We are disappointed and dismayed by the development that the Qumran Scrolls cannot be exhibited in Germany.
We consider the reasoning – that the Federal Republic is unable to give the Israeli government a guarantee of immunity in this matter – to be questionable and a wrong decision.
The fact that the Qumran Scrolls were found in an area regarded internationally as disputed does nothing to alter the fact that these scrolls, which go back to ancient Judaism and are for the most part written in ancient Hebrew, are Jewish and therefore Israeli cultural property.
The founder of the WerteInitiative, Elio Adler, commented: “We regard it as a value that peoples treat their history as an integral part of how they define themselves; that they live with their history and draw conclusions from it.
The Qumran Scrolls are historical documents which, for Jews worldwide, reflect a part of their history and thus of their identity.”
In the eyes of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture, Ms Monika Grütters, the question of ownership is unresolved. This is in no way comprehensible to us, particularly as Ms Grütters generally commands considerable expertise in cultural matters.
As recently became known, in the Gurlitt case Ms Grütters had energetically arranged for an art collection of some 1,500 works to be seized on suspicion that it constituted looted art; four years later, after intensive investigation, it could be established for only five or six works that they were indeed looted art.
Ms Grütters justified this sweeping action by pointing to Germany’s obligation to ensure that the works were returned to their rightful owners. Now, by contrast, the minister is calling into question the ownership by the Jewish people and the Jewish state of the relics of its own origins; more than that, she is entertaining the possibility that legitimate claims to these scrolls might be raised by the Palestinian or Jordanian side.
In our view, recognising Jewish ownership of the Qumran Scrolls would not amount to recognising a Jewish claim to the West Bank, where the scrolls were found. Withholding recognition of ownership of the scrolls, however, is unmistakably a position in itself.
