The surprising story behind Israel`s complicated love affair with

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The surprising story behind Israel's complicated love affair with Germany
Israel and Germany mark the jubilee of diplomatic ties this week. Haaretz examines this unlikely relationship and asks
whether it will last another 50 years.
By Alona Ferber and Judy Maltz | May 12, 2015 | 10:30 AM |
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When 16 European Union foreign ministers signed a letter last month effectively endorsing a boycott of products from Israel’s settlements, there
was one notable absentee: Germany.
It was an act that underscored Germany’s status as Israel’s best friend in Europe and the very special relationship that has developed between
the two countries since they first established diplomatic relations, 50 years ago this month.
Of course, any postwar relationship between Germany and Israel was always going to be complicated. And while the country responsible for the
greatest tragedy of the Jewish people is now one of Israel’s staunchest allies and its top trading partner in Europe, there are still Israelis who
boycott all things German.
As well as being a long-standing supplier of military aid to Israel, Germany is also credited in some foreign media reports with helping fund the
country’s alleged nuclear program. The Germans also helped bring to an end one of the most painful moments in Israel’s recent history, liaising
with the Israeli government and Hamas to secure the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
Given the traumatic history of Germany and the Jews, this modern-day relationship is “no less than a miracle,” believes Dr. Michael Borchard,
director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Israel office. Adenauer, the first postwar chancellor of West Germany, recognized Germany’s
obligation to the Jews in 1951.
Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion with
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer at Kibbutz Sde Boker in 1966. (Shalom Buchbinder / Kibbutz Sde Boker Archive)
Since official bilateral ties were established on May 12, 1965, there wasn’t a specific catalyzing moment that made the alliance so strong, says Avi
Primor, former Israeli ambassador to Germany and the EU. Even earlier, following the controversial 1952 Reparations Agreement between the
two countries, there came a gradual building of trust, he notes.
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As German industrial goods started flowing into Israel from the 1950s on, so did the exchange of experts. “The relationship simply developed,”
says Primor, noting that Germany eventually became “the locomotive we had for European relations.”
Today, although Germany disagrees with Israeli policy on settlements and toward the Palestinians, and personal relations between Chancellor
Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are “terrible,” as Primor puts it, both sides are committed to the relationship, and
Berlin is fully committed to Israel’s security.
In 2008, Merkel – the first German chancellor to address Israel’s parliament – reiterated that Israel's security was “part of Germany’s Reason of
State ... It means that for me, as a German chancellor, Israel’s security is never negotiable.”
addresses the Knesset, in Jerusalem, March 18, 2008. (AP)
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
The problem is that Israel relies too heavily on this special relationship, says Dr. Sharon Pardo, from the Center for the Study of European
Politics and Society at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He believes Israel allows its relationship with Germany to skew its view of the rest of
the continent.
“Israeli foreign policy doesn’t attach much importance to Europe,” says Pardo. “Israel believes it can always depend on Germany, but this is a
mistake. In recent years, there’s been a shift even in Germany, and while Germany may be an important player in the European Union, it does
not run it.”
Despite the pressures, can the relationship survive – and thrive – for another 50 years? According to a January poll by the Bertelsmann
Foundation, 68 percent of Israelis have a good opinion about Germany, while 24 percent have a poor opinion. In 1991, those figures were 48
percent and 40 percent, respectively. In contrast, the poll found that only 36 percent of Germans see Israel favorably, with 48 percent having a
“poor opinion” of Israel. This figure was 54 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds.
There is certainly less and less understanding in Western Europe for Israeli policies, notes Primor: “What works in favor of Israel is that, after
the Holocaust, everyone hesitates before contradicting the Jewish state. What also helps is the very bad image of Israel’s enemies, the Arabs, but
this will not hold forever – we will lose public opinion.” Still, he adds, “it will take a long time for the Germans to give us the cold shoulder.”
To mark the 50th anniversary of that strong, stable – and unique – alliance, Haaretz examines five key components of Jerusalem’s other special
relationship.
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How German reparations kick-started the Israeli economy
In September 1952, Israel and Germany signed an agreement that would provide the fledgling Jewish state with reparations money for crimes
committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Aside from attempting to right a historical wrong, this agreement would ultimately
set the groundwork for Israel’s first economic boom.
Over the years, Germany has paid the Israeli government and its citizens an estimated $60 billion in reparations (according to figures from the
Claims Conference, the organization long involved in reparations negotiations). This inflow of foreign currency was critical in providing for the
needs of the hundreds of thousands of destitute new immigrants flocking to Israel’s shores after the state was established. It also enabled the
newly born state to finance major infrastructure projects, such as the National Water Carrier, and build hundreds of factories.
At the time, though, the idea that the Jewish state would take compensation – or, as some dubbed it, “blood money” – from Germany sparked
bitter controversy. Then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was attacked from both left and right for what many perceived as a move designed to
absolve the Germans of their guilt for crimes committed during the Holocaust. Some of the most violent protests in Israeli history erupted as the
Knesset convened to vote on passing the Reparations Agreement.
in 1947. (AP)
Holocaust survivors arrive in Haifa,
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against reparations talks between Israel and Germany, in Tel Aviv, 1952. (Hans Fin/GPO)
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Tens of thousands of Israelis protest
In retrospect, it is clear that German reparations money helped Israel avert a major economic catastrophe in its formative years. “In the early
1950s, Israel was in dire economic straits,” notes Benny Bental, a professor of economics at the University of Haifa. “The country was facing
security threats, it needed to absorb huge numbers of immigrants who came with nothing, and food was running out. The reparations money
from Germany basically saved the economy.”
According to the Claims Conference, to date more than 278,000 survivors have received lifetime pensions from the German government.
Hundreds of thousands more have received one-time grants.
Yoram Gabbay, a prominent Israeli economist who has worked in both the public and private sectors, notes that in the early years, the amount
of money coming into the country each year through the Reparations Agreement was equivalent to revenues from export sales. “That’s pretty
incredible when you think about it,” he remarks.
When the Reparations Agreement first took effect, he notes, the government had introduced strict austerity measures, which involved rationing
food and other basic commodities. “At the time, there was very little aid coming from the United States,” says Gabbay. “Were it not for the
German reparations, Israel would probably have been forced to continue rationing for another three to four years, and we wouldn’t have been
able to import. The accelerated growth we later experienced in the 1960s would have been delayed.”
Chancellor of West Germany Konrad
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Adenauer signs the reparations agreement between Israel and Germany, in Luxembourg, Sept. 10, 1952. (Moshe Sharett Heritage Society)
Initially, most of the reparations money went directly to the Israeli government. But since the mid-1960s, the vast majority has been paid
straight into the bank accounts of survivors. Over the years, many outsiders have wondered how Israelis manage to spend so much more than
they earn. One answer could be the German reparations money, which has helped boost the bank accounts of many tens of thousands in the
country.
The irony of history: Germans arming Jews
Israel and Germany reached a deal this week regarding the sale of four new missile boats from Germany after Berlin agreed to slash about $382
million off the total cost, officials on both sides said. Israel's purchase of the vessels to protect its offshore gas rigs is being underwritten by a
cool $128 million from the German government.
The deal is the latest in the long-running German policy of providing Israel “what it needs to maintain its security,” as former Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder stated in 2002.
Arms exchange between the two countries goes back all the way to the fifties. While Israel received some weapons from West Germany in the
earlier part of that decade, in 1957, five years after the Reparations Agreement, Israel and Germany engaged in top-secret defense talks.
Though the full extent of these exchanges over the years is not known, German aid is believed to have been crucial in key Israeli battles,
including the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After German unification in 1990, Berlin also provided arms and funds during
the 1991 Gulf War, according to a 2007 U.S. Congress report. That report also claimed that, during the Cold War, Israel passed intelligence to
Bonn on Soviet weapons captured in the Mideast.
Today, Germany is dwarfed by the United States, which gives Israel over $3 billion for defense per year and purchased $1 billion-worth of
Israel’s defense equipment in 2013, compared with $705-million from all of Europe. Germany itself is a major arms exporter, ranking fourth
globally according to a March report.
In recent years, German aid has mostly come in the form of discounts – tantamount to grants – such as in this latest missile boat deal, and on
submarines. And there has been other aid; Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said this week that Germany gave Israel four Patriot missile
batteries as part of a military aid program at some point during the last few years.
The high-profile, controversial deals for six dolphin submarines started in the 1990s. According to a 2012 Der Spiegel report, these subs were
intended to give Israel a second-strike capability in case of nuclear attack. In fact, according to foreign media reports, Germany is thought to
have provided funding for Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons arsenal.
Those 1957 defense talks – headed by then-Defense Ministry Director-General Shimon Peres and West German Defense Minister Franz Josef
Strauss – were highly sensitive. While Jerusalem feared the public’s reaction, Bonn was concerned the move would be unpopular with Arab
states who would then side with East Germany. In fact, in July 1959 Ben-Gurion’s government collapsed over a deal to sell arms to West
Germany.
But as a result of defense ties between the two countries during the 1950s and ’60s, Israel received German supplies – including arms, training
aircraft, vehicles and helicopters – often from indirect routes. West Germany, meanwhile, bought several million dollars-worth of Israeli
technology, including machine guns, mortars and grenade-launchers.
While there has been some German political opposition to providing Israel with aid, mostly on the left, it remains a key component of GermanIsraeli ties, says the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Borchard. “I think this is quite crucial,” he adds, noting that it is a key factor in the favorable
public opinion of Israelis toward Germany today.
A German-built Israeli Dolphin-class
submarine sails near Tel Aviv during naval maneuvers ahead of Israel’s 60th independence anniversary, on May 5, 2008. (AFP)
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The Israelis who still boycott Germany
Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, some Israelis still refuse to turn a page. As a matter of policy, they do not buy any products made
in Germany or set foot in the country. They represent only a tiny minority, however.
The Hebrew University’s Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, an authority on Israeli-German relations, notes that Israelis are much less likely to boycott
Germany than are Diaspora Jews. “Israelis believe in the discontinuity of German history, which isn’t true of Jews in the United Kingdom and
the United States,” he states.
German products Israelis love.
Clockwise from L to R: Birkenstock sandals, Volkswagen, AEG washing machines, BMW. (Flickr; Uriel Cohen ; KBBNewsPics; Ofer Vaknin)
According to a recent poll conducted by Zimmermann, only about 5 percent of Israelis still boycott German products. Presumably most of them
are older Israelis. That compares with roughly 20 percent decades ago.
Sallai Meridor, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and a former chairman of the Jewish Agency, belongs to this group of outliers.
He does not like to use the term boycott, though.
“Boycotts are used to influence or punish,” he says. “That is not at all my intention in refusing to buy German products. For me, it’s an act of
memorialization. I commemorate the Holocaust every single day, not just when the sirens sound. This forces me to think about it every time I
walk into a store to buy something, and it also sparks questions and discussion, which is important.”
Meridor says it’s a tradition he’s carried down from his parents’ home, and one upheld today by his own grandchildren. “For us, it’s a way of life.
What happened is unforgivable and nothing can atone for it,” he says.
But just like Jews adhere to different rules of kashrut, it turns out Israelis have different definitions of what constitutes a boycott of Germany.
Some won’t travel there, but will purchase German products. Other won’t purchase German products, but will travel there. Still others won’t buy
German cars, but will buy German appliances.
Victor Weisz moved to Israel from England five years ago. He won’t buy any German products, but will travel to the country on business – so
long as he doesn’t have to sleep there. “I go and come back the same day,” he says.
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When it comes to purchasing German products, though, his rules are very strict. “My father came from Romania and lost almost his entire
family in Auschwitz,” he recounts. “He used to joke that the only thing German in his house was his wife. I’ve carried on this tradition. Once we
were in a shop purchasing a dinner service, and it seemed very high quality. There and then I realized it was made in Germany and said, ‘We’re
not taking it.’”
Zvi Friedman, a former spokesman for the Israel Builders Association, takes it even further. “Our organization would collaborate a lot with our
German counterparts,” he recalls. “Once, a deputy minister from Germany met with us in Israel, and I refused to shake her hand. Someone told
her it was because she was a woman, but I corrected him and said it was because she was German.”
Friedman’s father was a refugee from Germany who arrived in Palestine in 1939, just in the nick of time. “My father lost his entire family aside
from one sister,” he says. “I don’t believe I have the right to forgive and forget.”
Tamar Tenenbaum, a former director of the Betar youth movement – which is affiliated with the Israeli political right – was the first in her
family to boycott German products. “It’s something we feel strongly about in the movement,” she says, noting that every Holocaust Memorial
Day, the organization holds a vigil outside the German embassy in Tel Aviv.
“The other day, for example, I needed to buy an electrical appliance for the house, so I told the salesman not to offer me anything made in
Germany,” she adds.
She does not come from a family of Holocaust survivors. But after she took the lead, her parents followed suit and also began boycotting German
products.
The Israeli culture beloved in Germany
When Marco Lorenz was a teenager in the German city of Wuppertal, he remembers everyone in his school class being obsessed with a film that
addressed a subject on all their minds at the time: sex.
That film just happened to be Israeli. It was “Lemon Popsicle,” the 1978 hit – known in Hebrew as “Eskimo Limon” and in German as “Eis am
Stiel” – that tells the story of three teens on a quest to lose their virginity. The movie also spawned a long line of sequels.
“I didn’t know it was Israeli,” exclaims Lorenz, 31. “And yes, I think I can say that everyone I went to school with saw it.”
The German appetite for Israeli culture clearly transcends the “Lemon Popsicle” phenomenon. Satirist Ephraim Kishon, who died in 2005, sold
43 million copies of his books worldwide – and 32 million of those were published in German. Nilli Cohen, director of the Institute for the
Translation of Hebrew Literature, recalls visits to the Frankfurt Book Fair over the years where streets were “covered in his posters.”
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in the Israeli cult film series "Lemon Popsicle.” (Oren Ziv)
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A poster in German for number seven
Though mass appeal of this variety is unusual, interest in Israeli literature is “huge” in Germany, says Wolf Iro, director of the Goethe Institute
in Israel. In fact, after English, German is the second-largest market for translations of Hebrew literature today.
In Israel, meanwhile, German is the second-most-translated language after English, but contemporary German fiction rarely makes its way into
Hebrew. And when it does, it usually deals with the Holocaust, Iro adds.
The numbers tell the story. Since the first work of Hebrew literature – “Ahavat Zion” (“The Love of Zion”) by Abraham Mapu – was translated
into German in 1885, a total of 1,052 Hebrew books and anthologies of prose, poetry and children’s literature have been published in German.
In comparison, some 1,537 have been translated into English, and 694 into French. The number in German is particularly high considering that,
between 1938 and 1961, no Hebrew books were translated into German at all.
With the weight of history always felt, Germans “have a very sensitive place for Jews and Israelis, and they are also very interested in Israel,”
says Ran Yaakoby, cultural attaché at Israel’s embassy in Berlin.
Still, according to the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, the number of Israeli books translated into German has dropped over
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the past two decades.
This drop, says Cohen, may indicate that Germany is beginning to treat Israel just like any other country. After 1961, when Germans began
translating Hebrew literature again, publishers would sometimes make commissions out of feelings of guilt for the Holocaust, she notes.
Today, publishers are interested in Israeli fiction that tackles geopolitics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, yes, also the historical background
between Israel and Germany. But decisions are made for commercial reasons. “Maybe this is how it should be,” says Cohen. “This is
normalization.”
Israelis and Germans: A tale of mutual fascination
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Rabin Square wears an 'I Love Berlin' t-Shirt. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
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A cost-of-living protester at Tel Aviv's
About six months ago, a young Israeli living in Berlin raised a storm when he launched a Facebook page urging Israelis to move to the German
capital. To convince them what a bargain Berlin was, he cited the relatively cheap price of Milky – a favorite Israeli chocolate pudding snack – in
his local supermarket.
It came to be known as the “Milky protest.” And although the young man has since moved back home, it touched a raw nerve, underscoring the
push-and-pull effect of Germany for many Israelis.
In a new introduction to her 2001 book “Israelis in Berlin,” historian and essayist Fania Oz-Salzberger wonders what it is that draws thousands
of Israelis to a place that, less than a century ago, tried to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. “Well, here is a partial answer,” she writes. “The
State of Israel has strong, hidden roots in prewar Germany, and especially in Berlin. Before its Nazification, it had set the stage for the
emancipation of Jews and the liberal rethinking of Judaism, helped create the early Zionist movement, and took an active part in the great
awakening of the modern Hebrew language and culture.”
No less important, she continues, many talented Jewish Germans, “from Moses Mendelssohn the philosopher via Felix Mendelssohn the
composer to Erich Mendelssohn the architect,” hailed from Berlin. “Beyond the immeasurable black hole left by the Nazis, the old Berlin and the
new Berlin beckon to Jewish Israelis with the siren song of family resemblance,” she writes.
Prof. Zimmermann from the Hebrew University uses the term “schizophrenia” to explain the Israeli fascination with Germany. “You can be
cynical and say that Israelis admire people who are so efficient,” he muses, “even in the way they carried out the Shoah.”
Zimmermann notes another irony: While the Holocaust has come to loom larger in the Israeli psyche over the years, Israelis have at the same
time grown increasingly more sympathetic toward Germany.
Dr. Roby Nathanson, director general of the Macro Center for Political Economics in Tel Aviv, comes from a family that fled Germany before the
war and found a safe haven in Uruguay. But Nathanson, who lived in Germany for nine years while studying for his advanced degrees, fails to
understand those Israelis who are taking up residence in Berlin.
“I just don’t think Jews have anything to seek in Germany,” he says, declaring, “There’s something sick about the whole thing.” Still, he does
acknowledge a key attraction: the German capital is one of the few places in Europe where Israelis can still feel loved today.
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Although they may be more critical of Israel, Germans also continue to harbor a fascination with the Jewish state. Unofficial estimates put the
German expat community in Israel at somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000. One of its more prominent members is Anna Rau, 31, the daughter
of late President Johannes Rau, who became the first German leader to address the Knesset back in 2000.
Anna came to study in Tel Aviv six years ago, “and I somehow got stuck here,” as she puts it. Her father’s passion for Israel, she reflects, clearly
influenced her, though it wasn’t until after he died that she made her first trip to the country. Now a fluent Hebrew speaker, she says she would
love to stay in the country if it weren’t for the hassle she experiences every time she needs to renew her visa.
According to government figures, between 500 and 600 Germans participate in volunteer programs in Israel every year. They account for an
overwhelming 70-75 percent of all international volunteers in the country.
“The fascination of Germans with Israel certainly has something to do with the Holocaust,” observes Rau, “although my generation doesn’t
speak so much about collective guilt as about collective responsibility.”
There is a tendency to blame much of the negative shift in German public opinion on the Palestinian conflict. But it doesn’t account for
everything, says Dr. Esther Lopatin, head of the Center for European Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.
“I believe part of the problem [for Germans] is that Israelis are perceived as takers rather than givers. And that obviously has to do with the
constant demands for Holocaust reparations, as justified as they may be,” she says. “In Germany, no one will say it publicly, but in informal
conversations it comes out – this idea that [they’ve] paid enough already and are not responsible any longer for what happened.”
The solution, Lopatin believes, lies in joint projects that provide Israel with an opportunity to give something back. “That’s the big challenge for
the next 50 years,” she says. “Understanding that we have what to give and that they stand to profit from partnerships with us."
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The surprising story behind Israel`s complicated love affair with

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