The endorsement of the AfD by the former head of the Mossad Israeli Intelligence Agency (see video below) should put a stop to all the slanderous “AfD = Nazi” accusations made by opposing political parties as well as by far-left German Jews. But unfortunately, it won’t.

i24NewsCampaigning against the mass importation of Muslim migrants, the AfD is now the biggest opposition party in Germany with over 90 seats in parliament.

It is the only political party in Germany that declares “Jew-hatred” as “inseparable” from Islam, and says out-loud that Islamic religious dogma is “incompatible with the German constitution”.

The AfD has been repeatedly accused of belittling the Holocaust and harboring anti-Semites. So, the news of certain Jewish members organizing themselves into an internal interest group on Sunday, nicknamed JAfD, was received with surprise in Germany.

“Just because we are Jewish, doesn’t mean we have to be pro-Muslim refugees and migration,” insists the JAfD co-initiator and now newly-elected Vice President Artur Abramovych, at a press conference. “The comparison between the Jewish refugees of the past and the Muslim migrants that come to Germany illegally should be an insult to Jews,” Abramovych said. 

“We are the address for anyone who has cultural and religious Jewish roots and searches for a politically conservative camp,” explained JAfD’s new president Vera Kosova after the press conference. “We want to give a voice to our politically conservative members and represent them inside the party and outside, especially in political topics of relevance to Jews.”

JAfD members support the party as the only one speaking out against massive Muslim migration that they link to a rise in antisemitism and terror, viewing themselves as part of a growing, conservative European movement battling a left-wing trend towards open borders, globalization and what they view as the breakdown of Judeo-Christian values caused by mass Muslim migration.

Neither of them sees any contradiction between Jewish values and the AfD party platform. “I grew up in a time when a destruction of German society was in full swing and German contempt to all things traditional always felt foreign to me,” recalled Abramovych. “The synagogue offered me something unlike anything I experienced elsewhere – and so did the AfD.”

Over half of the AfD respondents said they “totally” agree with the statement that support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be anti-Semitic; no other major party had such a strong opposition to BDS. Seventy-seven percent those polled agreed with the statement that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism.

Three quarters of polled AfD politicians do not want Germany to recognize the State of Palestine before a peace deal with Israel is signed, while 11% tend to favor a unilateral recognition. (To compare, 77% of Greens and 28% of Social Democrats tend to support unilateral recognition.)

On the other hand, far-left Jewish organizations in Germany don’t share this view. During the launch event, several groups held a protest (below) in Frankfurt, calling the JAfD a “non-kosher alternative” for German Jews. “If Jews would depend on the AfD as a guarantor of Jewish life in Germany, this would put us in a bad situation,” a joint statement read.

JWire Since its founding in 2013 as a Euro-skeptic party, the AfD has been sidelined by the official German Jewish community. As the media got wind of the group’s formation, 17 Jewish organizations united together with a gusto unseen over other issues of Jewish concern, such as Germany’s support of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; Germany’s funding of anti-Israel NGOs; and, more locally, allegedly anti-Israel content at the Berlin’s pubic Jewish Museum. Led by the Zentralat der Juden (Central Council of Jews), organizations like the Abraham Geiger College and the American Jewish Committee Berlin signed a joint statement categorically calling AFD “antisemitic,” “anti-democratic” and “no party for Jews.”

Ten members of “Jews in the AfD” (JAfD) sat on stage, with men donning kipahs they don’t normally wear, to answer media questions and defend their decision with equal gusto. The founders didn’t expect this much attention, but they expected opposition, even to the extent of being barred from their original Frankfurt location due to pressure—a German boycott of Jews the Zentralat didn’t mind. The Zentralat also sponsored chartered buses for a demonstration of Jewish university students held in Frankfurt at the time of the caucus. There, signs came out against certifying the AfD as “kosher.”

To some, the new location for the caucus turned out to be symbolic. When a speaker recounted German cities where Muslim migrants attacked young girls, one Jewish member, Micha, shouted: “And right here!”

Just a few hundred meters away, the murdered, violated body of Jewish schoolgirl, Susanna Feldman, was found near train tracks. Micha, a family friend who recalls a young Susanna playing on his lap, switched from the Linke (“Left”) Party to the AfD after her murder by an Iraqi asylum-seeker who stayed in the country illegally.

A representative from the office of Bundestag member and party leader Beatrix von Storch likened the Jewish criticism of JAfD to criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom she categorizes along with a hero among European patriots, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Erika Steinbach, a former CDU leader and now chair of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, said “I could never imagine that in a democracy, a decision freely made by people, by Jews, irrespective of their party, would be treated in such a terrible way.”

She, along with other party members, cited causes for concern for Jews in Germany: attacks against Jews by Muslims for wearing kipahs and reported taunting of Jewish schoolchildren. “I know that Jews are patriots,” she said, adding that she would never join an antisemitic party. A common refrain at the caucus was: “Judaism belongs to Germany,” unlike Islam.

The notion that the AfD is a party full of anti-Semites is the result of the slanted press coverage by the German press, insists the group’s other Vice President Wolfgang Fuhl. “All parties have anti-Semites among them, from the left and the right. Five to ten percent of Germans are anti-Semitic. But these people in the AfD are isolated and restricted. The party is doing plenty to fight anti-Semitism.”

Leaders of the JAfD insist that not only the Jewish community would benefit from a stronger AfD, Israel would also, “Our position [regarding Israel] is clear: We want a dialogue, we want an exchange, we want to emphasis what we have in common, and we have a lot in common,” AfD front-woman Beatrix von Storch told i24NEWS. “That is why this group is especially important.”

“Merkel may have talked the talk, but she sent money to Israel’s enemies and refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” Krauskopf said.