The members of our association spent weeks discussing the attitude with which we approach issues. The updated guiding principles were finally adopted in April 2023 with 94% approval and 6% abstentions and form the basis of our work.
The WerteInitiative is a Jewish civil-society voice in Germany. As a non-profit association we work on a non-partisan basis and campaign for securing a Jewish future in Germany and Europe. The means to that end is strengthening the values of the free and democratic basic order. We promote values-based political, social and media discourse, Jewish civic engagement in Germany and German-Israeli relations. To achieve our goals we also cooperate with other political and social actors, institutions and organisations.
We hold positions that strengthen our Basic Law and the free and democratic values underlying it. Out of these lived values a “free and democratic societal culture” has grown in Germany, and we want to protect it.
Living out personal needs and pursuing individual goals must not be turned against the free and democratic societal culture.
Participation in society is not to be made dependent on religion, passport, skin colour, gender or sexual orientation, but on acceptance of the canon of values set out in the Basic Law.
We want Germany to be part of a vital and secure European Union.
It is the task of the state to promote, enforce and protect the free and democratic societal culture. This includes conveying it and making it tangible, as well as guaranteeing its citizens external, internal and social security.
For the good of our society the entire spectrum of state action should be used: this includes preventive measures such as upbringing, education, cultural support and integration, as well as the sanctions provided for by law. The consistent application of the law is an indispensable precondition for the credibility of the constitutional state.
Judaism, with its diverse cultural and religious traditions, has been part of this country’s history and present for more than 1,700 years. Although we still feel the rupture caused by the Shoah, our members identify with their German home.
We welcome the different denominations within Judaism. Together we are part of the free and democratic societal culture. The continued existence and flourishing of Jewish life must be made possible by the state. This includes Jewish circumcision and kosher slaughter, because they are constitutive elements of Judaism. Their framework and circumstances are sufficiently regulated.
The great majority of Jewish Germans also have a close bond with Israel and, not least because of historical and equally present-day experience, regard the country as a “safe haven”. From German foreign policy we therefore expect a clearly Israel-solidary stance in the Near and Middle East, in word and deed. Israel’s security as a Jewish state is to be actively promoted and guaranteed. The goal is peaceful coexistence within Israel and between Israel and its neighbours.
Those states and those state and non-state organisations that regard Israel as an enemy must not be partners of Germany. This also applies to anti-Israel boycott movements and their supporters.
The special connection between Germany and the Jewish state is essentially based on the painful European history during the Shoah. Today, however, this connection is shaped by the community of values of the two democracies and by the similar social, economic and security-policy structures and challenges in both countries. Israel’s role as a democratic and geostrategic anchor of stability in the Middle East is also in German and European interests.
Antisemitism is a worldview hostile to Jews which, in its ultimate consequence, aims at the annihilation of Jews. The definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in its extended form guides us in recognising it.
No room may be given to hatred of Jews, relativisation of history, conspiracy myths and anti-Judaism. “Criticism of Israel” characterised by delegitimisation, double standards and demonisation, as well as “anti-Zionism” and calls to boycott Israel and everything Israeli, are the familiar antisemitism in another guise.
In the history of the Federal Republic, Jewish life has faced threat and death from right-wing extremism as well as from left-wing radicalism and Islamism.
A growing milieu that draws on elements of intersectional and postcolonial theory stokes antisemitic resentment and thereby enables antisemitic stereotypes, relativisation of history and conspiracy myths to take hold in left-wing and liberal discourse as well.
We therefore call for prevention through education and information, the ostracism of antisemitic incidents and their consistent prosecution with all the means of the constitutional state.
What all radicals and extremists have in common is that they exploit the freedoms of the open society in order to destroy social peace. Within the framework of our resilient democracy we support surveillance and monitoring of all extremist and radical forces in accordance with the legal order. Illegal action and criminal tendencies are to be countered with all the means of the constitutional state.
We sharply condemn any spreading of hatred against dissenters, minorities or otherwise marked people. Right-wing and left-wing hatred differ in quantity and in quality. While right-wing extremism permeates society considerably more strongly in numbers and in terms of violence, both ultimately lead to a society in which, among other things, Jewish life is no longer possible.
Violence, terrorist and anti-state activities are among the greatest challenges for politics and society.
Legalists who, for example in the form of the “New Right”, ostensibly act within the law present a particular difficulty.
A further point in the fight against radicalism and extremism is strengthening the political centre of society.
We reject Muslim associations and organisations that seek to give religion a primarily political, formative dimension, or that stand for religious convictions incompatible with the free and democratic societal culture. Religious addresses must not be used to spread agitation, hatred and intolerance. The radicalising influence of other states on Muslim communities here must be pushed back.
The state is called upon to apply strict criteria to cooperation and funding and to prevent itself from strengthening forces that do not wish to be compatible with our free and democratic basic order. Organisations, associations and mosques that do not stand unreservedly behind democracy and indivisible human rights must, where necessary, be restricted in their activities, banned and, where applicable, prosecuted.
In this spirit the WerteInitiative works, with all the means of discursive persuasion, towards securing a Jewish future in a free and democratic society and towards strengthening a constitutional state that effectively protects this society in its life together.