J'accuse

As a Jew in the Face of Radicalised German Zionism and Its Shared Antisemitic Past

This is my statement before the Berlin court in my defence against the accusation of racist incitement and Holocaust denial. The case was dismissed, and the author was acquitted of all charges.

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My name is Martin Gak, and I am a Jew. Judaism is not only my home, but also the ground upon which I have built my life — from Argentina to the United States, to France, and finally to Germany. Upon this ground I have built my work: my academic interests, my public engagement, my journalism, and ultimately, my way of life.

As a Jew, I decided more than fifteen years ago to settle in Germany — a country that, in my opinion, still carries an enormous moral and political debt.

And as a Jew, I stand before this court to defend myself. As Hannah Arendt said: When one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. It is precisely for this reason that I am here today — dragged before a court to prove to the German state that I am a good Jew. It is simply insane that the German judiciary has hauled me before a court and charged me with incitement to racial hatred (against Jews, I assume) and Holocaust denial, based on a statement that has absolutely nothing to do with either — or, at best, combats both.

At the tender age of fifty, I enter a courtroom for the first time in my life — as a Jew, and not just as a Jew, but as a Jew in a German courtroom. And yes, in my view, both I and the court bring our histories into this encounter.

I should not have to stand trial to prove that I am a good Jew. Consciously or unconsciously, that is exactly what is being demanded of me. I am not an antisemite, not a Holocaust denier, and of course I harbor no hatred toward myself, my family, my friends, or any of my philosophical, cultural, journalistic, or political heroes.

Do you really think it is appropriate to demand that I tell you that I helped found two synagogues (Tarbut and Amijai in Buenos Aires), that in the 1990s I picked up stones from the rubble of the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA in Buenos Aires, that people screamed at me — quoting, incidentally, a phrase from your grandparents’ generation — “Be a patriot, kill a Jew”?

Do you really believe it is decent to ask me, in court, to explain that I am not an antisemite, not an inciter of hatred, and not a Holocaust denier, when the statement has no relation to any of these things?

Among my intellectual and moral models are Emmanuel Levinas, about whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation; Hannah Arendt, who deeply shaped my political thought; Marcel Proust, whom I claim for the Jewish so-called diaspora and who shaped my aesthetic sensibility; Marek Edelman, the second commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; as well as Einstein, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Heine, Stefan Zweig, and Joseph Roth. Hatred? On the contrary — I feel deeply obligated to defend their legacy, their names, and in many cases, their individual and historical acts of heroism.

If I stand before this court, it is for one simple reason: after being attacked as a Jew, using one of the oldest clichés of Zionist antisemitism, I decided to defend myself as a Jew.

The accusations of incitement to hatred and Holocaust denial are simply scandalous and stand in total contradiction to nearly thirty years of work.

Here are the opening words of my article for Politico on antisemitism in Germany:

For many Germans, the country’s post-war reconstruction was as much moral as it was economic and political. The effort to atone for the crimes of World War II — and to stamp out anti-Semitism — has defined the country’s politics for the last 50 years

Or in Deutsche Welle:

From Washington to Budapest, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the antisemitic masterpiece that served as the basis for everything from the pogroms in Russia to the mass murders in the Nazi concentration camps in Poland…

So — have I lost my mind and renounced the last thirty years of my intellectual and political engagement? Can anyone believe that? Or is it rather that, in Germany, the words of my tweet in English, regardless of alleged intent, are deemed a crime?

In my opinion, the German state and its institutions were unable to understand or evaluate what was said, given the English in which the tweet was written and the difficulty of interpreting a colloquial exchange between two Jews. Of course, a simple inquiry into who I am would have been enough to establish clearly my relationship to Judaism and the Holocaust.

Let me therefore clarify both points for the court — and perhaps leave a cautionary note for future German authorities who may wish to define what a “good Jew” should be. My statement in English read: “Jews were never victims, etc.” The statement was not an isolated note, but a response — as stated in the indictment — to the claim by the man who reported me, in which he said: “Jews are no longer victims, etc.”

If one takes my statement literally, one will find that it is not only trivially false but also a complete departure from everything I have said over the past thirty years. Is there any way to reconcile that sentence with my defense of Jews, of Jewish diversity, and of the memory of the victims of your camps? Of course — but that requires understanding the language and the words.

Likewise, the complainant’s statement “Jews are no longer victims,” taken literally, is trivially false. Is there a way to interpret that sentence as an attack on Jews? Of course — but again, one must understand the language and the words.

I hope we all agree (and I am sure the man who denounced me agrees as well) that the claim “Jews are no longer victims” is simply false. October 7 is, of course, an expression of that. So let me say clearly: the issue in the statement (and the reply to it) is not whether Jews are being victimized, but whether the identity of Jews is — or is no longer — that of the victim.

The claim to which I responded refers to an old antisemitic trope within Zionism: the Jew as the eternal victim. In fact, there is a Hebrew term for this, often used by Zionists as one of the oldest tropes of Zionist antisemitism — korban nezihi, the eternal victim.

Even today, many in Zionist public discourse refer to Jews of the so-called diaspora as eternal victims. There is a general concept for this denigration of non-Israeli, non-Zionist Jews outside Israel — still an integral part of Zionist discourse — shelilat ha-galut, the negation of the diaspora. This depiction of Jews finds one of its most concise expressions in the work of the father of Hebrew irredentism himself. Let me show you one of the quotes on which my accuser’s claim rests. Here is Theodor Herzl:

“We have known him (the Mauschel — the despicable European Jew, the eternal victim) for a long time, and his mere appearance, let alone approaching him or, God forbid, touching him, is enough to make us nauseous… Who is this Jew anyway? The Jew is a disgusting distortion of the human character, something unspeakably low and repulsive.”

Perhaps the picture becomes clearer if I refer you to Vladimir Jabotinsky, who offered variations on Herzl’s theme:

“The Jew is ugly, sickly, and without dignity… He is trampled upon and easily frightened… He has submitted to subjugation…”

Would any German, eighty years after Auschwitz, have the audacity to utter these words?

Indeed, this is about the Holocaust. The most disturbing expression is katzon latbach — “as sheep to the slaughter.” This is how Israeli society described the victims of the German slaughter. Let me be clear: this is the frame of reference in which the profile in question made the claim about Jews as victims. In other words, the statement “Jews are no longer victims” does not refer to the end of suffering inflicted upon Jews; it refers to a transformation in the moral status of the Jew — an identity no longer despicable, no longer meek, no longer ugly, sickly, downtrodden, easily frightened, dishonest, shabby, or repulsive. Above all, one that no longer accepts submission.

These people debased the ghosts of Auschwitz and its survivors by describing them as meek victims, treating them like sheep that went willingly to the gas chambers — just as Jews under the sword of the Cossacks or burned on the cross. Or in Ukraine, where, incidentally, part of my family was murdered and the rest forced to flee. And hidden in that statement — one a non-Jew cannot see or understand — is also the defamation of Marek Edelman, who defended himself, his community, and the soul of Europe from the Warsaw Ghetto with Molotov cocktails and his bare hands against your army.

The titanic magnitude of Einstein’s intellect that shaped the twentieth century, the monumental brilliance of Maimonides or Spinoza, the intellectual brilliance and courage of my academic mother Agnes Heller, who escaped Nazi bullets in Budapest to become one of the best embodiments of what I aspire to be as a Jew, as a person, and as a European — and the courage and honor of my father, who founded two synagogues in Argentina and rebuilt a third — none of these people who embody the Jew in me deserve to be insulted as “eternal victims.” And certainly none deserve to be dragged from the silence of the grave to silently accept the antisemitic cruelty hidden within Hebrew nationalism.

I recognize, of course, that for a state that has spent most of the past eighty years practicing philosemitism without Jews, it may be impossible to understand both the language and the content of this exchange. But it is the duty of the German state to free itself from its very old and sinister habit of determining who in Germany is a good Jew and who is not.

I acknowledge the difficulty bound to the special responsibility this country bears since the first Jew on the continent was murdered by German bullets. But that special responsibility, in my view, has been completely misunderstood.

What Germany destroyed was not a Zionist project of national exclusivity. What the Germans destroyed was Jewish life in Europe. It is precisely Jewish life in Europe toward which Germany bears a special responsibility. Therefore, if a Jew in Berlin — who voluntarily came here to help rebuild Jewish life in Europe, and particularly in this country — is attacked by antisemites, the state and its institutions must decide whose side they are on. And when antisemitic expressions come from Zionists or apologists for the State of Israel, I demand that the German government fulfill its duty to protect Jewish life in Europe — even from the aggressions of the State of Israel.

In short, my statement was clearly misinterpreted by the German prosecutor’s office. The claim that “Jews were never victims” is a statement about Jewish identity and, in its form and context, represents an unqualified defense of Jews, of Jewish history, and of Jewish life in Europe — as well as of those who perished in German gas chambers and massacres, including members of my own family in Moldova and Ukraine — who were not cowardly cretins or eternal, incurable victims, but Jews.

Now I would like to address one final point. I consider it an act of intimidation that the German state drags me to court over a tweet, with enormous financial — not to mention emotional — costs. Regardless of whether I am found guilty or not, it is a price I must already pay.

It is, of course, inevitable that now — after thirty years of writing and publishing — I am afraid to speak my mind. One can only imagine what it would mean for anyone in this country who ever thought of expressing an opinion about Israel, Palestine, or Jewish history, if a fifty-year-old Jew with some reputation can be brought to court over a tweet.

Wittingly or unwittinglz, no one should ignore the fact that such incidents can only have a chilling effect on freedom of opinion and expression. These are the foundations of democracy; therefore, I urge the court and the institutions to weigh carefully the scope and consequences of their moral ambitions — so that they do not end up destroying what they claim to protect.