It took several years before the Federal Court in Karlsruhe got involved. The highest German court finally ruled on June 14: the anti-Semitic bas-relief of St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg will remain on the facade of this historic site of the Protestant Reformation, where Luther preached. And even if it represents “an anti-Semitism carved in stone”according to the terms of the judgment.
Nicknamed “the sow of the Jews”, the more than 700-year-old sculpture was singled out by a septuagenarian from Bonn, who saw in it “an insult” et “a form of defamation against the Jewish people”, contextualise la Jewish General, a weekly close to the Central Council of Jews in Germany. He considered the display of the bas-relief to be problematic in the current climate of anti-Semitism and conspiracy.
The sculpted scene indeed shows two Jews hanging from the udders of a sow and a rabbi looking at the ani’s anus.