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Germany to fight anti-Semitism in schools with new team

bver_hunter

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The German government plans to send 170 anti-bullying experts into schools after the summer break to tackle anti-Semitism among children.
"Anti-Semitism in schools is a big problem," Families Minister Franziska Giffey said.
Last month Germans were shocked by the case of a boy aged 15 taunted by anti-Semitic bullies at the John F Kennedy School in a well-off area of Berlin.
Germany remains haunted by the Nazis' mass murder of Jews in 1933-1945.
Ms Giffey, a centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) politician, said teachers needed more support to combat anti-Semitism, as the problem went beyond the classroom, involving parents and society at large.
"So in the coming school year, as a first step, we will send 170 anti-bullying experts into selected schools in Germany, funded by the federal authorities," she told the daily Rheinische Post.
It remains unclear if the Jewish boy bullied at the John F Kennedy School will return there after the summer, the Berliner Morgenpost daily reports (in German). The bilingual school in Zehlendorf teaches German and American children.
Reports say one bully blew e-cigarette smoke in the boy's face, saying "that should remind you of your forefathers" - a sarcastic reference to the Holocaust.
Bullies also reportedly drew swastikas on post-it notes and stuck them on the boy's back.
Before 1989, Germany's Jewish minority numbered below 30,000. But an influx of Jews, mainly from the former Soviet Union, has raised the number to more than 200,000.
How bad is anti-Semitism in Germany?
Berlin's Anti-Semitism Research and Information Office (RIAS) says anti-Semitism is expressed on various levels, and not only by neo-Nazis, or by Muslim extremists who hate Israel.
"There is overall a worrying development of anti-Semitism becoming more socially acceptable. It has grown over the last couple of years and many cases go unreported," researcher Alexander Rasumny at RIAS told the BBC.
RIAS documented 947 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, including 18 physical attacks, compared with 590 in 2016. The watchdog's annual report (in German) said the increase was partly a result of more Germans reporting such incidents to RIAS, having learnt of its work.
In an interview (in German) with the daily Der Tagesspiegel, the German government's new anti-Semitism tsar, Felix Klein, spoke of "a brutalised climate now, in which more people feel emboldened to say anti-Semitic things on the internet and in the street". "Previously that was unthinkable, but the threshold has dropped."
What other incidents have hit the headlines?
In April two young men wearing traditional Jewish skullcaps (kippahs) were assaulted in Berlin. The attacker, a 19-year-old migrant from Syria, was filmed shouting anti-Semitic abuse.
Later Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, advised Jews to avoid wearing kippahs. But in solidarity, thousands of Berliners wore kippahs on 29 April, declared an "action day" against anti-Semitism.
Two German rappers, Kollegah and Farid Bang, were investigated recently over their gangsta rap lyrics which referred insultingly to Auschwitz victims and the Holocaust.
They were not prosecuted, but were taken on an educational visit to Auschwitz, where the Nazis murdered an estimated 1.1m Jews during World War Two.
Rhetoric from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has fuelled concern about anti-Semitism. An AfD leader, Björn Höcke, drew strong criticism after he condemned Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
Why this focus now on schools?
Mr Schuster says schools must take anti-Semitism seriously and not sweep it under the carpet.
"Such incidents happen in all types of school and all over Germany," he warned.
One boy subjected to anti-Semitic taunts at a Berlin school was given a separate room to use during breaks, as well as a separate entrance, RIAS reported.
Another Jewish boy was removed from a school by his parents after a gang had tormented him for months and threatened him with a realistic-looking toy pistol.
Mr Rasumny told the BBC that anti-bullying action had to involve awareness training for teachers, because "they don't always recognise current forms of anti-Semitism, or know when and how they should intervene".
There have been cases of anti-Semitism even among kindergarten children.
There is much under-reporting of incidents in schools, Mr Rasumny said. "There is pressure to conform to the rules, not to be different, and often kids report bullying only if they can't stand it any more," he said.
In one case, he said, a Jewish music teacher had left a school after being told by a pupil there that "God wants Jews to die". It emerged that another teacher had said something similar to the child's mother.
German schools should teach children about Jewish history and culture as a whole, Mr Rasumny said, in order to tackle anti-Semitism. "It's very important to educate about the Holocaust, but German Jewish history did not just start in 1933 and end in 1945," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44725066
 

Aardvark154

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Quite how this is going to succeed when Germany seems afraid to straight forwardly talk about what groups are responsible for all most all of these incidents, I don't know.
 

mandrill

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Quite how this is going to succeed when Germany seems afraid to straight forwardly talk about what groups are responsible for all most all of these incidents, I don't know.
Article I read yesterday said that they were mainly German Far Right groups. I know that you're suggesting that the perps are all Muslim, but they're apparently the minority of incidents. Although still a source of the problem, of course.


https://www.dw.com/en/anti-semitism...ts-unfairly-portrayed-in-the-media/a-43097603

There's hardly a more explosive issue in Germany than the question of anti-Semitism among Muslim immigrant communities and in particularly the more than 1 million migrants and refugees who have arrived in the country since 2015. On Friday the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Meyer H. May, told a German newspaper that such anti-Semitism was spreading like a "tumor" in Germany.

May is by no means the first Jewish leader to make this claim, but is the situation really that bad? To better understand the issue, I went to a day of discussions, hosted by an initiative to inform journalists about migration issues, with experts, social workers, refugees and a member of a Jewish sports club in Berlin.

Read more: Berlin fights anti-Semitism with synagogue, Jewish secondary school

Empirical figures on the phenomenon are hard to come by. Definitions of what qualifies as anti-Semitism vary wildly, and it's often difficult to tell whether anti-Semitic acts that are criminal in Germany — for example, painting a swastika on a synagogue wall — are committed by Muslims, right-wing extremists, or individuals or groups motivated by some other form of anti-Jewish aggression.

What struck me most was the skittishness of people charged with combating Muslim anti-Semitism, particularly in Berlin's schools, with regard to their description of it as a Muslim problem. The experts were at pains to counter the idea that Germany had "imported" a "new" anti-Semitism. Hostility to Jews was a wider social phenomenon, they argued, and by no means were all Muslims anti-Semitic.

What's new about today's anti-Semitism in Germany

Sina Arnold, the co-author of one of the few academic studies on the phenomenon, characterized the anti-Semitism she found among refugees she interviewed as "fragmentary." Anti-Jewish stereotypes were common, she says, but it was extremely rare for refugees to view the entire world through the lens of anti-Semitism.

"What we've seen is that with the migrants of the past few years, people have entered the country who have anti-Semitic attitudes — as do some people who are already here," Arnold told DW. "Not all of the migrants, but many of them. Many of them come from countries like Syria, in which an anti-Zionism that bordered on anti-Semitism was part of state ideology."

Read more: How Jewish artists in Berlin experience anti-Semitism

Arnold was quick to add that attempts to combat such attitudes should not "tar-brush" Muslims with racist stereotypes and that the sort of anti-Semitism found among migrants and refugees is not new to Germany. Equating Islam with anti-Semitism is a tactic used by the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

But surely the situation Germany currently faces is new, I thought, if only because this is the first time Germany has taken in over a million largely Muslim new arrivals in such a brief span of time. That fact alone means that measures to prevent anti-Semitism need to be tailored to this specific new audience.

"Prevention efforts always have to be targeted at groups," said historian and rabbi Andreas Nachama. "For instance it makes a big difference if you're talking to 20- or 60-year-olds. It makes no sense to put everyone in the same boat. We've had a different input in the past few years."

Don't point fingers. Try to teach people to embrace multicultural values instead of teaching them not to embrace anti-Semitism. Those are two of the guiding principles of the Kreuzberg Initiative against Anti-Semitism, or KIGA, named after the heavily Muslim Berlin district where it is located. The group trains teachers, conducts workshops in schools and contributes to the political-education "welcome classes" refugees receive after arriving in Germany.

KIGA co-founder Aycan Demirel defines one of its main purposes as trying to prevent the radicalization of Muslim youths. At the same time, he warns against overreacting, telling the story of a school that was so alarmed at a very young Muslim boy using the word "Jew" as an insult that a series of authorities that led all the way up to public prosecutors were called in to consult on the case.

Read more: Chancellor Angela Merkel condemns burning of Israeli symbols in Berlin

When it comes to understanding prevention and education methods, it's very difficult for journalists to form their own opinions. Schools confronted with anti-Semitism incidents are understandably publicity-shy, and it would require a raft of parental consent forms for KIGA to take a reporter along with them to witness their work with schoolkids, who are still minors. Much of the fight against anti-Jewish hatred takes place away from the eyes of the fourth estate.

It is impossible to quantify the level of anti-Jewish sentiment among Berlin Muslims, but it's clear that there is hostility. At the same time, hatred is by no means the only response in what is a very heterogeneous community. Those two conclusions were born out by the other participants at the open day.

Evgeni Abramovych, from the Jewish sporting club TuS Makkabi Berlin, described football matches with heavily Muslim teams as being far more aggressive than with other opponents. Racist insults and spitting, he said, were not infrequent occurrences. On the other hand, Abramovych also told of Muslim clubs that had approached TuS Makkabi to play friendlies in a gesture of solidarity.

Read more: Anti-Semitism in Germany: Jewish life 'under threat' says Charlotte Knobloch

Sandy — a 25-year-old refugee from Syria who came to Germany in 2014 and who teaches in welcome classes for more recent arrivals — acknowledged that some of her compatriots did hold anti-Semitic views. But she also said that she had never encountered such attitudes in her interactions with new Muslim arrivals as part of the KIGA Discover Diversity program.

Sandy and her fellow Syrian refugee Samer both speak German and use their participation in KIGA projects to learn more about their new country and pursue their interest in politics, which began back in their homeland.

 

mandrill

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https://www.dw.com/en/germany-avera...crimes-per-day-in-2017-report-says/a-42538545

Germany averaged four anti-Semitic crimes per day in 2017, report says

Police logged over 1,400 crimes targeting Jews in Germany last year, according to a newspaper report. The vast majority of the crimes were carried out by right-wing extremists or people with far-right tendencies.

The rising trend of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany shows no signs of abating, according to a newspaper report on last year's crime statistics that was published on Sunday.

In 2017, German police registered a total of 1,453 crimes that targeted Jews or Jewish institutions, reported German newspaper Tagesspiegel, citing figures from the German government. The data was compiled in response to an inquiry from Bundestag vice president and Left party lawmaker Petra Pau.

Read more: Anti-Semitism in Germany: Jewish life 'under threat' says Charlotte Knobloch

Last year's crimes included 32 acts of violence, 160 instances of property damage, and 898 cases of incitement.

The German government expects the figures to rise even further since the data provided by the states is not yet final, the paper said.

Read more: German laws on burning the Israeli flag: What you need to know

Far-right motives in a majority of cases

In 1,377 of the cases — 95 percent of the total — police determined that a right-wing motive had driven the crimes.

Police attributed 33 of the offenses to foreign-born anti-Semites, not including Islamists.

Another 25 of the cases were "religiously motivated," including those involving either foreign-born or German Muslims with extremist beliefs, according to the Tagesspiegel report.

Read more: Germany pays too little attention to current anti-Semitism, report says

In 17 of the cases, authorities were unable to determine a political motive behind the crime. Police determined a left-wing motive in one case of incitement.

Pau, who initiated the anti-Semitic crime inquiry, said she was deeply concerned about last year's figures. Speaking with Tagesspiegel, Pau noted that "the number of unreported cases could be considerably higher" since many of those affected are reluctant to report the crime.

Last month, German lawmakers passed a bill to implement tougher laws to tackle anti-Semitism, including the creation of a commissioner post to develop and carry out a strategy for rooting out anti-Semitic sentiment and crime.

 

mandrill

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Anti-Semitism on rise in Berlin schools, says US Jewish group

The American Jewish Committee says anti-Semitism is increasing at schools in Berlin. The group noted the trend was on the rise among pupils with a Turkish or Arabic background following strict forms of Islam.

A small-scale study by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) appears to show an increase in anti-Semitism in the German capital's schools, alongside an increase in Salafist tendencies.

Researchers asked 27 teachers from 21 schools in Berlin about the trend, with teaching staff saying they had noted a rise in the number of incidents.

Teachers said the abuse often came from pupils following a strict interpretation of Islam, with the use of anti-Semitic insults - particularly the word "Jew" as a term of abuse - against girls, homosexual students and secular Muslims.

Read more: Anti-Semitic bullying forces Jewish teen from Berlin high school

AJC Director Deidre Berger told local broadcaster RBB that the study showed, above all, that the problem was "no longer about isolated cases."
Watch video 02:05
Jewish Berliners encounter anti-Semitism

"Anti-Semitism is part of Salafist ideology," said Berger. The AJC director said there was a need for dialogue on the Middle East in schools, adding that many teachers preferred to avoid difficult discussions.

While information about the problem was previously sparse, the study's authors said there had already been "warnings from individual teachers and experts over the increasing spread of different forms of Salafism in Berlin schools."

The authors admitted that the study was not a comprehensive and representative investigation, but they said it showed an empirical trend.

Read more: Number of American Jews reclaiming German citizenship spikes

Conspiracy theories abound

Psychologist Ahmad Mansour, who specializes in the prevention of anti-Semitism, told German public broadcaster ARD that the problem could only be addressed by confronting the ideas to which some Muslim pupils were exposed.

Read more: How did a member of "Schools without Racism" experience anti-Semitic bullying?

"It's not just about the use of the word 'Jew' as an insult, it's also about conspiracy theories and about an interpretation of Islam in which all Jews are considered enemies," Mansour said, in response to the report. "It's about the idea of victims and enemies; the Middle East conflict has a big part in it."

Mansour said the problem was not a new one. "It's a phenomenon that we have experienced in recent years and will experience in the coming years. We need across-the-board measures, especially within schools, to address such topics and to make it clear to such young people that such opinions have nothing to do with democracy."

"How many studies do we still need so that we finally start to address the problem?"

The study was conducted as part of the Berlin project "Strengthen Democracy - Active Against Anti-Semitism and Salafism."


https://www.dw.com/en/anti-semitism-on-rise-in-berlin-schools-says-us-jewish-group/a-39763759
 

Aardvark154

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Oagre -- the first article is as most I have read.

If there were 1,377 reported incidents of antisemitism in Germany last year and 95 percent were committed by neo-Nazis I'm both shocked at the massive increase in Nazi attacks over the past decade and also wonder if most of them occur in the former DDR.
 

mandrill

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Oagre -- the first article is as most I have read.

If there were 1,377 reported incidents of antisemitism in Germany last year and 95 percent were committed by neo-Nazis I'm both shocked at the massive increase in Nazi attacks over the past decade and also wonder if most of them occur in the former DDR.
Probably worth researching.

The unification is now 30 year old and my guess would be that there are no longer large cultural differences between East and West.

Of course, there is also a link between Salafism and anti Semitism.
 

bver_hunter

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Quite how this is going to succeed when Germany seems afraid to straight forwardly talk about what groups are responsible for all most all of these incidents, I don't know.
Yes Germans are afraid of talking abut the extreme right wing Neo-nazis being responsible for all these crimes. Off course the right wing press only blows up a criminal incident by a Muslim.
 

Frankfooter

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Oagre -- the first article is as most I have read.

If there were 1,377 reported incidents of antisemitism in Germany last year and 95 percent were committed by neo-Nazis I'm both shocked at the massive increase in Nazi attacks over the past decade and also wonder if most of them occur in the former DDR.
Its also a reaction against immigration and Muslims.
You've got places like the Ukraine and the US who are also seeing increasing neo-Nazi action.
But its also popping up in Italy, Greece, Poland and Hungary.
 

basketcase

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Racism is racism, Islamaphobes spread racism and that increases anti-semitism as well as other forms of racism.
And you should help trying to stop arming Nazis.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/rig...top-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727
You are a complete joke in your claims that Islamophobia is the cause of anti-semitism. In reality they have the same cause and are not dependant on each other.

Of course you continually back openly anti-semitic organizations like Hamas so it's not a surprise you are trying to change the topic.
 

Frankfooter

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You are a complete joke in your claims that Islamophobia is the cause of anti-semitism.
You need to stop lying about what I say. I didn't say 'the' cause, I said 'a' cause.
Instead you should be worrying about this.
Israel 'nation state' law clause would enshrine apartheid, warn critics
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-knesset-debate-plans-create-jewish-only-towns-1834338491

Right wing policies lead to racism and racist policies like apartheid.

The far right thrives on Europe’s indifference to Muslim refugees
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/2...s-on-europes-indifference-to-muslim-refugees/
 

onthebottom

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Germany is trying to keep the progressive candy coating on a fundamentally fascist society.
 

Frankfooter

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basketcase

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...
Though their media notes that the extreme right wing share a lot ideology with Islamacists.
Good of you to start realizing that there are a lot of ideological similarities between neo-nazis and Hamas. Both support authoritarian control of the people and are completely intolerant of any other ethnicity.
 

Frankfooter

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Do you think that makes your statement any less stupid? Anti-semitism is not caused by Islamophobia in any way.
It is 'a' cause.
Right wingers who back Islamaphobia end up support racists who are encouraged, that leads to more anti-semitism.
Are you so daft to really claim that racists are only ever racist about one people at a time?
 

Frankfooter

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Good of you to start realizing that there are a lot of ideological similarities between neo-nazis and Hamas. Both support authoritarian control of the people and are completely intolerant of any other ethnicity.
With right wingers like you.
Your support of the extreme right wing, racist Israeli government puts you backing similar ideologies.
Just like your total refusal to acknowledge Palestinian human rights or the findings of Amnesty, HRW or others.
 

basketcase

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With right wingers like you.
Just as stupid a statement as you saying anti-semitism is being caused by islamophobia.

As for those rights groups, I'm still waiting for you to agree with them that Hamas is engaged in terrorism.
 
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