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Although the AfD has repeatedly claimed it has nothing against Jews, its members have a record of making anti-Semitic comments or declining to condemn those who do, and associating with anti-Semites. Last year, the party's Björn Höcke called Berlin's Memorial Holocaust has "memorial of disgrace" and said Germans should stop feeling guilty over Nazi atrocities. Alexander Gauland, one of AfD's co-leaders, recently said that "Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history," a comment that the German president condemned to an attempt to "deliberately reopen old wounds, and foment hatred. "In August, prominent AfD members were caught on camera marching beside neo-Nazis at an anti-immigration rally in the city of Chemnitz, where protesters flashed Nazi salutes and shouted" foreigners out! "AfD leaders later defended the rally.
Dimitri Schulz explains how the AfD's approach to Muslims is part of the attraction. "The AfD is the only party in Germany that focuses on Muslims' hatred for Jews, without playing it down," he said in a statement. Local Jewish leaders were quick to grasp the logic of "difficult to grasp" or "completely baffling". Netherlands.
Germany has recently seen a worrisome spike in anti-Semitic incidents. Some of these incidents are carried out by Muslims, although police reports cited by NPR indicate the vast majority are not. The AfD, which has been hard-pressed against the influx of Muslim migrants welcomed by Merkel in 2015, has capitalized on the fear of anti-Semitic violence to try to appeal to German Jews. Last year, for instance, the AfD then-leader told the newspaper Die Welt that the party is "one of the few political guarantors of Jewish life, even in times of illegal anti-Semitic migration to Germany."
Although some Jews, like Schulz, may believe that, the majority of the German Jewish community condemns the AfD and the idea of a Jewish group within it. "Do not be fooled by the AfD's anti-Muslim, inflammatory rhetoric," the Central Council of Jews in Germany warned its members in a letter. Another German Jewish group, the non-partisan Values Initiative, pleaded with Jews to become a fig leaf for the AfD.
The AfD has claimed that it has a significant number of Jewish supporters, though there is no such thing as assertion. What is the Jewish party of the Jewish party member of parliament Wolfgang Fuhl. When I asked Fuhl why he supports the AfD, he, too, Muslim anti-Semitism. "The AfD is the only party that opposes any form of anti-Semitism. All other parts speak strongly and do little against Islamic and radical-left anti-Semitism, "he wrote to me in an email. "I became a member of the AfD as early as 2013 because I am convinced by the conservative orientation of the AfD."
