Jews attack German immigration curbs

[emad]

David Crossland in Berlin
Friday January 7, 2005
The Guardian

German Jewish leaders have criticised plans to curb the immigration of Jews from Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union under a new regulation aimed at restricting the entry of unskilled foreign workers.

Interior ministers from Germany's 16 powerful federal states, or länder, decided last month to allow in only those immigrants who speak German or have decent job prospects. They also want to shelve existing entry applications made by 27,000 Jews. Germany's Jewish population has risen more than three-fold since 1990, when the country started allowing them free entry.

The proposed limits coincide with a new law that came into force this month aimed at reducing the immigration of unskilled foreign workers into a labour market already straining under the weight of more than 4 million unemployed.

The plan has not yet been approved by the interior minister, Otto Schily, who has pledged to discuss it with the Central Council of Jews in Germany. But the länder have the power to introduce the curbs on their own, and it seems certain the limits will go ahead in some form.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1384894,00.html

[bin.dare]

1. oh, the ironies and questions...

Jewish leaders complain this could "provoke new charges of anti-semitism against the country that carried out the Holocaust"

Russian jews want to go to Germany (the home of the holcaust) instead of to Israel. Why? apparently it's a better place.

""Many people who left Russia as Jews didn't arrive as Jews," said Dieter Wiefelspütz, spokesman on domestic policy for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats."

say what?
Not only do they not want to go to Israel, they do not even want to declare themselves as jewish. wtf is going on here?

[Kellanved]

2. yet: Israeli envoy welcomes Berlin Jewish intake cut

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=15521&name=Israeli+envoy+welcomes+Berlin+Jewish+intake+cut+

It is a difficult matter and the Jewish Community is split on the issue. However it seems that the majority of the German Jews support -even demand- the changed rules.

And the Guardian really is slipping in it's journalism. Just hearing one side of the Jewish Community constitutes by no means proper journalism.

[bin.dare]

3. Israel not happy with jews choosing Germany ...

"Israel has long been unhappy over the large number of Jews choosing to settle in Germany and Stein said the goal was to encourage Jewish immigrants to go to Israel."

For a second, as i read your complaint about the Guardian's journalism slipping, i thought you would say something about the non-jewish viewpoint. but hey ...