This past week an article caught my eye that stood out as being particularly troubling. It was a piece in Haaretz titled Outrage as neo-Nazi joins European Parliament civil rights committee.
In short, the article said that the former leader of Germany’s far-right NDP, Udo Voigt, has been seated on the European parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee; which has infuriated the European Jewish community.
This appointing seems blatantly outrageous- a neo Nazi chairing a civil rights committee? So I decided to do a little research and find out more about Udo Voigt and his connections to anti-Semitism. The results were much more than I expected.
Voigt, who was also a district councillor in Berlin, was found guilty of promoting Nazism after he called Hitler “a great man” in 2004.(Source:Times of Israel) He was at the head of a huge controversy in the 2011 Berlin State elections when his party (National Democratic Party) ran a campaign slogan “Step on the Gas.” The add below shows him wearing a leather jacket and leather gloves which is very popular among the neo-Nazi set with its link with the SS uniform.
Photo: Telegraph UK
It seems to me that it’s up to Europe’s Jew’s to bring this fierce anti-Semitism to justice, no one else will do it for us. And I can’t help but wonder what steps the European Jewish Congress (EJC) and their president Moshe Kantor, are taking to combat the position of this anti-Semite. Is it not the purpose of the European Jews’ diplomatic arm to prevent anti-Semitism in European politics?
These are important questions that we as a community need to ask ourselves, if we want our diplomatic organizations to have an impact in the world.
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