Germany: Politicians in Einstein's hometown fund anti-Semitic lecture

Albert Einstein (1921)

The fact that this is happening in Ulm, Albert Einstein's hometown, is highly symbolic. Furthermore, The Jerusalem Post was told that Ulm has a large "Salafist scene".  Such are the realities of contemporary Germany (and Europe).  As the saying goes, one nail drives out another...


Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

A municipally funded adult education center in Ulm – the birthplace of Albert Einstein – is slated to host next Wednesday a speaker accused of stoking anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel across Germany. 

The Ulm/Neu-Ulm chapter of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) launched its protest against the event, saying the lecture “is part of a series of anti-Israel events leading to the delegitimization of the Jewish state and its right to self-defense.” 

“We call for the end of this Israeli criticism disguised as a latent anti-Semitic position,” the German-Israeli friendship society wrote on Thursday. 

The planned talk from BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) activist Arn Strohmeyer at the Einstein House Academic Center, which is taking place in cooperation with the House of Encounter, prompted criticism because the city subsidizes the center and has steadfastly ignored citizen complaints about harsh anti-Israel events at the academic center. 

“Strohmeyer is known for his anti-Zionist position,” DIG said. “He speaks, among other things, of a ‘colonial settler state [Israel]’ that strives to completely replace the indigenous population through an immigrant population.” 

Strohmeyer’s BDS activities against Israel in Bremen have been compared in the German media to the “Don’t buy from Jews” Nazi boycott in the 1930s. 

“This event under the aegis of the director of politics for the academic center, Lothar Heusohn, and director of the House of Encounter, Michael Hauser, is financed by public money and that is scandalous. 

We call for a cancellation of the event and will in the future raise our voices,” said DIG.
Iris Mann, the politician responsible for education and culture in Ulm, told The Jerusalem Post, “We will not undertake anything” to stop the event because “to form political opinions stands in the tradition of the academic center and it lives from a discourse of different opinions.” 

Mann defended the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, saying “the concept of anti-Semitism is being misused because the statements of BDS do not address individual hostility or religious affiliation, rather it deals with criticism of state actions against violations of human rights conventions.” 

The EU and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both rejected boycotts of the Jewish state. (...)

Grigori Pantijelew, the deputy representative of the Bremen Jewish community, told the Weser Kurier paper at the time: “Anti-Semitism is not banned in Germany but there is a consensus that it not be allowed to be conveyed in public facilities. If we all maintain that, it will help societal peace.”

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