We sent the following letter today to the managing directors of the Astor Film Lounge MyZeil in Frankfurt am Main, Hans-Joachim and Tom-Laurence Flebbe. Dear Messrs Flebbe, it is with great incomprehension that we take note of your cinema manager’s decision to cancel the cooperation with the Jüdische Gemeinde Frankfurt in the framework of the Jewish Film Days 2026. The economic justification appears to us to be a pretext, since to our knowledge the Jüdische Gemeinde Frankfurt would have been prepared to guarantee a minimum turnover. Your cinema manager further justifies the withdrawal of the Astor Film Lounge with the existing security situation and with the remark that in Germany it must “still be permissible for a cinema to behave neutrally”. It is precisely this justification that makes the matter so serious. What is at stake here is distancing oneself from Jewish life under the impression of threat and antisemitic pressure. If, in such a situation, the Astor Film Lounge invokes “neutrality”, it does not stand outside the problem but becomes part of it.
The decision of the Astor Film Lounge Frankfurt shows how antisemitism also works: not only through open violence, threats and as a permanent potential danger to Jews, Jewish institutions and events, but also through the accommodation of those who yield to this pressure. If cooperation with a Jewish community is considered too delicate, if police protection is not understood as a necessary protective measure for Jewish life but as a disruptive factor and a reason to withdraw, then that is nothing other than a capitulation to precisely those forces that want to push Jews out of public space. To invoke “neutrality” in this context is a trivialisation of the bitter and dangerous reality.
Civil courage would mean something different: holding on to the cooperation, standing visibly at the side of Jewish partners, making clear that threats and antisemitic hostility must not decide who is welcome in this society and who is not, who cooperates with whom and who does not. Antisemitism is not a legitimate opinion and must never become one. Antisemitism is always also an attack on democracy. For where Jews are no longer safe, where social groups as such are threatened and pushed out of public life, freedom as a whole is endangered.
We therefore call upon you to reconsider your position.
We call upon you to state publicly that there can be no neutrality towards antisemitism. We call upon you to take responsibility and to make clear that Jewish life, Jewish events and Jewish partners are not subject to reservations in your establishment and are not turned away when things become uncomfortable. We expect cultural institutions in this country not to withdraw precisely at the moment when taking a stance is called for.
Jewish life belongs in the centre of this society. Visible, self-evident and without any restriction through fear and threat. Whoever distances themselves from Jewish partners and friends because of pressure rewards antisemitism and abandons those who are under threat.
Yours sincerely
Elio Adler
-Chairman of the Board-
