The Raging Bronx Bull of German Journalism
When Berlin’s largest opera house, Deutsche Oper, canceled four performances of a modernized version of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” — which included images of the severed heads of Jesus, Buddha, Poseidon and the Prophet Muhammad — because of the possibility of a fundamentalist Islamic attack brought on by a perceived denigration of Muhammad, journalist Henryk Broder went on the attack. “I am, even as a secular, non-believing Jew, insulted,” he wrote in the online version of Der Spiegel, Germany’s most influential weekly magazine. “I feel injured, discriminated against and excluded. Why is the head of Moses not there?”
German Jews Feud Over Criticizing Israel
A declaration criticizing Israeli territorial policies is roiling the German Jewish community and raising questions about the limits of open debate on matters in relation to the Middle East.