2023-05-26 16:49:39
As a guest of honor, Claudia Roth was booed at the Jewrovision of the Central Council of Jews. Now 50 Jews are behind the culture minister.
Claudia Roth (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Minister of State for Culture and Mediadpa
In an open letter, which is available to the Berliner Zeitung, around 50 Jewish people from the arts, culture and science support the Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth – some of them famous names such as Daniel Barenboim, Barrie Kosky and Igor Levit, Eva Menasse, Susan Neiman or Eva Illouz.
The background: Roth was insulted and booed last Friday in Frankfurt am Main at the so-called Jewrovision, a major event of the German Jewish community. The gesture was immediately interpreted on social media as a reaction to the Central Council’s sometimes harsh criticism of Roth, especially after at least one work of art with anti-Semitic content was exhibited at the documenta 15 art exhibition in Kassel, which was co-financed by the federal government. In 2022, this caused fierce nationwide debates about the limits of artistic freedom and curatorial responsibility in the German context.
However, the Central Council’s criticism of Roth goes back further: In 2019, the politician did not vote for the resolution of the German Bundestag that classified the Israel boycott movement BDS as anti-Semitic and demanded that BDS remain excluded from public funding in Germany. She was also accused of not making any critical comments about the GG 5.3 Cosmopolitan initiative formed in 2020, with which high-ranking cultural institutions such as the House of World Cultures, the Goethe-Institut or the DAAD opposed the BDS resolution of the Bundestag . In the eyes of the initiative, the resolution promotes a kind of boycott logic and specifically complicates the promotion and invitation practice in a cultural area geared towards internationality.
Josef Schuster is criticized in the open letter
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, is criticized in the open letter. He neither welcomed the Minister of State by name nor did anything to ensure that Roth was able to hold her speech without interruption. “Protest is one thing, the shouted-down speech of an invited guest is something else,” write the undersigned. Last but not least, Schuster also violated a commandment in Judaism – namely not to expose the other (halbanat Panim).
As a result of the scandal, voices were raised on Twitter calling for Roth’s dismissal. Der Spiegel wrote that the anger at the minister was understandable because of concerns that she could “make anti-Semitism acceptable”. Others, in turn, referred to the political exploitation of the incident by the FDP and CDU, as well as by conservative associations such as the German-Israeli Society or the NGO Values Initiative. The Green politician Jürgen Trittin spoke of a “staged scandal”.
In the context of that debate, the signers of the open letter now support Roth. Her political biography unmistakably tells of a lifelong commitment against anti-Semitism and racism. “Without agreeing with everything she does: it is thanks to her, among other things, that the future work of memorial sites and institutions dealing with the history of National Socialist crimes is secured.”
The letter also explicitly criticizes the reductive way in which the debate about Roth is currently being conducted in the German media context: “In newspaper commentaries, ‘the Jews’ are again reduced to one voice by claiming that their concerns about anti-Semitism in the Claudia Roth doesn’t take culture seriously.”
Despite all legitimate concerns about growing anti-Semitism, Roth cannot be held responsible for controversial content. In addition, cultural workers need a political environment in which they can work unhindered. “Many Jews help shape the cultural scene in Germany – there must be a liberal consensus.”
They emphasize that Judaism has always lived on polyphony, pluralism and debate. And: more than half of the Jews living in Germany neither belonged to a Jewish community nor did they support the “particularist policies” of the Central Council, and even rejected the latter. “We must all insist on civilized, respectful debate and not just demand it of one another.”
In addition to those mentioned above, the 50 signatories also include Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Daniel Kahn, Rachel Libeskind, Meron Mendel, Jerzy Montag, Michael Naumann, Miriam Rürup, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky, Mirjam Zadoff and Moshe Zimmermann .
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