Dieter Graumann (born 20 August 1950 in Ramat Gan as David Graumann [1] ) is an Israeli/German jurist and economist. From 28 November 2010 to 30 November 2014, he was President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and has been Vice President of the World Jewish Congress since 6 May 2013. [2] He succeeded Charlotte Knobloch in both positions.
David Graumann was born in 1950 in Ramat Gan, Israel, the son of Polish Holocaust survivors. His parents met at a concentration camp in Zeilsheim, Germany. His parents immigrated to Germany with him when he was only one year old, settling in Frankfurt am Main. Soon after their transplant, his name was changed to Dieter, an attempt to conceal his Jewish identity in post-war Germany. [3]
After completing his Abitur, Graumann studied economics at the University of Frankfurt and law at King's College London, completing his doctoral thesis on the European Economic Community in 1979. Following his graduation, he worked at the Deutsche Bundesbank for two years, also serving as President of Makkabi Frankfurt, an organization of which he is now honorary president.
Before his presidency of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Graumann's work revolved around his private Assets Management practice, along with participation in various German Jewish organizations in his hometown of Frankfurt.
In 2009, Graumann announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, a position which he won. He was the first president of the council who did not personally survive the Holocaust. [4]
During the UEFA Euro 2012 Poland/Ukraine, Graumann implored the German National Team to visit Auschwitz or Babi Yar. The German Team did visit Auschwitz, however, Graumann criticized the small team delegation of three players and comments regarding the visit by Team Manager Oliver Bierhoff. [5]
In 2012, Graumann heavily criticized the decision of a Cologne court to label circumcision as genital mutilation, labeling the decision religiously insensitive and "cold". [6]
Also in 2012, Graumann published a book, Nachgeboren – Vorbelastet? Die Zukunft des Judentums in Deutschland, concerning Jewish life in Germany, specifically analyzing what he saw as new threats to German Jewry from leftist anti-Zionists and Islamism. [7]
In 2013, Graumann heavily criticized the official response to an antisemitic attack by a youth on an Offenbach Rabbi in a mall. [8]
In 2014, Graumann's statements connecting European antisemitism to Israel-Hamas violence and comparing antisemitism in pro-Palestinian organizations to the Holocaust garnered some criticism as trivialization of the Holocaust. [9]
On 31 October 2014, Graumann announced that he would not seek another term as President of the Central Council. [10]
The Central Council of Jews in Germany is a federation of German Jews. It was founded on 19 July 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish community and increasing interest in Jewish affairs by the (West) German government. Originally based in the Rhenish areas, it transferred its seat to Berlin after the Reunification of Germany (1990). As of 2015 the Jewish community in Germany has around 100,000 registered members, although far more Jews live in the country without belonging to a synagogue. From its early years, the organisation has received strong financial and moral support from the government. Since the end of November 2014, Josef Schuster, an internist from Würzburg, has been president of the Zentralrat. He follows Dieter Graumann, who was the incumbent from November 2010 to November 30th 2014.
Paul Spiegel was leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the main spokesman of the German Jews. He was widely praised for his leadership of the German Jewish community, which had grown from the remnants left by the Nazis into the third largest Jewish community in western Europe.
Ignatz Bubis, German Jewish leader, was the influential chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany from 1992 to 1999. In this capacity he led a public campaign against German antisemitism. Bubis's high profile both in Frankfurt and nationwide involved him in a number of public controversies.
Götz Haydar Aly is a German journalist, historian and political scientist.
Heinz Galinski was president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany from 1954 to 1963 and 1988 until his death in 1992, and Holocaust survivor.
Charlotte Knobloch is the former President of Central Council of Jews in Germany from 2006 to 2010. She is also Vice President of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress. She has for many years been one of the primary leaders of the Jewish community in Munich, as President of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München und Oberbayern since 1985.
Henryk Marcin Broder, self-designation Henryk Modest Broder, is a Polish-born German journalist, author, and television personality.
Norbert Wollheim was a chartered accountant, tax advisor, previously a board member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a functionary of other Jewish organisations.
The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 by the Leo Baeck Institute of New York City, an international research institute devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. It is the highest recognition the Institute bestows upon those who have helped preserve the spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy.
Secondary antisemitism is a distinct form of antisemitism which is said to have appeared after the end of World War II. Secondary antisemitism is often explained as being caused by the Holocaust, as opposed to existing in spite of it. One frequently quoted formulation of the concept, first published in Henryk M. Broder's 1986 book Der Ewige Antisemit, stems from the Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex, who once remarked: "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." The term was coined by Peter Schönbach, a Frankfurt School co-worker of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, based on their critical theory.
Inge Deutschkron was a German and Israeli journalist and author. She experienced the Nazi regime as a girl and young woman, living in Berlin first working in a factory, then hiding with her mother.
Wolfgang Benz is a German historian from Ellwangen. He was the director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism of the Technische Universität Berlin between 1990 and 2011.
Alfred Grosser is a German-French writer, sociologist, and political scientist. He is known for his contributions towards the Franco-German cooperation after World War II and for criticizing Israel.
Josef Schuster is a German physician and since November 2014 President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is a German historian.
Salomon Korn is a German architect and an Honorary Senator of Heidelberg University. Since 1999 he has served as Chairman of the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main and since 2003 as Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
The Collegium Humanum was an ecofascist organisation in Germany from 1963 to 2008. It was established in 1963 as a club, was first active in the German environmental movement, then from the early 1980s became a far-right political organisation and was banned in 2008 by the Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble due to "continued denial of the Holocaust".
Antisemitism is a growing problem in 21st-century Germany.
The Halle synagogue shooting occurred on 9 October 2019 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and continued in nearby Landsberg. After unsuccessfully trying to enter the synagogue in Halle during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the attacker, later identified as 27-year-old Stephan Balliet, fatally shot two people nearby and later injured two others.
Ronen Steinke is a German political journalist and author whose essays and books on issues of law and society have been discussed in The Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, De Volkskrant, Le Figaro, The Asahi Shimbun and The New York Review of Books. In 2013, Steinke published the biography of the German-Jewish prosecutor Fritz Bauer, who secretly worked with the Mossad and brought Nazi war criminals to justice in the 1960s. The book, which received a preface by the President of the German Supreme Court, inspired the award-winning 2015 film The People vs. Fritz Bauer.
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