!INS IG HT]
WE„„SHIP
GIFTS
Why Fight
the Crowds
at the Mall?
Jews In West Germany
Ponder Their Future
IF YOU WISH— WE'LL PACKAGE THEM TOO!
DAVID KANTOR
No long lines — courteous employees
and extended hours. Next day service
available. We handle anything from
1 to 1,000 pounds and we ship
furniture too.
Special to The Jewish News
B
Easy shipping at the
14 On)"
WITH
CAR_ L
Packaging S
The shipper that does the packing, too!
Birmingham
Southfield
W. Bloomfield
2523 W. Maple
(At Cranbrook)
26087 W. 12 Mile
(12 High Plaza)
6453 Farmington Rd.
(At Maple Rd.)
433-3070
352-8955
855-5822
VISA
Always 20% Off
"Any Occasion Requires
Special Dresses"
10-7 PM Mon.-Sat.
12-5 PM Sundays
293 2 5 Fourteen Mile
Farmington Hills
Broadway Plaza
• 737-4483 •
Feeling Depressed? Family Problems?
No One To Talk To?
call
Unique
Fashion Sweats
For
Men, Women
And Children
Always 20% Off
only at
TOP IT OFF
3015 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Berkley
547.5992
Across from the
Berkley Theater
Extended
Holiday Hours
We are winning.
AMERICAN
CANCER
SOCIETY'
354-1991 for
AN IMMEDIATE APPOINTMENT
State. Certified Therapists Serving
ADULTS • ADOLESCENTS • CHILDREN
CONTEMPORARY COUNSELING CENTER
No Waiting
354.1991
TRAVEL NETWORK®
TAKE-A-BREAKAWAY"
4 Days / 3 Nights
SAN JUAN
from s 482
PUERTO PLATA ...s548
JAMAICA
s569
St. MAARTEN •
s668
ARUBA
8 698
INCLUDES R/T AIR FROM DETROIT, HOTEL
TRANSFERS, ACOMMODATIONS
'Per pima double occupancy. Subject to changetayaiabiity.
Holiday supplements and restrictions apply.
TROY
1701 Rochester Rd.
62
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1988
[313]
528 - 3007
onn — Are we Ger-
man Jews or simply
Jews in Germany?
That this question is asked
43 years after the fall of the
Third Reich is evidence of a
deep identity crisis among
the 30,000 or so peple of Ger-
man nationality who identify
as Jews.
All but a few hundred live
in the Federal Republic of
West Germany. They are fine-
ly tuned to the past and
therefore nervous at any
manifestation of
anti-Semitism.
Periodically, they question
their future in this country.
Now is one of those times.
It began with a speech
delivered last month to the
Bundestag, the lower house of
the West German parliament,
by then-president of the
Bundestag, Phillip Jenninger.
The occasion was a session to
observe the 50th anniversary
of Kristallnacht, the first
organized pogrom in Nazi
Germany.
Jenninger, a rising young
politician in Chancellor
Helmut Kohl's ruling Chris-
- tian Democratic Union, gave
what he considered an ap-
propriate speech. As he said
later, he was trying to il-
lustrate the state of mind of
the Germans when they ac-
cepted and idolized Hitler.
Yet to many Jews and non-
Jews, his speech sounded at
worst like a justification of
Nazi racist policies, or at best,
as insensitive to Jewish feel-
ings. More than 50 deputies,
mainly of the opposition
Social Democratic and Green
parties, walked out during
the speech.
In the uproar that followed,
Jenninger resigned his
prestigious Bundestag post.
The incident also stirred a
furor within the Central
Council of Jews in West Ger-
many, the representative
body of the Jewish communi-
ty here. Michael Fuerst, one
of its leading members,
defended Jenninger. He said
the speech was misunder-
stood and that Jews should
not have called for Jenn-
inger's resignation. Fuerst
also expressed fear that Jews
would be accused of interfer-
ing in party politics.
Immediately afterward,
Heinz
Galinski,
the
outspoken 75-year-old chair-
man of the council, went on
national television to de-
nounce Fuerst. Galinski
asserted that he alone was
authorized to speak for the
Jewish community. Fuerst
subsequently resigned from
the Central Council, but re-
tained the chairmanship of
the Jewish community in the
federal state of Lower Saxony.
Meanwhile, in the days
that followed, neo-Nazis
desecrated Jewish cemeteries
in various parts of West Ger-
many, while swastikas and
anti-Semitic graffiti were
scrawled on walls. The
resurgent vandalism was a
reaction to the official remem-
brance of Kristallnacht and to
the storm over Jenninger's
speech. It forced Jews and
non-Jews to reassess the
situation of Jews and the
heavily guarded Jewish com-
munity property in this
country.
West Germany's counterin-
telligence estimates that
about 25,000 right-wing ex-
tremists live in the Federal
Republic. There are 1,500
outright neo-Nazis and no
more than 200 of those are
considered militant, in-
telligence sources say. That
compares with more than
60,000 left-wing extremists,
some of whom show anti-
Jewish bias, out of a general
population of more than 60
million.
The old Nazis have mostly
died out. The new generation
of young neo-Nazis that has
emerged include the so-called
"skinheads," violence-prone
teenagers who shave their
heads and wear bizarre
costumes.
They seem to be trying to
shock people. They reject
society in general. They ad-
vocate no policy. They appear
to have adopted the Nazi
emblems and slogans
because, at least on the fact of
it, nothing is as rejected and
held in such disrepute by
West German society in
general as the Nazis.
Communist East Germany,
the German Democratic
Republic, took the easy way
out after the war. It simply
said it had nothing whatever
to do with the Nazis and
thereby absolved itself of any
obligation to pay reparations
to Jewish victims.
Only a few hundred practic-
ing Jews still live in East
Germany.
For years, East Germany
slavishly followed the Soviet
line of extreme anti-Zionism.
Now, East Germany wants to
improve relations with Israel,
or at least with world Jewry.
It has acknowledged belated-