More in ‘Germany’

Today in Tablet Magazine, the Vox Tablet podcast features Daniel Estrin’s dispatch from a Tel Aviv neighborhood where the liberal denizens have not taken kindly to Chabad’s moving in. As Marjorie Ingall’s husband and children apply for German citizenship (their birthright due to Nazi disenfranchisement), she finds herself uneasy about being left behind and ever ...

Once upon a time there was a young rabbi named Ulrich. He lived with his beautiful wife and their adorable baby in Heidelberg, Germany, a city of poets and composers and philosophers. Ulrich’s city was surrounded by dark forests and nestled by a sparkling river. There was even a castle. Ulrich was happy there. His ...

Unlike the United States, Germany, due to legal culture and not-all-that-distant history, has fairly extensive restrictions on speech; particularly hate speech; and particularly hate speech that hates the Jews. Quick example: in Germany, the Nazi Party is banned; in America, it’s not (not going to dignify it with a link, but if you want, Googling ...

The weekend’s big bombshell was a sensationalistic Times of London exposé reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially approved Mossad’s assassination of chief Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud Mabhouh; that Mabhouh was in Dubai en route to Iran, in order to orchestrate an arms shipment to Gaza; that Mossad did indeed track him from the Dubai ...

Two subjects that even most conscientious readers know not enough about: concrete poetry and the German-language, postwar literary avant-garde. These subjects reach their dark syzygy in the work of Heimrad Bäcker, an Austrian poet, editor, and publisher of a certain generation whose transcript—the lowercase is not just correct but imperative—has recently been translated into English.
We’ll ...

We had never thought of it this way, but JTA’s reporter correctly notes that Vancouver, Canada, is “the most Jewishly active city ever to host the Winter Olympics.” The town, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, is home to upwards of 30,000 Jews, who will be represented in the Olympic Village (actually, both of ...

• Led by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), the first Muslim congressman, 54 U.S. representatives signed a letter urging Israel to ease its Gaza blockade. J Street, Americans for Peace Now, and other liberal groups also signed. [Haaretz]
• Standing beside Israeli President Shimon Peres, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced it was time to stop being polite ...

• Israel’s controversial weapons trade and border disputes are threatening its membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the global club for large, developed economies. [NYT]
• An OECD report shows that Israel, if admitted, would be its poorest member. Its Arab and ultra-Orthodox populations pull the numbers down. [Haaretz]
• Chancellor Angela Merkel has ...

• After the first-ever summit between Germany and Israel, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she would seek harsher sanctions against Iran for its alleged nuclear violations. [NYT]
• Pope Benedict XVI defended Pius XII, the controversial pontiff who is now up for sainthood. During the Holocaust, Benedict said, the Vatican gave European Jews “hidden and discreet” help. ...

• Haaretz uncovers the deal then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians over one year ago: in exchange for the small part of the West Bank home to 75 percent of the territory’s Israelis, he would have given up nearly as much of Israel proper in areas bordering Gaza, as well as a safe-passage route ...