Just a question in between: as far as I could find out, most Jewish living and now imigrating to Germany are Ashkenazic. (Prominent Sephardic German Jews [they have have been 'a minority in a minority', as the German Jewish Council says] were Henriette Herz, Markus Herz und James Israel, Jeanette Schwerin, Heinrich Heine, Leopold Ullstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Elia Kazan.
I know quote a couple of Jews from former USSR, all not precticing, but being Ashkenazic Jews.
Where do you see a problem here?
Well, this was a digression that is not connected with Jewish immigration to Germany. Dyslexia made an allegation about discrimination of Sepharadic Jews in Israel. Well, absolute majority of the Soviet Jews are the Ashkenazi ones. In the medieval para-Talmudic literature in Aramaic Germany was referred to as "Ashkinaz", this gave a name to the community, since majority of Ashkenazi Jews bear German-style surnames and once used to speak Yiddish that is a Germanic language.
By the way, while listing the famous German Jews of Sephardic descent you have skipped over Karl Marx: his ancestors came to Germany from Portugal.
Well, I know that the Nazis proclaimed such.
I just know that Marx was an Protestsant, whose father had been expelled from the Jewish community.
Well, not only the Nazis. Mr. Lenin's article about Karl Marx in the pre-revolutionary Russian encyclopedia unequivocally points to Jewish roots of Mr. Marx. And anti-Semitism has never been a part of Mr. Lenin's stance.
Right, that's why the Nazis used this: to show the connection between Jews and Communists.
I'm a tad uneasy with the use of the word "flooding" in the original article -- anyone else have a problem with this?
Also I wonder how this migration compares with other migrations of the past 50/60 years. Off the top of my head: migrations from Mexico and Guatemala to the US, Americans/Brits/Germans to Mediterranean coastlines (as residents, not tourist).
Spain was flooded by German seniors :wink:
I always had the precise opposite impression of Sephardic Jews -- as being the elite, the highly educated, the intellectuals and artists. Perhaps that comes from living in Spain and (in Spain) being close friends with Sephardic Jews (American-born, as it happened) who were sensational people. I'm also thinking of Yehoshua's Journey to the End of the Millenium. Maimonides? Was he Sephardic?
Since Maimonides was born in Spain, he shoudl have been Sephardic, I suppose.
But Yehoshua's Journey, which is set earlier than Maimonides lived, points exactly at the differences of the different 'Jewish religious schools'.
Love that book, don't you Walter? Maimonides was the son of a rabbi and they were, of course, Sephardic. I've always really liked that guy -- he seemed curiously modern. But then he was living in a very developed civilization which was probably imploding, but which was certainly devastated by the Christians.
Hey -- not just German seniors, Walter, but German nerds, geeks, archeologists (I let one use the old cottage on my place), teachers, professional tanners, entertainers, actors, filmmakers, etc. etc. etc.
jews flooding into germany
as ebeth mentioned we have met some jewish people that had left germany as young people/children, eventually settled in israel but go back to visit germany(someone told me that there is actually a program to invite jewish people to visit germany; of course i've been away from germany for too long to know about it). what did surprise us that they spoke of germany in quite a generous way; of course these people were not in germany during the holocast but had left in the early 1930's. i was rather surprised when the mother of a neighbour stated that what she liked particularly about today's germany was that there was still a bit of a CLASS-SYSTEM left. the way she put it(loosely translated) : a doctor is still a doctor and receives DUE RESPECT! - i guess that was one of our reasons for leaving germany ! she also was proud to state that only THE VERY BEST GERMAN was spoken in her ladies weekly cardgame gathering in tel aviv(they played the card game of SKAT). it s also interesting to note that the bankhaus WARBURG which started in hamburg (and was confiscated during the hitler years) is today back in hamburg - and i believe is the biggest private bank in hamburg. ERIK WARBURG - one of the warburg family members that left germany -, came back to hamburg after the war to rebuild the bank. i read his quite interesting biography a couple of years ago. he stated to the writer that dispite all the difficulties he still felt he had to return to hamburg because it was his HOMETOWN! i believe erik warburg died about 1990 in hamburg and at his funeral he was praised as having been one the great HAMBURG CITIZENS of the century. hbg
There are quite a few programs for jews, visiting Germany.
Last year, some Jewish esteblished a program for those, who are want to return to Germany.
So far, abot 300 came back with its help.
Link for the (old) Warburg bank:
M.M. Warburg & Co.
In 1956 Eric M. Warburg became one of the owners. (Today, Max Warburg is acting partner from the original family.)
The banc is called since 1969 M.M.Warburg-Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co.
M.M Warburg - English website
