The following interview with historian Michael Wolffsohn originally appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on July 8, 2024, and is published here in English translation by permission. See Russell A. Berman’s post today on TelosScope for comments on this interview. For background on the incident on the Markus Lanz talk show, click here. Translated by Mark S. Weiner.
Historian Michael Wolffsohn says that for Jews in Germany, the past has become present. Nobody in Germany should be complacent. An interview.
Mr. Wolffsohn, last week you were a guest on the Markus Lanz talk show on [the television channel] ZDF. The broadcast was about Israel and the Palestinians and the threat to Jewish life in Germany. After a little more than an hour, you stood up and said that you didn’t want to take part in “agitprop.” You were referring to the comments of author Deborah Feldman, who was also in the group. Why “agitprop”?
Ms. Feldman argues like the Western New Left of the 1960s. And since I’m a ’68er, at least in generational terms, though not ideologically, I know the technique. It’s a classic method of left-wing agitation, in this case about the Jewish issue. Ms. Feldman veers from one orthodoxy to another, from Jewish to left-wing orthodoxy. Both are equally anti-Israel. For Jewish orthodoxy [for instance, some outlier sects such as the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic community, who are at odds with mainstream Haredi and Modern Orthodox Judaism—trans.], the State of Israel is blasphemy, and for the Left, the State of Israel is also unacceptable. In this respect, Ms. Feldman has remained true to herself.
The position claims that Jews aren’t safe in Germany because Germany has bound its state interest with Israel’s. Germany is preventing peace in the Middle East. If Jews feel unsafe in our country, it’s the fault of the state and its institutions, especially the police. Deborah Feldman claims that she almost has a heart attack when she simply beholds a German police officer.
