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Germans' Attitudes About Jews and Foreigners
From the German Embassy's website, a background paper titled "Jews in Germany Today," written by Susan Stern, a lecturer in English at the University of Frankfurt/Main and the author of the books Speaking Out - Jewish Voices From United Germany and From Horror to Hope - Germany, the Jews and Israel.The webpage address somehow prevented the posting of this article in Rantburg (the element "relaunch"?), so the posting's link is only to the home page. From there, follow these menu selections: Information Services --> Archives --> Background Papers --> More --> Jews in Germany Today. The Jewish population of Germany today [1995] is very small indeed. In a nation of 81 million inhabitants, it claims about 55,000, give or take a few: some 43,000 are registered, dues-paying members of the official Jewish community, and although nobody knows exactly how many unregistered Jews there are, 10,000 is an educated guess. Compared to the number of Muslim residents of Germany - around 1.4 million, most of them Turkish - the number of Jews borders on the insignificant. In the early 1930s, there were ten times as many Jews in Germany as there are now. ..... The Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy, a leading polling organization, recently announced its latest findings: 15 percent of Germans are anti-Semitic, and of these, 8 percent are "vehemently" so. These figures, alarming as they may appear, actually indicate a marked decrease in anti-Semitic sentiment, which is now, according to the Allensbach pollsters, at a postwar low. Moreover, they do not compare unfavorably to figures from neighboring countries or even from the United States. ..... Over the past few years, right wing radicalism has become a serious problem in Germany .... The culprits are generally young white males whose understanding of politics (or of anything else for that matter) is severely limited. On occasion, they have turned their attention to the Jews - not so much to the living but to the dead. Jewish cemeteries and memorials have been vandalized. .... More likely, they are looking for taboos to break to attract attention and know that any act against the Jews is considered particularly shocking. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2005-01-28 |
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