President Rivlin ‘deeply shocked’ by German Official’s recommendation that Jews hide their identity
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said he was “deeply shocked” by a statement made by Dr. Felix Klein, the German antisemitism commissioner, that it would be preferable for Jews not wear a kippa, a Jewish head covering, in public in Germany out of fear for their safety.
President Reuven Rivlin
Klein, known officially as the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism, said Saturday that he had changed his mind on the subject and rescinded previous statements in which he said such a danger did not exist.
“Responsibility for the welfare, the freedom and the right to religious belief of every member of the German Jewish community is in the hands of the German government and its law enforcement agencies,” Rivlin stated.
While Israel acknowledges and appreciates the “moral position of the German government, and its commitment to the Jewish community that lives there,” the “fears about the security of German Jews are a capitulation to antisemitism and an admittance that, again, Jews are not safe on German soil,” he charged
“We will never submit, will never lower our gaze and will never react to antisemitism with defeatism – and expect and demand our allies act in the same way,” he concluded.
The Antisemitism Worldwide 2018 Annual Report, published by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the European Jewish Congress (EJC) in April, recorded 35 antisemitic incidents in Germany over the course of the year.
The Jewish community in Germany numbered 100,000 in 2017, making it the eighth-largest Jewish community in the world, and the fourth largest in Western Europe. Most Jews living in Germany today are originally from the former Soviet Union.
TPS
