Spiegel Cover portraying local German Jews as Eastern European Hasidim

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Jews have been an integral part of German society for 1700 years, ‘they are not from an unknown world next door’. To depict German-Jewish history “Der Spiegel” could have portrayed Moses Mendelssohn, Bertha Pappenheim, Walther Rathenau, Max Horckheimer or Rosa Luxemburg. But they chose an image of orthodox Eastern Jews from the poor Scheunenviertel (former Jewish district) in Berlin, familiar from Nazi propaganda.

With this cover picture, “Der Spiegel” unfortunately served clichéd ideas about Jews and the question arises as to what the news magazine intended with this selection of photos and the headline. Portraying Jews as something foreign or exotic promotes antisemitic prejudice.

References

Erneute Antisemitismus-Vorwürfe gegen “Spiegel“ (article published on August 2, 2018, on the Juedische Allgemeine website)

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Erneute Antisemitismus-Vorwürfe gegen “Spiegel“ (article published on August 2, 2018, on the Juedische Allgemeine website)