Jews Ask Gunter Grass To Skip Synagogue Visit

By JTA June 28, 2012

Gunter Grass, the Nobel Prize-winning poet banned from entering Israel, is being asked not to visit the Gdansk syangogue.

Grass, 85, will arrive on Friday in the Polish city of his birth to open an exhibition of his paintings.

?We wish to Gunter Grass very fruitful and pleasant stay in Gdansk,? Michal Samet, chairman of the Jewish Community in Gdansk, told the Gazeta Wyborcza. ?There are so many wonderful places in Gdansk, the city has more than a 1,000-year history; certainly he will have a lot of things to see here. He was in our synagogue once, five years ago, and I think that would be enough.?

Earlier this year, Grass published in a German newspaper and other international publications his poem ?What Must Be Said,? which condemns the German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel for agreeing to subsidize the sale of additional submarines ?from my country? to Israel ?justified as reparations.?

Grass also said that his reluctance until now to speak out against Israel was due to his own sense of connection with the Jewish state and that ?the charge of anti-Semitism? is easily flung at those who criticize Israel.

In 2006, Grass admitted in an interview that he had joined the Waffen-SS as a teenager at the end of World War II. He was accused at the time of having hidden the truth for decades while at the same time pointing the finger at others for hiding their Nazi past.

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.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO