What shall be the attitude of American Jewry to German people of today? May an American Jew purchase German-made products?

The formulation of the question quite properly distinguishes between the Jews of America and Jews living elsewhere in the world. It can not be reasonably demanded that a Jew living in Germany today should refrain from purchasing German goods (we are not considering here whether a Jew ought or ought not live in Germany), nor that the Government of Israel pursuing survival oriented economic and political relationships with members of the family of nations, should avoid economic contacts with Germany. The American Jew, however, may refrain, if he so desires, from purchasing German-made goods, as a Jew living in Germany cannot; nor has the American Jewish community the requirements of a state. The individual American Jew, therefore, may not dodge the pertinency of the question by pointing to the behavior of the state of Israel.

The final distinction implied in the question is most relevant halachically. The German people are not to be identified with non-Jews (umot haolam) generally. Peoples which have harmed Israel (Amalek, the Crusaders, Germany) are not “Sons of Noah” by virtue of adhering to the ethical imperatives of the Noachide Covenant. We must therefore narrow our inquiry to, and seek precedent in, the attitude of the halacha to “enemies of Israel” specifically.

The terrible fate which Jews suffered during and after the Crusades may be compared to the holocaust. The Tosaphists of the generation of Rabbenu Tam personally experienced the full fury of the Crusaders. They were in a position to evaluate the condition of the Jews of their day and the attitude they should assume toward the Crusaders in whose midst they lived. We find that in spite of the devastation wrought by the Crusaders upon Medieval Jews, the Tosaphists granted permission to do business with the Gentile community. We may therefore be tempted to conclude that the American Jew today may adopt a like attitude toward Germany. Such a conclusion, however, would be a misunderstanding of the Tosaphist attitude and of the halacha they instituted. Just as economic necessity was the reason for dispensing with many prohibitions, the halacha was but bowing to the forces of reality when it permitted dealings with participants of pogroms. The Jewish community was not self-sufficient. It depended upon the Christian community for its meat and milk, grain and other foods. The Jew employed Gentiles as his agents in transferring money, wares, and commodities. In the medieval world it was unavoidable for the Jew to do business with the Christian. In addition, the Christians who participated in the pogroms were not always easily identifiable, nor were they confined to distinct geographical areas to which the Rabbis might apply prohibitions. It is reasonable to assume, however, that if the Jews had not been living in the Christians midst, and had been independent of them and if the Rabbis had been able to identify the pogromists, permission to do business with them would have been denied. Had there been two neighboring Christian communities with which to do business, one having participated in pogroms , the other innocent of violence, there can be no doubt that the Rabbis would have insisted that the first be boycotted.

Such a situation actually occurred in the sixteenth century. The Marranos of Ancona, Italy, having recently escaped from the Portuguese inquisition, were living openly as Jews when they were suddenly arrested – in spite of guarantees made to them by Pope Paul IV – and inquisitional proceedings were opened against them. Many of them managed to bribe their way to freedom and fled to nearby Pesaro. In 1555 reports of the arrests in Ancona reached the Jews of Constantinople. At a meeting of some of the most distinguished rabbinical and lay leaders of the Turkish empire, it was decided to proclaim a boycott of Ancona. All merchandise consigned by Jewish merchants throughout Turkey to that port was to be dispatched to Pesaro instead, under penalty of excommunication.

It was an episode the like of which was not to be known again in Jewish history for another four centuries, until the attempt at organizing a boycott of German goods and services after the rise of the Nazis to power, at the beginning of the anti-Semitic outrages in Germany in 1933. Most of the rabbis of Turkey approved of the embargo. In addition, Joseph Caro, author of the Shulhan Aruch, and Moses ben Jacob Ditrani, were in favor of the boycott. Rabbi Joshua Soncino, who endorsed the embargo at first, later retreated from this position. He disapproved of the boycott on the grounds that the Jew must always act to prevent the misfortunes of another Jew and may not jeopardize the life of another. And since, “all Israel are sureties for one another,” the Pope would surely wreak vengeance on all the Jews still living in his realm, saying: “Your brethren who dwell in Turkey are vexing me only because I am zealous for my faith…” Furthermore, the Jews still living in Ancona themselves implored that no such actions be taken as they feared for their lives.

The teachings of Rabbi Menahem Ha-Me’iri, who was active in the Provence, at the turn of the fourteenth century, substantiate our conclusion. Ha-Me’iri, when he wished to exclude Christians and Moslems from the category of idolators, and so permit business dealings with the non-Jews of this time, introduced the concept of “nations restricted by the ways of religion,” which he applied to he Gentile contemporaries. By contrast, if a people were barbaric and savage, and not restrained by the “ways of religion,” no permission was to be granted to Jews to do business with them.

Applying Ha-Me’iri’s principle to our present situation, unless one argues that the German people are true penitents, the conclusion stated above is inevitable.

With pitifully few exceptions, however, there have been no signs of penitence in today’s Germany, neither from the old nor from the young. Mass murderers are sentenced to prison for a few years and immediately after the sentencing are permitted to walk out of prison. A recent B’nai B’rith study revealed that less than ten per cent of the German people would actually resist the Nazis if they regained power. Erich Fromm, in describing the German youth of the 60’s, writes:

Today during my yearly visit to Germany, I see
the same sick, hating, disturbing faces I saw
during the thirties – in the beer-halls, on the buses
in the streets, everywhere…(People) who have
no real values, who are sustained, not by the
creative pleasures of life, but by the poisons of
it, by the hope of one day murdering all the
things they do not have, or destroying a world
they feel has cast them aside. But I see a
an even more disturbing thing in Germany, a
new development, you might say, one that was
not there before: a completely disengaged,
morality-less youth – faithless, you might call
them. Unguided, unmotivated, prey to the lure
of hysteria and absurdity, having no loyalties
either to themselves or to their community,
however you may define this. A truly
nihilistic youth. We shall be hearing from them
and it will not be happy news…

Here, then, is the answer to our question concerning what should be the attitude of American Jews to post-Hitler Germany.

-Originally published in the Jewish Spectator, October 1964.