I think we should insist that all immigrants take pledges to reject anti-Semitism. In fact, make it mandatory for all citizens who want government benefits. In exchange, we’ll give them money, a kosher seal of approval (to help them get a good job) and a shot at appearing on American Idol and America’s Next Top Model or the equivalent.
Any Jew who praises Merkel for this declaration is a moron.
Chancellor is awarded Reform movement prize as ‘guarantor of basic democratic values and freedom of religion’
BERLIN — Refugees in Germany must unlearn the anti-Semitism fed to them in their home countries, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in accepting the German Reform movement’s top award.
Merkel on Wednesday was presented with the Abraham Geiger Prize, worth more than $10,000, for her commitment as “guarantor of basic democratic values and freedom of religion,” according to the award jury.
The German chancellor is donating the funds to the “Dialog Perspectives” program of the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk, a foundation for talented Jewish students.
At Wednesday’s ceremony at Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Merkel, 61, said she shared the Jewish community’s humanitarian concerns and worries, wanting to help refugees fleeing ISIS, but also wanting to protect democracy at home. An estimated 800,000 refugees, most of them Muslim, will have sought asylum in Germany by the end of this year.
In order to be integrated, the asylum seekers “must respect our culture and learn our language,” Merkel said. They also must adhere to laws that protect equal rights for women and gays, and that reject anti-Semitism, she emphasized.
Admitting that there might be differences on how best to achieve integration, Merkel told her hosts: “If you express concerns about anti-Semitism, I will always be listening.”
Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, thanked Merkel for her “open ear to the concerns of the Jewish population, who fear possible anti-Semitism within the refugee population.”
Schuster stressed that Jews in Germany have a special empathy for refugees, having accepted and integrated more than 140,000 former Soviet Jews over the past 25 years.
The keynote speaker at the event was José Casanova, a top scholar in the the sociology of religion. Other speakers were Jewish Museum Director Peter Schaefer and Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit. Presenting the award were Rabbi Walter Jacob of Pittsburgh, co-founder of the Abraham Geiger College rabbinical seminary in Potsdam, and the seminary’s rector, Rabbi Walter Homolka.
Three students supported by the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk also addressed Merkel briefly, thanking her for supporting Israel and Jewish life in Germany.
“We want to help shape the future of Germany,” said Olga Osadtschy, who immigrated to Germany from Kiev and studies in Basel, Switzerland.
Cantorial students and graduates from the Abraham Geiger College Jewish Institute of Cantorial Arts performed for the chancellor, who personally shook their hands, said a beaming Svetlana Kundish of Ukraine.
COMMENTS POSTED AT TOI:
* Good luck with that. More likely Antisemitsm will become much more mainstream as a result of her policies.
* One of the stupidest things Merkel has said and that’s saying a lot. Does she think refugees will actually admit being Antisemitic? If she wants to prevent Antisemitism perhaps she shouldn’t let Muslims and the rest of the Third World in.
* Be prepared to fight them in the streets Germany. An attack is imminent with a dumb phuck like this running the show.
* She is another stupid liberal that doesn’t get it. How do these idiots gain power?
* What does it mean, “refugees entering Germany must reject anti-Semitism”?
Germany is a free country. People who live in Germany can have their own opinions and don’t need anyone’s permission to form them.
If Germany lets in people with opinions Germany doesn’t like, too late. Once citizens of Germany they are free to believe in anything they want to. It was Germany’s time to think about it before granting them citizenship.
* Merkel lives in a bubble. She has no idea what she is bringing to Germany. It seems like the German people are letting her, like Obama, destroy their country from within.
* Thanks, Angela. Don’t tell it to the Jews. We already know.
What are you doing to tell this to the Muslims? What are you doing to educate Muslims and deprogram their anti-Semitism? Let’s hear your plans and programs.
* I have a much more straightforward idea. Germans must reject Merkel!
