The Divergence of Judaism and Islam: Interdependence, Modernity, and Political Turmoil

5. “We Don’t Want to Be the Jews of Tomorrow”: Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11

5 “We Don’t Want to Be the Jews of Tomorrow” Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11 Gökçe Yurdakul and Y. Michal Bodemann In its edition of 23 September 2004, the German magazine Stern published a cartoon showing a heavily mustached man crawling through a cat hole in a door labeled “European Union,” trying to gain entry into Europe. Some imitation Arabic writing appears above the cat hole, and a suitcase with a Turkish flag stands next to the man. This cartoon caused an uproar in the German Turkish community. Vural Öger, a prominent German Turkish businessman and a member of the European Parliament from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, wrote an open letter to Stern calling the cartoon defamatory, obscene, and welcome material for neoNazi propaganda. Öger closed his letter as follows: A young Turkish man with a German passport, not only born but also raised here, had heard about Hitler’s beginnings in history class and said that this drawing was just like ones in [the Nazi paper ] Der Stürmer. Except that the Jews would have received different noses. Here in the Stern, the nose was replaced by the mustache. But everything else is the same racist garbage. (Hürriyet, 2 October 2004). In this article, we attempt to show how interethnic relations play out between Turks and Jews in Germany. We will explore how the numerically largest and most recent immigrant group, the Turks, take the small Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11 · 75 Jewish minority in Germany, pivotal because of its long history in Germany as well as the recent past, as a model for their own future insertion in German society. Öger’s reaction to the cartoon in Stern demonstrates that German Turks are not only knowledgeable about the German-Jewish narrative but also have learned to use it adeptly for their own purposes. Accusing Germans of anti-Turkish racism per se is only partly effective. Rhetorically far more effective is to associate Turkish concerns with those of the Jews. This strategy compels Germans to listen to Turkish intellectuals because, on this point, the German environment is vulnerable—it represents a fundamental usage of the Jewish narrative by the Turkish leaders.1 We suggest that immigrant leaders refer to historical minorities in order to create a common perception of struggle against discrimination and racism in the receiving country. At the same time, they formulate their claims for membership rights within a historical framework in order to receive political recognition from state authorities. As the above example would suggest, Turkish immigrant leaders draw upon the Jews and Jewish history because, in Germany, many Turkish immigrants “take Jews as a concrete example of minority, in terms of history and organization.”2 They build upon a German Jewish model in three main areas. First, they compare the Holocaust and the fire bombings of Turkish houses in Mölln in 1992 and Solingen in 1993. Here, leaders in Turkish immigrant associations stress the similarities between the racism against Turks and antiSemitism .3 Second, they use the Jüdische Gemeinde (Jewish Community) and the Zentralrat der Juden (Central Council of Jews) as examples of how to organize as a minority. Lastly, Turkish immigrant associations claim minority rights analogous to those of German Jews, whose ritual practices have been officially recognized by German state authorities. In the following article, we explore how Turkish immigrant associations use Jewish associations as organizational models. We also address references made by the executive members of the Turkish immigrant associations regarding the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, as they organize antiracist campaigns. We then discuss how the Turkish immigrant associations take the Jewish trope as a model to claim group rights. We conclude by addressing the significance of the integration process of immigrants , looking at their interaction with historical minorities. 76 · Gökçe Yurdakul and Y. Michal Bodemann Immigrants and Minorities Nation-states draw distinctions between two groups: minorities and immigrants. On the one hand, a minority is the “other” who does not belong to an imagined homogeneous nation—someone who is almost one of “us” but not quite.4 Minorities become members of the state involuntarily through occupation of land or federation.5 Immigrants, on the other hand, become members of the state—permanent residents or full citizens—through voluntary immigration. Since they consent to being in a “minority situation” in the receiving country, immigrants are...