictions at the Kassel show have been discussed in Germany for many weeks. The debate and revelations of ugly and hurtful stereotypes never end. The columnist Sascha Lobo used the term “Antisemita 15” early on for the show, which was valued worldwide in the past.

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke at the start of the “Documenta” in mid-June. Balin expressly emphasizes that he gave an “outstanding speech”, admonishing and fundamental. And yet, on the part of those responsible in Kassel and in parts of the cultural scene, there has since been “a scratching at the basic consensus of West German history, the warning against new anti-Semitism”. For him, this is almost a “disregard for the positioning of the Federal President”.

It may be that the head of state will comment on Abbas or on the dangerous silence in the next few days. On Monday, the new Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (63) will come to Bellevue Palace, as planned for a long time, to present his credentials. An opportunity for a few basic words: Prosor’s father was born in Berlin in 1927 and fled Nazi Germany as early as 1933. Now it’s a date that deserves special attention not only in Israel, but also among Jews in Germany.