[A-List] Fwd: Israel's anxiety as Jews prefer Germany

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Suzanne de Kuyper <suzannedk at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 10:30 AM
Subject: Fwd: Israel's anxiety as Jews prefer Germany
To: "Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion."
<rad-green at lists.econ.utah.edu>


A prominant organization of German Jewish professionals wrote to
excoriate the Israeli criminal attack on the Gaza Aid Flotilla.  The
letter was posted in the A-list days ago.     s.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sid Shniad <shniad at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 4:45 PM
Subject: Israel's anxiety as Jews prefer Germany
To:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3558319/Israels-anxiety-as-Jews-prefer-Germany.html

Telegraph
                                       14 May 2008

Israel's anxiety as Jews prefer Germany

By Harry de Quetteville

Berlin

Israel officially celebrates its 60th birthday this month, but Amnon
Seelig's grandparents were in the Holy Land well before May 14, 1948.

Like many other Jews in the first decades of last century, they were
Zionists, building a life for themselves in Palestine. And while the
ideology of Theodor Herzl may have been inspiration enough for many
Jews, 26-year-old Amnon's grandparents had a powerful additional
motivation to start anew in what was to become Israel.

"My grandparents lived in Berlin," he recalled. "There they witnessed
the emergence and rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, and suffered
the stifling and sinister effects of German anti-Semitism."

For Mr Seelig's grandparents, Israel was - even before its creation -
a refuge from a tyrannical and ultimately murderous Germany. The
Seeligs put down roots there. Their children were born in Israel.
Amnon himself grew up in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, capital of the
nation his grandparents helped to build.

But, while he wears a gold Star of David on a chain around his neck,
he does not live in Tel Aviv any more. "I moved to Germany 18 months
ago," he said, "and I'm not planning on moving back to Israel any time
soon."

In his decision to leave Israel, to beat a path in the opposite
direction to his grandparents, he is not alone. Many Israelis have
also chosen to leave, and are now living and working in Europe or
America.

"Israel's greatest concern at the moment is that there have never been
more Israelis living abroad," said Rabbi Walter Homolka, principal of
the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. He described it as a "brain drain"
and said Germany was one of the "biggest expat centres".

In addition, many Jews who once might have considered emigrating to
Israel - making their Aliya - have in the past few years been choosing
to head to Germany instead.

In 2003, for example, 12,383 Jews reportedly chose to emigrate from
the former Soviet Union to Israel. But 15,442 went to Germany. The
latter country, which had conceived the idea of eliminating Jews
altogether just 60 years previously, was more enticing to them than
the promised land itself.

Such a powerful wave of immigration has multiplied Germany's Jewish
population tenfold from the 20,000 or so at the time the Berlin Wall
fell.

But the decision by Soviet Jews to choose Germany over Israel has been
cause for serious friction between the two countries. Israel lobbied
hard - and ultimately successfully - to persuade Germany to end its
generous immigration laws for Jews which encouraged hundreds of
thousands to head to the reunited European state after the collapse of
communism.

Israel's concern is prompted in large part by the word "demographics",
which has become a hot topic in the Holy Land. Israel may define
itself as the Jewish state, but more than a million of its citizens
are Arab Muslims. They have a higher birth rate than Jews, and many in
Israel worry that their country's Jewish identity is being diluted.
This has inspired headlines warning of a "demographic time bomb".

For some Jews in Berlin, however, the demographic time bomb is only
half of the reason that Israel, on it 60th birthday, is so sensitive
to a revitalised Jewish diaspora.

The other factor, they say, is that with Jewish life flourishing, even
where it was all but erased by the Holocaust, Zionism's very raison
d'être is being challenged.

More and more synagogues, as well as Jewish cafés, museums and schools
are opening in Germany, and even in Poland. Amnon Seelig sings in the
Munich synagogue choir every Shabbat.

"Israel is in a really difficult position with immigration now,
because people ask 'what is the role of Zionism today?'," said Rabbi
Homolka. "The Jewish community in Berlin makes the argument that it is
valid to stay here, in Germany."

In fact for Jews in Germany such as Amnon Seelig, or Anita Zadig,
whose family moved to Germany from Donetsk in what is now Ukraine,
Israel has a very clear role. Both described it as a "safety net" - a
place of refuge to which they could run if the horrors of European
anti-Semitism emerge again.

Otherwise, they say, they will stay away, in part put off by a life in
Israel which even Rabbi Homolka concedes can be "so stressful". For
Israel has come to define itself above all as a place of sanctuary for
Jews, even in its most hostile neighbourhoods. From concrete walls
advertised as anti-terror devices to secretive bombing missions on
Syrian military facilities, its protective prowess is legendary.

In 60 years, Israel's political leaders and military planners no doubt
hope that peace will have broken out and that they won't have to
conduct such missions. But you can bet that they won't let their guard
down in the meantime.

The fact that so many Jews have chosen to move to the home of the
Holocaust instead of Israel seems to show that such inspirational,
bloody-minded endurance comes at a high price.

After all, even at the darkest moments, Amnon Seelig's grandparents
knew that Israel should be about building more than just a bunker.