Far-right poll gains worry German Jews
A far-right party in Germany finished second in voting in the political home state of Chancellor Angela Merkel, ahead of Merkel’s party, spurring concerns among Jewish leaders in Germany.
Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, with its anti-immigrant and ultranationalist platform, picked up 21 percent of the vote Sept. 4 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, behind the center-left Social Democratic Party with 31 percent, which retained leadership in the state. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union had 19 percent; it was the first time the AfD had surpassed the Christian Democrats in any German state election.
The fact that the right-populist party did so well — winning 18 seats in the 71-seat legislature — is widely seen as a further indictment of Merkel’s liberal policy toward accepting refugees from war-torn Muslim countries and set off alarm bells among Jewish leaders in Germany.
“The AfD is not an option for Germany but an indictment of Germany,” Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told German reporters after the results came in.
Schuster said it appeared that many voters either did not realize or simply accepted the fact that the AfD had not distanced itself from right-wing extremists.
“The fact that a right-wing extremist party that bluntly and disgustingly incites and mobilizes hatred against minorities can rise unchecked in our country is a nightmare come true,” said former Central Council President Charlotte Knobloch, who heads the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria. Christian and Muslim leaders expressed similar concerns following the vote.
The party, which was founded in 2013, has had mounting success in state elections and now has seats in nine of Germany’s 16 state legislatures. Berlin holds state elections later this month; three additional states will cast ballots in the first half of 2017, followed by national parliamentary elections in September. — jta
Lantos daughter returns Hungary state award
The daughter of the late Rep. Tom Lantos is returning a state award to Hungary to protest the same award being presented to a nationalist journalist described as racist and anti-Semitic.
Katrina Lantos Swett joined about 100 other Hungarians or people of Hungarian heritage in returning the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit to protest the recognition last month of the right-wing journalist and columnist Zsolt Bayer for his writings.
Lantos Swett was honored with the award in 2009 for establishing the Budapest-based Tom Lantos Institute, which focuses on minority rights. Tom Lantos, who served as a Democratic congressman for California, died in 2008. A native of Hungary, he was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress.
Lantos Swett told the Associated Press that she had hoped to leave her Knight’s Cross award to her children, but could not keep it after it was awarded to Bayer.
Andras Heisler, the president of Hungary’s main Jewish umbrella organization, Mazsihisz, returned his award last month, calling Bayer “a racist” and “an anti-Semite.”
“I do not wish to belong to any community to which Zsolt Bayer belongs, even virtually,” Heisler said.
Bayer, a co-founder of the ruling Fidesz party, has long angered Jews and others with his articles and op-eds in right-wing publications. — jta
British Jewish lawmaker receives death threat
A Jewish member of the British Parliament was put under police protection following an anti-Semitic death threat on Facebook.
The message from July called Ruth Smeeth a “Yid” and said “the gallows would be a fine and fitting place” for the Labour Party lawmaker to “swing from,” the Jewish Chronicle reported. It also expressed strong support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is in an election battle.
Smeeth, 37, told the British media that she holds Corbyn personally responsible for his supporters’ actions.Corbyn, who has called Hezbollah and Hamas “friends,” has been accused of fostering an atmosphere of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.— jta