Philipp Peyman Engel, editor-in-chief of the “Jüdische Allgemeine”
Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow Special notes
Dear Mr. Peyman Engel, please do not leave our country! You are right to denounce the daily and often physical attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in Germany. Your fear for your family, for the communities and their members, for liberal democracy in Germany is all too understandable.
You see more clearly than perhaps some of your readers where anti-Semitism is surging in this country and spreading its evil spirit, where it comes from and where it threatens to lead. Those from the right, within and around the AfD, those from some forces from Arab-Muslim migrant circles who have made the eradication of the state of Israel their flag, and those in the supposedly left-wing spectrum.
Of course, you too find the many civilian victims of Israeli military strikes against Hamas positions terrible – who doesn’t? Many people will sign your critical words about Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies. They describe the exodus of Jews from France and note disturbing changes in the United States. If your cousin in Los Angeles wants to vote for Donald Trump again “on principle” despite his anti-democratic attitude but because of his declared loyalty to Israel, write “Schmock” in his register.
Anyone who wants to live in the Federal Republic does not have to profess Goethe, Beethoven or a fan of Bayern Munich or secondary German virtues, but they must respect our legal system, especially the Basic Law: the equal rights of women and no incitement to hatred. Violations must have consequences.
You grew up in the Ruhr area, the child of a Jewish woman who fled to the Federal Republic of Germany from Persia and a non-Jewish German. You are editor-in-chief of the “Jüdische Allgemeine”. And you write: »The first suitcases are already packed. But then there is a detail that doesn’t want to let me go: I am a German Jew. This is my place! This is where I was born, this is where I belong. I will fight. I don’t want to be tyrannized by an anti-Semitic mob. Germany is a good country. With a lot of great people.” The reviewer thanks him for this and thinks of his Turkish market dealer from whom he buys delicious Jaffa mandarins, which he praises with the words: “From Israel.”
Your Harald Loch
Philipp Peyman Engel: German life lies. Anti-Semitism, again and still. Dtv, 191 p., hardcover, €18.