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Friday, November 6, 2015

Germany: Jewish editor fired for being 'pro-Jewish'



Jews are in Europe are suspected of being biased.  Their opinions about issues, especially those pertaining to the Jewish community and Israel, are regularly discounted.   Jews are silenced about the topics that most affect them (see here and here), because Jews can't be trusted. 

Via Artuz 7 (h/t Honestly Concerned)
Former editor of Europe's largest paper, Bild, tells of his stint at Bremen's daily paper, and how being pro-Jewish is the way to get fired. 
Manfred Gerstenfeld interviews Daniel Killy
(...)

“In July 2014, during the Gaza campaign, the open hatred against Israel on Germany’s streets reached its climax. I wrote a somewhat personal essay entitled ‘Vanishing Values’ describing how it felt to be a German Jew at that time. I received much positive feedback from colleagues. However, senior management responded by instructing me that for the time being, I shouldn’t write about Jewish issues and Israel anymore because I was not neutral."

(...)

“In December 2014 things got worse. I had arranged the first interview in a German daily with the newly elected President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster. A few days later, I met the incoming new editor-in-chief of Weser-Kurier for the first time. I then got an email from him saying that I had not been ‘independent’ enough in the interview.  He said that my questions represented my position as spokesman of the Jewish Community in Hamburg rather than that of an independent journalist. He informed me that such an approach would not be allowed after he came in as editor-in-chief.

“I replied that I saw this email as an insult to my journalistic independence. The following day I received an official letter from the Chief Executive Officer of the paper’s publisher, Bremer Tageszeitungen AG. He and his co-signatory, the human resources manager, officially forbade me to do any more voluntary work for the Jewish Community as this was putting my independence as a journalist in jeopardy.

“In January 2015 I addressed the CEO about the issue. I told him that the Schuster interview had been correctly handled by any media standards. He was uncomfortable with the situation, and then said ‘Mr. Killy, you need to understand that we as Bremen’s monopoly paper can’t afford to be considered pro-Jewish.’ I commented that this explanation was perhaps seventy years too late. He replied, ‘No, no, of course I didn’t mean it like that.’ However, he did. He apologized if he had offended me and done me wrong, and told me that he would talk to the incoming editor-in-chief about the matter.  There was absolutely no problem anymore, he said.

Six weeks later, I was fired.”

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