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on
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Judging Germany Today
A
s our cover story this week points out,
you can't be Jewish and not have feelings
about Germans and Germany.
Perhaps we can talk about Japan or
Italy or China and not let emotions inter-
fere with judgment. But for most of us,
the deeply shared memory of the Holo-
caust colors our reactions from the very
first moment when we hear German spoken or look
at a German car or weigh our tourism choices in
Europe.
Still, those emotions may be shifting a bit, as
many American Jews say they are unwilling to con-
tinue to blame automatically this generation of Ger-
mans for the atrocity of the Shoah.
At the same time, more and more of our leader-
ship groups are encouraging us to discover a "new
Germany," one that has examined its past and
learned from it, one that actively opposes anti-Semi-
tism, one that builds a memorial to the Holocaust.
As we weigh whether we should believe that the
change is permanent, we would do well to look at
what Israel, a country built on the ashes of the
Holocaust and home to many survivors, has con-
cluded. As a recent report in the New York Times
pointed out, Germany is now Israel's second-largest
trading partner (after America\., a source of military
supplies and strategic information and a consistent
voice of support in the councils of the emerging
European community.
German youth are valued workers at Israeli kib-
butzim, German tourists a continuing mainstay of
Israel's resorts, even as Americans stay away in
droves. For most Israelis, it seems, optimism about
the "new Germany" is a viable strategy — and for
r
some good reasons.
Officially-and individually, Germany has
worked hard to confront its Nazi past and
to build into its educational system an
W6Re 1P56 -
understanding of how wrong the
Ubermensch mentality was. Unfor-
tunately, the same cannot be said
for Austria — witness the rise of
Joerg Haider and his xenophobic
Freedom Party — or Poland, many of
whose citizens continue to pretend that the
entire country was a victim despite the
mounting evidence that, in some cases,
Poles were enthusiastic activists for vicious
anti-Semitism.
Curiously, though, American Jews who
wouldn't visit a Rhine castle routinely go
schussing down the Austrian Alps.
In our globalized new century, it's pretty
hard to maintain a boycott of Germany
anyway. The same people who wouldn't buy
a DaimlerChrysler-built Mercedes Benz
continue to use small German appliances in
their households.
In the end, it will come down to indi-
vidual decisions. We can still detest Wagner
and his music, or boycott Volkswagen as an
ongoing symbol of Hitler's Third Reich, but
American Jews may want to consider lifting
the blanket of resentment directed at any-
one, and anything, German.
Let it be clear that we respect the feelings
n't mean forgetting.
of Holocaust survivors and must absolutely ensure
What we need to evaluate Germany today is an
that the deaths of 6 million innocent people are
open mind and a cautious eye. A more open process
never trivialized or watered down. Prudently build-
of interaction with Germans and Germany will let
ing new relationships with new generations doesn't
us make our decisions on the basis of firsthand expe-
mean we absolve the old of its responsibility for
rience. ❑
their criminal acts. Forgiveness most certainly does-
eou.sAy
m46 CIOJES6
EDIT ORIAL
Related coverage: page 14
Dry Bones
_
r
AWRICA'S
TAIWAN
Pots ce,„
This Is My Kosovo
Hod Ha'Sharon, Israel
bomb exploding in Israel is now status
quo for the struggling, young nation that
thought not long ago it was on the brink
of true peace.
What an illusion peace was — an idealistic
notion that swept the nation into conceding valu-
able territory, all in the name of harmony, of broth-
erhood at last.
Hod Ha'Sharon, the quaint city I called home for
two months, is a premier example of the peace that
failed to come to fruition, of the peace that tarries in
the horizon, not to be seen anytime soon. A mere
A
Jaclyn Goldis, 17, is the daughter of Cheryl and Alex
Goldis of Bloomfield Hills. She is active at Congrega-
tion Beth Ahm. She left Feb. 5 for a two-month stay at
Alexander Muss High School, along with 100 other
U.S. students. She is now back home.
day after I departed from the
Ben-Gurion airport, eight citi-
zens of Hod Ha'Sharon were
injured by a bomb that erupted
near apartment buildings direct-
ly adjacent to the campus on
which I studied.
Peace? No, in fact, it is war
over there. Nothing's declared,
of course, but what else can
JACLYN
one call daily acts of terrorism
GOLDIS
aimed deliberately at innocent
Special
citizens with a menace that
Commentary
overshadows any peaceful
attempts at reconciliation? I
call it war, and so does the majority of the Israeli
population.
Each day of my two-month stay in Hod Ha-
Sharon, I strolled across the cobblestone pathways
facing those targeted apartments, and I distinctly
heard the shouting and laughing of the inhabi-
tants. I would turn right to go to the supermar-
ket, left to enter the main section of town. I hold
many recollections of that particular intersection,
of walking with friends there. And, only a day
after I left, a bomb shattered the peace I once felt
in my Israeli home.
Fearful Encounters
Intermixed with daily lessons on Jewish and Israeli
history, my teacher, David, reported to my class the
violent acts committed by Islamic terrorist organiza-
tions. We listened to the terrible description of the
bomb in Netanya, a mere 20 minutes away, and we
were horrified, but still we thought it could not hap-
pen to us. We were at Mt. Herzl when gunshots
Kosovo
on page 28
4/20
2001
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