Ctrl+F didn’t turn up any results for your quote (“alleged”/“allegedly”) , and I’m not going to read the whole article searching for what you might have meant instead.
Here is the “Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde” (complaint about the violation of duty by a public official) by the German Jewish Voice for Peace reacting to the attack by the anti antisemitism commissioner Michael Blume of the state Baden Wurtemmberg:
I think “vorgeblich” has some more nuance, as it does not say the claim is necessarily wrong (https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/vorgeblich). But like I said in the other sub-thread: he is very wrong with this statement (addendum: and in his job). It’s still a different picture than one might imagine when hearing “German government officials are deciding whether you are jewish enough” (which you didn’t write, but apparently was understood like that by other commenters).
The key points in this and many other examples where Jewish anti-zionists are targeted, be it by such verbal attacks, deplatforming or police violence are imo.:
Germany (as in gov. officials and politicians) feels entitled to make value judgements about jewish people
Germany does not extend its support and protection to jewish people because of the German history. This support is conditional on them adhering to the idea of how the Jews should and shouldnt be.
Germany conflates jewish identity with the state of Israel and setting a sort of equality to it. Ironically that is an example of antisemitism by some definitions including thr IHRA preffered by German politics.
The guilt and responsibility is increasingly shifted onto Arab and other immigrants often highly critical of Israel. This serves to absolve Germany from the still rampant “Nazi-antisemitism” but is mainly used to justify racism against the groups “importing” antisemitism.
So once again German government officials judge as to who are “good” or “bad” or well “real” Jews. The fundamental being that those who fall into the categories acceptable are championed as examples in a sometimes absurd way (philosemitism) and those who are outside these categoroes get targeted with repressions.
But it is very simple. Jewish people are people like anyone else. Be it by religion or ethnicity, there is people of all sorts of personal, societal and political identities. Where they face discrimination because of their jewish identity it needs to be adressed and there should be a special emphasis on this, due to the German history. But it cannot and must not be conflated with the state of Israel and allegiance to it.
Blume was embroiled in a small scandal after he referred to Jüdische Stimme as “ostensibly Jewish” on Twitter
Blume demurred, claiming that, while he was happy to accept anyone’s self-definition as Jewish as a matter of personal religious freedom, he was not sure whether the group’s members counted as members of the Jewish religious communities that are legal partners of the German state
In Germany, membership in religious communities is regulated by state-designated institutions, meaning that to be officially Jewish, one must join the Jüdische Gemeinde, the state-affiliated Jewish community
Thanks. So he explicitely was not talking about whether individual persons are jewish or not.
Instead he was questioning if an organisation (that mobilized to a “Glory to the resistance” demonstration on 7th of October 2024) is actually involving a significant amount of people from jewish communities. Which is still shitty and besides the point of any valid criticism, but also different from trying to decide if individual people are jewish or not. And he obviously tried to weasle himself out of his shit take.
The last paragraph is factually wrong though. There are religious communities who are Öffentlich-rechtliche Religionsgesellschaften, but you don’t have to adhere to these regulations.
You could perhaps read the first part as that, a matter of % of Jewish people in an organization rather than one of ‘true’ Jewishness of the members identifying as Jews. Your reading is very generous to him.
But from the second commend it’s obvious it’s the latter. He is attacking the Jewishness of Jewish members of that organization. That he does it en mass does not make it better.
I don’t have time to learn German to read your source, in an English based discussion. It is not relevant that it is wrong. The commissioner tried to use it to defend his position that they are ostensibly Jewish. Actually being wrong makes it worse as he should know better or he is lying.
Probably. My point is that I was very confused by the original claim (officials deciding whether people are jewish or not) and the following comments drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany.
I don’t have time to learn German to read your source, in an English based discussion.
Understandable. But when the discussion is about German law, German sources are to be expected.
It is not relevant that it is wrong.
If it’s not relevant, then why quote it? In any case it tells me something about the quality of the article.
The commissioner tried to use it to defend his position that they are ostensibly Jewish. Actually being wrong makes it worse as he should know better or he is lying.
Yes, as I said: the “Jewishness” of the people should not matter when you’re attacking their arguments. And yes, he is very obvioulsy trying to defend this instead of admitting that he shouldn’t have said that.
Do you have sources?
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-strange-logic-of-germanys-antisemitism-bureaucrats
Ctrl+F didn’t turn up any results for your quote (“alleged”/“allegedly”) , and I’m not going to read the whole article searching for what you might have meant instead.
I am sorry. It was not mentioned in the article, but the podcast.
Here is another interview where it is mentioned
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/the-cost-of-germanys-guilt-politics
Here is the “Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde” (complaint about the violation of duty by a public official) by the German Jewish Voice for Peace reacting to the attack by the anti antisemitism commissioner Michael Blume of the state Baden Wurtemmberg:
https://www.juedische-stimme.de/dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde-gegen-den-antisemitismusbeauftragten-des-landes-bw-dr-michael-blume#_Toc76062334
Here is the Tweet of Blume. His exact wording was “vorgeblich” which translates to “allegedly” but more in the sense of “pretending to be”.
https://x.com/BlumeEvolution/status/1409466045987971076
https://dict.leo.org/german-english/vorgeblich
Thanks!
I think “vorgeblich” has some more nuance, as it does not say the claim is necessarily wrong (https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/vorgeblich). But like I said in the other sub-thread: he is very wrong with this statement (addendum: and in his job). It’s still a different picture than one might imagine when hearing “German government officials are deciding whether you are jewish enough” (which you didn’t write, but apparently was understood like that by other commenters).
The key points in this and many other examples where Jewish anti-zionists are targeted, be it by such verbal attacks, deplatforming or police violence are imo.:
So once again German government officials judge as to who are “good” or “bad” or well “real” Jews. The fundamental being that those who fall into the categories acceptable are championed as examples in a sometimes absurd way (philosemitism) and those who are outside these categoroes get targeted with repressions.
But it is very simple. Jewish people are people like anyone else. Be it by religion or ethnicity, there is people of all sorts of personal, societal and political identities. Where they face discrimination because of their jewish identity it needs to be adressed and there should be a special emphasis on this, due to the German history. But it cannot and must not be conflated with the state of Israel and allegiance to it.
> Asks for source
> Unwilling to read source
It’s not a source for a quote if the quote does not show up in the link.
edit: the fact that this gets downvoted really says a lot about the quality of the discussion :D
Thanks. So he explicitely was not talking about whether individual persons are jewish or not.
Instead he was questioning if an organisation (that mobilized to a “Glory to the resistance” demonstration on 7th of October 2024) is actually involving a significant amount of people from jewish communities. Which is still shitty and besides the point of any valid criticism, but also different from trying to decide if individual people are jewish or not. And he obviously tried to weasle himself out of his shit take.
The last paragraph is factually wrong though. There are religious communities who are Öffentlich-rechtliche Religionsgesellschaften, but you don’t have to adhere to these regulations.
You could perhaps read the first part as that, a matter of % of Jewish people in an organization rather than one of ‘true’ Jewishness of the members identifying as Jews. Your reading is very generous to him.
But from the second commend it’s obvious it’s the latter. He is attacking the Jewishness of Jewish members of that organization. That he does it en mass does not make it better.
I don’t have time to learn German to read your source, in an English based discussion. It is not relevant that it is wrong. The commissioner tried to use it to defend his position that they are ostensibly Jewish. Actually being wrong makes it worse as he should know better or he is lying.
Probably. My point is that I was very confused by the original claim (officials deciding whether people are jewish or not) and the following comments drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany.
Understandable. But when the discussion is about German law, German sources are to be expected.
If it’s not relevant, then why quote it? In any case it tells me something about the quality of the article.
Yes, as I said: the “Jewishness” of the people should not matter when you’re attacking their arguments. And yes, he is very obvioulsy trying to defend this instead of admitting that he shouldn’t have said that.
“I don’t know how to read”