Berlin, 01.02.2023 – WerteInitiative – jüdisch-deutsche Positionen e.V. sharply criticises the forthcoming organisational change in the office of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM). From today, the position of the Commissioner for Combating Extremism and Antisemitism is to be abolished. The tasks of the previous commissioner, among them combating hatred of Jews, are in future to be assigned to the new unit “Culture and remembrance in a democratic immigration society”. On this, Elio Adler, chairman of WerteInitiative:
“This organisational reordering at the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Claudia Roth sends a clear signal: the importance of the fight against antisemitism declines markedly and becomes a subcategory in the field of remembrance culture. Hostility towards Jews thus becomes a mainly historical topic and modern forms of antisemitism are ignored. Yet antisemitic demonstrations, the hatred of Jews tolerated for months at documenta15 and regular attacks on Jews show that the commitment against antisemitism in the here and now must be taken seriously.”
With regard to documenta15, WerteInitiative repeatedly criticised last year the way the BKM and the head of its office, Dr Andreas Görgen, dealt above all with Israel-related antisemitism.
“At present it is precisely antisemitism disguised as ‘criticism of Israel’ that is one of the main manifestations of this millennia-old misanthropy. Through the structural changes in Claudia Roth’s office, exactly this form of hatred moves further out of focus. Actual dangers to Jewish life today, to Jews and not least also to our democracy are thus disregarded. Especially after the massive loss of trust following documenta15, this is a further fatal signal to the Jewish community in Germany,” Adler continued.
Adler in conclusion:
“We would gladly have exchanged views on this personally with Claudia Roth. However, our repeated requests for a meeting have been ignored by the commissioner for over a year.”
About the association WerteInitiative – Jüdisch-deutsche Positionen e.V.:
WerteInitiative has established itself as a civil-society Jewish voice in Germany since 2014. We set out to secure the future of Jewish life in Germany. We therefore campaign for strengthening the values of the free democratic basic order from a Jewish perspective. We do this by promoting values-based political, social and media discourse, civic Jewish engagement in Germany and the German-Israeli relationship. For further information we recommend visiting our website: https://werteinitiative.de/.
