29.05.2012                      08.Siwan. 5772                    Isru Chag

Analyse:

Grass’s poem hovers over German president's visit

Author’s ‘anti-Semitic’ poem has locked German- Israeli relations into a war of words.

Günter Grass’s poem attacking the Jewish state has locked German- Israeli relations into a war of words.
Germany’s freshly minted President Joachim Gauck, who is currently visiting Israel, decided to remain on the sidelines of the international debate in April about contemporary anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic. Will Gauck use his first Israel visit as Germany’s symbolic moral voice to tackle the anti-Israel Grass lyric? Israeli Ambassador to Germany Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, who, like Gauck, took his position in March, seems to expect Gauck to use his bully pulpit for a pedagogical moment on modern anti-Semitism. Hadas-Handelsman told the French wire service AFP on Monday ahead of Gauck’s visit that rising anti-Semitism in Germany is “a big danger”….