The War of the Left in a synagogue in Hamburg

The War of the Left in the Synagogue in Hamburg-Channel 7

Rabbi of Hamburg Rabbi Shlomo Bistritzky (left)

Photo: Simcha Studio

An initiative to rebuild the main synagogue in Hamburg, which was destroyed by the Nazis, has met with strong opposition from Germans, some supporters of the anti-Semitic boycott movement BDS and left-wing Israeli activists, Israel Hayom reported this morning.

Critics of the initiative argue that rebuilding the synagogue is tantamount to “rewriting history and erasing it.” The Jewish community of Hamburg, on the other hand, claims: “The resistance is a terrible insult and a political abuse of a pure intention to correct an injustice that has not been corrected since the Holocaust.”

Opposition to the project has already caused some German bodies to withdraw their support for the project. This is despite the fact that the German government and the municipality of Hamburg have already committed to financing the project.

The opposition was started by the historian Miriam Rirop, director of the Moshe Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies in Potsdam. In addition, there are also Israelis who express opposition, and at the initiative of Israeli professor Moshe Zimmerman, a petition of 45 Israelis was published, including former ambassador Avi Primor, who oppose the initiative.

In an interview with the Hamburger Abendblat daily, Zimmerman likened the construction initiative to the call of an extreme right-wing politician to a “180-degree change in German memory culture.” “The message is dangerous: here we are renewing what was in the past and erasing traces.”

In Hamburg today there are about 2,500 men and women in the Jewish community. It is estimated that another 1,000, some of them Israelis, live in the city. After a young neo-Nazi tried to commit a massacre in the synagogue in Hala on Yom Kippur a year and a half ago, local politicians decided to pay tribute to the Jewish community, and work to restore the synagogue area to the community and establish the new synagogue.

A decision on the matter was unanimously passed in the Hamburg Senate in February, 2020 also with the support of members of the populist right-wing party “Alternative to Germany”. However, the initiative remained on paper until last summer.

The rabbi of the community, Shlomo Bastritsky, turned to Daniel Sheffer, an Israeli-born businessman who is a member of the community, and asked him to join him on a visit to an antique shop where Keter Torah was located, dedicated to the first rabbi of the Bourne Square synagogue, Abraham Marcus Hirsch. Sheffer bought the crown and donated it to the community.

Sheffer also founded an organization called “Anti-Semitism, for the Synagogue in Bourne Square” and began mobilizing public and political support for the implementation of the project. In a short time, the Bundestag decided to devote 65 million euros to the reconstruction. The Hamburg Senate approved the same amount.

107,000 Hamburg residents have signed a petition calling for the implementation of the initiative. Politicians, including the Deputy Chancellor and German Foreign Minister, artists and sports clubs joined in supporting the project.

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