Jews in Germany have Mixed Feelings toward Israel
For many Gentiles, there can be no doubt about it: A Jew, regardless of his nationality, will also always be an Israeli at heart. Jews, so the logic goes, have a congenital double nationality, and that is why, come what may, they will always be loyal to the Jewish state. Obviously, this idea is arrant nonsense, but it is highly popular nonsense that has been recounted across the world. Germany is no exception. The former President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis (1927-1999) loved to tell the story of how people would approach him after Ezer Weizman, then the president of Israel, had addressed the German parliament. “Your President really did give a wonderful speech today in the Bundestag,” they would say. “Oh really?” Bubis would answer, quick as always. “I didn’t know Roman Herzog was scheduled to give an address in parliament today!” The Jew, always also an Israeli – Bubis showed up the absurdity of this preconception with great wit and precision.
Nonetheless, this is a question that many of the Jews living in Germany today ask themselves, even after nearly seventy years have passed since the Shoah: What is my position towards Israel? And regardless of the answer, it will certainly be informed by a dilemma: On the one hand, you feel strong emotional ties to the Jewish state, you know of its history filled with wars and terrorist attacks, and you are only too familiar with its precarious present. There is your pride about what has been achieved in Zion, and anxiety that all of this is constantly at risk. The Jewish state, and friend and foe agree on that, cannot permit itself to suffer a single defeat. That would spell its end. This is how that special closeness is formed, based on our conscious solidarity. After all, Israel is pretty isolated as a nation. Friends are rare, and are becoming ever rarer. In that kind of a situation, you need allies you can rely on.
On the other hand, there are things that call for criticism. Ever since Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party became Prime Minister in Jerusalem, many feel that their bonds to Israel are being put to a severe test. Because for German Jews as well, solidarity with Israel is not tantamount to automatically approving whatever action the government has decided to take. The Israeli settlement policy, to cite but one example, or the unrelenting stance taken in all negotiations with the Palestinians, or the numerous privileges granted to Orthodox Jews before others – these are matters that anger even the most good-natured among the people sympathizing with Israel. But you ask yourself: Is it ethical to deny loyalty to Israel, one of the smallest among the world’s nations, when everybody is already stabbing it in the back? Should it not be our instinct to assist this David against all those Goliaths? And one more question: Is not the majority even demanding of us that we declare our solidarity with Israel, by making each Jew an Israeli? So let’s do them the favor, scruples be damned!
And there it is again, that old and never-ceasing dilemma. But we should not be kidding ourselves. There is a significant number of Jews living in Germany for whom Israel does not entail any kind of disruption of their intellectual or emotional comfort zone. For the people who emigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union – and they are the ones, by sheer numbers alone, who dominate life in the German Jewish congregations and their culture, and who will soon be shaping their politics as well – for these people, the Jewish state has no particular attraction as a homeland. For some of them, Israel is as foreign a country as Morocco or Denmark is. You may find that regrettable. But after all, that is what makes emotions such a tricky thing. You cannot force them. And Jews are no exception to that rule.