German far-right party’s planned Jewish wing denounced by local Jewry

BERLIN — Plans by the far-right Alternative for Germany party to launch a “Jewish” division within its ranks on Sunday sparks an outcry, with community leaders blasting an apparent bid to fend off allegations of anti-Semitism.

The party has scheduled an announcement later Sunday on what it calls a new Jewish grouping within its ranks. Few other details have emerged.

Leading members of the AfD have come under fire repeatedly for comments that appear to play down the Holocaust.

Ahead of Sunday’s launch, Jewish organizations including the Central Council of Jews in Germany issued a statement describing the AfD as “a racist and anti-Semitic party.”

“The AfD is a party that provides a home for hatred for Jews as well as the relativizing, or even denial of the Holocaust,” it says.

The AfD’s deputy parliamentary group leader Beatrix von Storch hit backs in an interview published Sunday by broadsheet Welt am Sonntag.

Taking aim at the Central Council of Jews, von Storch compares it to “official churches,” which she dismisses as “part of the establishment.”

The deputy parliamentary group leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, Stephan Harbarth, calls the AfD’s bid to start a Jewish wing “hypocrisy.”

“Whoever calls the Holocaust a speck of bird poo in German history does not fight anti-Semitism, but mocks its victims, and definitely does not stand on the side of the Jews,” Harbarth tells Sunday’s edition of daily Bild.

— AFP