We take seriously the understandable disquiet among some of our members regarding Dr Felix Klein’s recommendation that Jews should not make themselves identifiable everywhere by wearing a kippah.
To attack him for being the first to formulate this truth in what is effectively an official capacity strikes us as counterproductive and wrong. Dr Klein holds an office that has de facto been furnished with no power. In this office he goes, as we have repeatedly experienced at first hand, up to and sometimes beyond every limit in order toachieve an effect in the fight against antisemitism. The very fact that he communicates his change of mind on the question of wearing a kippah shows that he is prepared to seek confrontation. We can imagine how much trouble this will bring him behind the scenes: “How can you say such a thing?!” Undeterred, he does it all the same and repeatedly puts his finger on the sore points.
How is a single individual supposed to dispose of a centuries-old phenomenon in less than a year? Many Jews would have wished for a more combative tone from him, one that did not come across as caving in – though we are well aware that such a tone would not impress the antisemites any further either.
The high expectations most of us place on his work stem from sheer fear for our own future and that of our children. But that must not make us lose our heads.
(Report referred to: https://www.welt.de/politik/article194160769/Felix-Klein-Antisemitismusbeauftragter-warnt-Juden-vor-Tragen-der-Kippa.html)
