Tag Archive for Germany

| August 22, 2012
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First German Rabbi faces criminal charges over anti-circumcision ruling

Rabbi David Goldberg accused of committing ‘bodily harm’ in first case since German court ruling banning religious circumcisions in May

By Ynet

 

A German rabbi has been criminally charged for performing a circumcision, committing what the indictment calls “bodily harm,” media outlets reported on Tuesday.

Archives Photo: AP

Archives Photo: AP

The lawsuit against David Goldberg, who is a mohel and the Rabbi of the city of Hof Saale in Bavaria, is the first known case following the anti-circumcision ruling issued by a German court in May.

According to media reports, the charges were filed by a physician from the city of Hessen, and was based on the court ruling which stated that performing a religious circumcision ritual can be considered a crime. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: ,
| July 31, 2012
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Son of Munich Victim Reveals Horrific New Details of the Massacre

Der Speigel: German detective novelist Willi Voss provided the Palestinians with fake credentials, including passports, and aided the terrorists in obtaining weapons. He also drove the Palestinians around Germany to meet with various co-conspirators.

By Ezriel Gelbfish

 

New information has surfaced concerning the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games held in Munich, Germany.  Guri Weinberg, whose father Moshe was an Israeli wrestling coach killed at the Games, recounted on FoxNews.com, the details of the massacre and his family’s attempt to institute a commemorative minute of silence at various Olympic events since the Games in Munich. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: , ,
| July 20, 2012
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The Bundestag defends circumcision after Cologne ban

Resolution allowing religious circumcision passes in German parliament, decision would overrule Cologne court.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF

 

Germany’s lower house of parliament passed a resolution on Thursday to protect the religious circumcision of infant boys after a district court ban on the practice outraged Muslims and Jews and sparked an emotional debate in the country.

The main political parties have criticized the ruling by a Cologne court and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has promised a new law to make clear doctors or families will not be punished for carrying out the procedure.

Rabbi listens to debate on circumcision in Germany - Photo: REUTERS

Rabbi listens to debate on circumcision in Germany – Photo: REUTERS

The speed with which lawmakers agreed on the terms of the motion underscored sensitivity to charges of intolerance in a country haunted by its Nazi past. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News | Tags: ,
| July 17, 2012
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Merkel: Germany will soon become a laughingstock over our circumcision ban

Germany’s Chancellor told party members she didn’t want Germany to be the ‘only country in which Jews cannot practice their rites’

By AFP

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party the country risked becoming a “laughingstock” over a court ruling calling religious circumcision a criminal act, according to a report Monday.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel Photo: AFP

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel – Photo: AFP

The mass-circulation daily Bild said in an article to be published Tuesday that Merkel warned the board of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that Germany must restore legal protection for circumcision.

“I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world in which Jews cannot practice their rites,” Bild quoted Merkel as saying, citing several CDU members who attended the meeting. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: , ,
| July 13, 2012
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Germany says it will allow religous circumcisions

Merkel says she favors religion in Germany, doesn’t want to punish circumcision if it is carried out in a responsible manner.

By REUTERS

 

BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman promised Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities on Friday they would be free to carry out circumcision on young boys despite a court ban which has provoked concerns about religous freedom.

An infant Jewish boy at his ‘secular-friendly’ circumcision.
– Photo by Phillip Pasmanick

In a country that is especially sensitive to allegations of intolerance because of the Nazis’ slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, the government said it would find a way around the Cologne court ban in June as a matter of urgency. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: ,
| July 2, 2012
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Hospital in Berlin suspends circumcisions after recent court ban.

Is the second exodus for Jews out of Germany coming? Seems like Jews won’t be able to practice their religion in Germany anymore after a recent court ruling banning circumcision for less than 18 year olds.

By YourJewishNews.com/Shifra Unger

 


Jewish ritual circumcision.

Jewish ritual circumcision.

The Jewish Hospital of Berlin has decided to suspend all circumcisions of children for religious grounds following the ruling by a German court, a hospital spokesman said Friday.

“We are suspending circumcisions until the legal situation is clarified,” said Gerhard Nerlich, a hospital spokesman, citing the head of internal medicine Kristof Graf.
The Jewish hospital in Berlin (JKB) performs 300 circumcisions a year, including 100 for religious reasons and the rest for medical reasons. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: ,
| June 5, 2012
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PM: Iran giving Assad ‘personnel’ to kill his own people

Netanyahu tells German daily that Iran, Hezbollah supporting “brutality,” “butchery,” says Syria has “perfected the technique” for shelling its own civilians; avoids answering if West should intervene.

Iran is providing Syrian President Bashar Assad with both arms and personnel to butcher his people, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in an interview published Tuesday in the German daily Bild.

“I think what is happening in Syria is awful, it is wholesale murder,” Netanyahu said. “And you have to understand who is supporting this brutality, this butchery – it is Iran and Hezbollah. I mean supporting them physically. Killers supporting killers, giving them weapons, personnel to actually do the killing.

Continue Reading »
Category: Mid-East News | Tags: , ,
| June 5, 2012
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IAF Chief Says ‘Nein’ to Volkswagen

Air Force Commander Eshel, son of Holocaust survivor, refused to upgrade his car to a German model

 

Recently appointed Israel Air Force Commander Major General Amir Eshel told the military that he does not want to upgrade his car to a Volkswagen Passat, although his advance to the rank of major general entitles him to do so.

Amir Eshel

Amir Eshel - IDF Photo

The reason for his refusal is the fact that the vehicle is manufactured in Germany. His refusal was immediate, and he said the decision came “from the head, but also from the gut.”

Eshel’s mother is a Holocaust survivor. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News, Jewish News | Tags: ,
| June 3, 2012
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German controversy over Israel boycott

Politicians reject German mayor’s Israel boycott. Schröter: goal is to label goods from ‘illegal’ settlements.

BERLIN – Social Democratic, Left Party and Christian Democratic politicians rejected last week Jena Mayor Albrecht Schröter’s campaign for a wide-ranging boycott of Israeli products.Critics accused Schröter, 57, the Social Democratic mayor of Jena in Thuringia state, of fostering modern anti-Semitism with his support for a call by the German branch of Pax Christi, an international Catholic “peace movement,” to not buy Israeli goods.
Schroter (second left) - Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Schroter (second left) - Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Wiltrud Rösch-Metzler, Pax Christi vice president, wrote last week, “I am not buying goods with the origin specification ‘Israel’ because under this designation products could come from the settlements.

Continue Reading »
Category: Mid-East News | Tags: ,
| May 25, 2012
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Germany’s medical association apologizes over Nazi-era experiments

Association issues official apology over experiments on concentration camp inmates, as well as doctors’ roles in sterilization, euthanasia programs.

Germany’s medical association earlier this week adopted a declaration apologizing for experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazi regime.

In the statement in Nuremberg, the association said many doctors under the Nazis were “guilty, contrary to their mission to heal, of scores of human rights violations and we ask the forgiveness of their victims, living and deceased, and of their descendants.”

SS officers outside of Auschwitz. Richard Baer, Dr. Josef Mengele, Josef Kramer and Rudolf Hoess.

Germany's medical association earlier this week adopted a declaration apologizing for experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazi regime.

Continue Reading »
Category: Jewish News | Tags: , ,
| May 25, 2012
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Poll: Majority of Germans think Israel is ‘aggressive’

Poll in weekly Stern magazine finds that Germans have become more critical of Israel over past three years.

Germans have become markedly more critical of Israel over the past three years, with 59 percent describing it as aggressive, according to a survey for the weekly magazine Stern released on Wednesday.

German flag in Berlin May 23, 2012 (Reuters)

German flag flies in front of the Reichstag in Berlin - Photo by Reuters

The survey was conducted shortly before President Joachim Gauck visits Israel and the Palestinian territories May 28-31.

A similar Stern survey in 2009 found 49 percent considered Israel aggressive.

The survey, conducted by Forsa pollsters, found 70 percent of Germans agree with the statement that Israel pursues its interests without consideration for other nations. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News | Tags:
| May 11, 2012
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Israel discusses Pirate Party Holocaust denial

Reports of Holocaust denial in German Pirate Party’s ranks lead to meeting with Israeli embassy.

 

KIEL, Germany – The German Pirate Party shook up the political establishment in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein by winning 8.2 percent of the vote on Sunday and securing seats in the state legislature. In a Saarland state election in March, the party received 7.4% of the vote.

Before the election, Israel’s Embassy in Berlin contacted the Pirate Party to discuss its concerns about reports of Holocaust denial within the party’s ranks.

Pirate Party activist
Pirate Party activist – Photo REUTERS/Thomas Peter

The growing success of the Pirates – who advocate unrestricted Internet access and sharing – across Germany’s political landscape prompted Israel’s Embassy to schedule a meeting with its top candidate, Torge Schmidt, in the German state of Schleswig- Holstein in April.

Continue Reading »
Category: Israel News | Tags:
| May 4, 2012
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Israel’s deep-sea dominance

Op-ed: Our foes have no answer for Israel’s submarines, which guarantee regional stability

By Guy Bechor

 

Quietly, underwater, Israel is turning into a maritime power like the United States and Russia, with an armada of advanced submarines. Germany recently agreed to provide Israel with a sixth Dolphin submarine; the Jewish state already has three. Two more will be arriving this and next year, and then the sixth one will come.

Israeli submarines guarantee stability Photo: Shutterstock

Israeli submarines guarantee stability Photo: Shutterstock

Germany also agreed to subsidize the sixth submarine, as it did with the previous ones. The first two were given to Israel for free; the Germans paid for half of the third one, and will pay for one third of the next three. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News | Tags: , ,
| March 21, 2012
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Ahmadinejad Tells Germans Holocaust a Lie

Ahmadinejad surpasses previous acts of chutzpah and tells German TV the Holocaust “was a colonialist plan that resulted from a lie.”

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has surpassed previous acts of chutzpah and tells German television the Holocaust “was a colonialist plan that resulted from a lie” that Israel exploits to suppress Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Speaking through an interpreter to Germany’s ZDF public television, Ahmadinejad asserted that Jews “never were rulers of this land. They made a story named Holocaust, and the Palestinians have to pay the price for it.”

He repeatedly called Israel “an artificial state.”

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) urged Germany to recall its ambassador to Iran to protest the statements in the interview, which also was posted on the television network’s’ website. Continue Reading »

Category: Jewish News | Tags: , ,
| March 21, 2012
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Israel purchases sixth submarine from Germany

Barak signs contract during ceremony in Germany: “This sixth submarine will substantially increase the capabilities and strength of the IDF and Israel.”

Israel and Germany on Wednesday signed a contract for the sixth military submarine purchased by the Israeli navy. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Defense Ministry Director-General Udi Shani and German State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Defense Rudiger Wolf attended the ceremony.

After signing the contract Barak said: “This sixth submarine will substantially increase the capabilities and strength of the IDF and the State of Israel in the face of ever-increasing challenges.”

“The agreement reflects the depth of Israel and Germany’s relationship, as well as the German government’s clear commitment to the State of Israel’s security. Continue Reading »

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