The
president of Germany’s teachers’ union, Marlis Tepe, apologized in a letter to
her Israeli counterpart Yossi Wassermann for a Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions initiative against the Jewish state that was spearheaded by German
teachers in the northwest city of Oldenburg.
“I want to inform you, that GEW [Education
and Science Workers’ Union] is being publicly confronted with allegations of
supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel,” wrote
Tepe in a late September letter obtained by The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. She
added, ”I would like to apologize for the irritation and uncertainty caused by
this incident which is also disturbing
for GEW members and damages the reputation of our union.”
The
letter from the president of the nearly 281,000 member Education and Science
Workers’ Union to Wassermann, the secretary-general of Histadrut Hamorim
(teachers’ union), was a clear rebuke of the anti-Israel leadership of the
local GEW in Oldenburg.
“As president of the GEW I would like to
expressly emphasize that our union does not support any kind of BDS or
anti-Israeli initiatives. On the contrary: For many years we have been
supporting the cooperation between Israel and Germany, particularly youth
exchanges, and we are committed to Holocaust education,” wrote Tepe.
In
an email response, the Histadrut Hamorim’s Tzipi Dvir, a high-level union
official dealing with international affairs, wrote to Tepe, “I deeply
appreciate your taking the time and effort to write your important letter sent
to me. We highly value the long, close, respectful relations between GEW and
ITU, both professionally and personally. The joint seminars and Holocaust
commemoration ceremonies are amongst the most praised activities we’re greatly
proud of. There is no doubt in our minds as for the GEW standing with us
against the vicious, despicable acts of Antisemitism and BDS.”
The
1,200-member GEW Oldenburg teachers’ union sparked the antisemitism row. Since
late August the GEW Oldenburg has been engulfed in a modern antisemitism
scandal because of a pro-BDS article in its September monthly magazine written
by Christoph Glanz, a public school teacher.
Speaking
with the Post by telephone on Tuesday, Heinz Bührmann, chairman of the GEW
Oldenburg, said the copies of the September magazine were shredded. When asked
why his union scrubbed the website of its anti-BDS statement and its opposition
to antisemitism, Bührmann said “after the apology was on the website for six
weeks that was enough.”
Tepe’s
office sent an English translation of the anti-BDS statement to Wassermann that
the GEW Oldenburg initially posted on its website but removed it last week. The
GEW Oldenburg replaced the anti-BDS apology with an article from 2013 that
criticizes Israel.
Bührmann
told the Post that the GEW Oldenburg rejects a boycott of Israel and it “will
never take place.” He said the GEW has no plan to publish Glanz’s article in
future issues of its magazine.
The
GEW Oldenburg has, however, issued mixed messages about BDS position. According
to a Nordwest-Zeitung (NWZ) article, the “GEW stands behind Glanz.” The article
stated the GEW Oldenburg could not assess the BDS movement because it would
overwhelm the union’s resources.
The
GEW’s leadership in Oldenburg walked back Bührmann’s criticism of BDS in the
article.
Alexander
Will from the NWZ reported on Saturday that the GEW’s federal union and its
state branch in Lower Saxony, where Oldenburg is situated, criticized the GEW
Oldenburg in a joint statement: “The GEW strictly rejects a boycott of Israel
and anti-Semitic positions. The GEW distances itself from the inconsistent
action of sections of the district committee of the GEW Oldenburg city.”
Glanz,
the BDS activist who has been widely criticized in Germany and Israel as an
antisemite, was cited in Tepe’s letter. She wrote that the BDS article “was
published on the homepage of Glanz and there Glanz announced his article was
planned to be published in the September issue of the magazine PaedOl,
published by the GEW in Oldenburg, a city with 160,000 inhabitants in northwest
Germany.”
Glanz
advocates a total boycott of Israel and has positively entertained a plan to
abolish Israel and relocate the Jewish state to Germany. He ostensibly promotes
Palestinian violence against Jewish Israelis.
Glanz
posted a picture on his Facebook page of himself standing next to a stone
mural, which depicts a Palestinian wearing a keffiyeh and aiming a slingshot.
Glanz wrote above the photograph: “Feeling definitely not neutral.”
