Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jewish Backers Of Germany’s Far-Right Party Create New Source Of Support

(JTA) — Germany’s most influential far-right political party is fast gaining in popularity, and a group of Jews wants to add its voice of support.

According to the influential daily newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), an association of Jewish supporters of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party will announce its incorporation with an event on October 7.

The news – following polls showing the AfD as Germany’s second most popular party – came in a letter to the FAZ, the newspaper reported. The letter’s authors were not named.

Mainstream Jewish organizations and community leaders have condemned the AfD for its xenophobic views. In addition, some of its politicians have relativized the Holocaust and flirted with neo-Nazi groups, while claiming to be pro-Israel.

Apparently, among some Jews, fears of old-fashioned Nazism in the AfD are eclipsed by fears of new anti-Semitism among the more than 1 million Muslim refugees who have come to Germany since 2015.

News of a Jewish AfD club was met with swift condemnation from the non-partisan Jewish-German “Values Initiative,” which in a statement expressed “surprise and concern.”

“We believe that any involvement in this party is wrong, because it uses its alleged Jewish or Israeli friendship in particular to gain legitimacy for its agitation against Muslims,” according to the statement. It called the party’s failure to criticize its extreme right wing tantamount to an endorsement of neo-Nazism.

The new Jewish group would merely be used as “a fig leaf for coarse AfD racism,” the statement warned.

An AfD spokesperson told the FAZ newspaper that new members would be kicked out if they make anti-Semitic remarks.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.