With the recent visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet to Israel, the focus again was the "special relationship" with the Shoah as the point of departure. The issues are deeper for both Jews and Israel.
The German word "Heimat" loosely means the "homeland," but in fact encompasses more.
Heimat describes being part of a common national bond, of shared history, trust and nostalgia. It includes a sense of kinship, comfort and common purpose. It represents the physical, emotional and spiritual sanctuary of Germans regardless of status and is a feminine word that suggests nurturing, unlike "Vaterland," which implies masculine power.
Heimat, since Martin Luther, gave Germans a sense of belonging and identity with regard to region, dialect and country.
German Jews were often regarded as "Heimatlos" (homeless) and rootless – the wandering Jew as envisaged by church founder Augustine and reinforced by Luther.
Challenging this exclusion, Jewish educationist Kurt Tucholsky envisaged a concept of the Heimat that depicted a genuine and persistent love of the German organic space. Nonetheless, Jews, no matter how assimilated or even converted, simply did not belong.
During the Nazi era, the concept of Heimat was also defined as "blood and soil," thereby excluding any "foreigners" from this sense of belonging. The Nazis went to great lengths to detach Jews and Judaism from German history and instead promote a dejudaised Heimat consisting of a Christian national ethos that explicitly rejected Jews. As historian Alon Confino observes in "A World without Jews," Germans were determined to reshape their new identity, devoid of Judeo-Christian roots. Instead, Germans embraced an identity in which Heimat morphed into a new form of Christian-German nationalism becoming an independent entity in itself.
Most Christian clergymen in Nazi Germany embraced this idea, rationalizing that just as Luther revolted against Catholicism, so the church had to despatch of Judaism and Jews. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws precipitated the depersonalization and dehumanization reinforcing the Heimatlos agenda that culminated in the mass destruction of Europe's Jews.
After the war, the concept of Heimat was put on the back burner.
In the early 1990s, a reunited Germany invited Jews from the former Soviet Union to immigrate to Germany. Yet, only in 2003 – a full 58 years after the fall of Nazi Germany, was Judaism raised to a legal par with Catholicism and the Lutheran Church.
The term Heimat has also made a comeback to denote something positive, namely, multicultural inclusiveness. The Alternative for Germany party uses the slogan "Unser Land, unsere Heimat" (Our country, our homeland) as a rallying cry for nationalistic cohesiveness.
Climbing on the populist bandwagon, Chancellor Merkel's government introduced a Heimatministerium (Homeland Ministry) that raised some eyebrows.
There is, however, a significant sense of paradox.
Despite the Heimat's promotion of national cohesiveness as an ideal, Merkel appointed Dr. Felix Klein to check growing anti-Semitism in Germany, which, she says, is shameful and embarrassing. Anti-Semitism does not fit in with the modern idea of Heimat.
The government has recently agreed to increase funding for security in Jewish institutions. Synagogues, schools, and kindergartens have armed guards to prevent attacks in both Germany and other European countries. Jews have also been advised by the Central Council for Jews in Germany not to wear kippot in public. Police have also advised the Jewish community not to display its logo on mail, while mezuzot should be affixed on the inside of door frames, away from the public's view.
In other words, Germany's desire to protect its Jewish citizens casts them apart from mainstream Germans. This is not what the new Heimat is meant to be.
When I asked a passerby in the street for directions to a particular synagogue, she chuckled and said, "Keep going straight till you see police cars and guards."
Recently, a visiting Jewish professor was assaulted by an Arab German shouting, "No Jews in Germany!"
The solution to the problem of protecting Jews has in itself created another problem that is incompatible with the idea of Heimat.
The irony is that the word "Hebrew" means "from the other side, the other," which is how Jews are seen in the Heimat.
While security is essential, Klein must surely realize that more security is a band-aid measure. Indeed, the highly visible guards are a social version of wearing a Star of David. Moreover, education that focusses on the Holocaust will not solve the problem.
With Germany the leading country of Europe, the stakes are high. Sadly, Jews know what they are fighting against, but not what they are fighting for. The phenomenon of Jews joining the extremist AfD is indicative of a confused, misguided community.
A complete overhaul of school education that includes the 4,000-year-old history of the Jewish people, the millennia-old Judeo-Christian symbiosis in German history and the role of the churches to this day, is essential to making postwar and post-unification Germany the Heimat it wishes to be.
With Germany becoming increasingly polarized by difficulties integrating Muslim asylum seekers, left- and right-wing extremism and a weakened federal government, the Jewish community may well wonder "what Heimat?" as they observe more armed guards in front of their institutions.
