We sent the following letter today to the venue operators and cooperation partners of Roger Waters’ German tour dates.Dear Sir or Madam,
we have noted with great consternation that the notoriously antisemitic musician Roger Waters is to be given a highly public stage through his concert tour. And your company is involved in the tour.
Waters has for many years attracted negative attention through an aggressive, Israel-related antisemitism. Since 2011 he has been an avowed advocate of the international campaign “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS), which has set itself the goal of destroying the Jewish state of Israel. In a cross-party resolution of the German Bundestag in 2019, the BDS movement was unequivocally condemned as antisemitic at its core, and it is also antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism adopted by the German federal government and more than 40 further states. This view is shared
by the majority of the German federal states, the Commission of the Antisemitism Commissioners of the Federal Government and the States, the German Rectors’ Conference and countless further associations and organisations.
Waters’ numerous documented expressions of hatred furthermore include the use of antisemitic symbolism as part of his stage shows, the dissemination of pertinent anti-Jewish
conspiracy narratives and the relativisation of Nazi crimes.
As a famous figure of the cultural scene, Roger Waters contributes to the normalisation of antisemitism. Waters could use his prominence and be an amplifier for democracy. Instead he is an amplifier for antisemitism.
Since your company surely also opposes misanthropy, we assume that you do not wish to give an ambassador of hatred a stage. We urgently call on you to seriously examine all available means in order to avoid that impression. Roger Waters’ hatred deserves neither support nor legitimation. Conceivable here would be, for example, a cancellation of the planned event and a loud and clear distancing from his attitudes. These measures may be accompanied by financial losses. As an initiative of Jewish-German civil society, we insist that the necessary societal fight against antisemitism
must also be waged where it does not come free of charge.
Yours sincerely
Elio Adler
– Chairman –
