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Author Max Czollek
Photo: gezett / imago images
In an open letter, 278 intellectuals, writers and cultural workers expressed their support for solidarity with the Jewish poet and scientist Max Czollek.
You criticize an "unbearable, against the background of German history, stunned debate" against Czollek, "unfair criticism and slander".
The signatories include well-known authors such as Theresia Enzensberger, Mithu Sanyal, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Fabian Wolff.
"Unfounded allegations"
The background to this is a debate that has been going on for weeks about who is allowed to take a Jewish speaker position in the public discourse.
The writer Maxim Biller had described Czollek in a column for the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" as "Carnival and opinion Jews" and "excluded him from the exclusive Jewish club."
A discussion ensued about whether Czollek, whose mother was not Jewish, should position himself as a Jewish intellectual.
According to the strict rules of the Jewish Halacha, only those who have a Jewish mother or who have converted to Judaism are considered Jewish.
Numerous Jewish public figures have spoken up since then, such as the writer Mirna Funk or the President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster.
The signatories of the open letter recognize in the debate “the all-sudden interest and the unrestrained glee of the conservative media in an inner-Jewish conflict in which more and more unpleasant voices are denied being Jewish than what it is: a pretext for one to discredit committed advocates of a pluralistic society. "
The authors and intellectuals speak of an "unfounded assumption", since Czollek always made it clear that he came from a Jewish family, but never pretended to have a Jewish mother.
"The claim that he wanted to steal a victim identity is not only false and defamatory because of the persecution of his family in the Shoah."
Czollek's Jewish grandfather was imprisoned in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
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