Vol. 19 · No. 2 · Issue 59 · Summer 2001 · pp. 22-61 (40)

Jonathan Laurence

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Abstract

In Hungary we always said we were Hungarian Jews. Even in the concentration camps we would say, "that is a Hungarian Jew," "that's a Polish Jew" or "that's a German Jew." After the war, I just felt like a Jew. Now, where I've been for nearly fifty years, I feel like a German Jew.

When a Muslim has lived here for thirty or forty years, then he has become German—as have his kids. When he is constantly being reproached for not assimilating—that is, told he doesn't need a mosque that looks like a mosque, or that his kids do not have to learn about Islam in school like the other Christian and Jewish kids, then there is not really equality before the law in Germany.

An immigration dilemma has confronted the Federal Republic of Germany since the early 1970s. Postwar labor migrants from predominantly Muslim countries in the Mediterranean basin were not officially encouraged to settle long-term, yet many stayed once immigration was halted in 1973. Though these migrants and their children have enjoyed most social state benefits and the right to family reunification, their political influence has remained limited for the last quarter-century. Foreigners from non-EU countries may not vote in Germany, migrants are underrepresented in political institutions, and state recognition of Muslim religious and cultural diversity has not been forthcoming. Since 1990, however, a much smaller but significant number of Jewish migrants from eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have arrived in Germany. This population of almost 150,000 has been welcomed at the intersection of reparations policy and immigrant integration practice. Official readiness to accept and incorporate these foreign Jews into a German religious community stands in contrast to religion and integration policy towards other non-German migrant populations.