The Days of the Jewish Culture in Berlin were opened on November 15, by a performance of the Jewish State Theater in Bucharest – "The Kreutzer Sonata" by Jakob Gordin, a play in Yiddish about the destiny of a Jewish family in tsarist Russia, then in America (announced "France Presse" Agency, quoted by the "Divers" newsletter).

On the occasion of the Days of the Jewish Culture (which will last until November 29), a Jewish street reminiscent of the ones that existed in Europe before the Second World War was reconstructed. The event will also include concerts, exhibitions and a Yiddish rap evening with some groups from New York. According to the UNESCO statistics, Yiddish is spoken by several hundreds of thousands of people, out of whom 213,000 are Americans, 200,000 are Israelis and 154,000 belong to the former Soviet Union.

A correspondence bearing this title was sent by William Totok from Berlin and was published by "The Cultural Observer" magazine. Here are some excerpts from the article:

On the initiative of the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in Berlin and of "Die Welt" newspaper, a survey was recently conducted in order to examine the existence of an anti-Semitic potential in the German society.

According to historian Wolfgang Benz, the results of the survey are "surprisingly positive". This is primarily shown by the classical question: "Would you have something against living next to a Jewish neighbor?". 85 percents of the respondents said they were indifferent to having a Jewish neighbor or not. 13 percents explicitly expressed themselves in favor of having a Jew as a neighbor. Only 2 percents out of a random sample of 1,006 people do not want Jewish neighbors.

Many German newspapers have warned these last days about the increase of anti-Semitism, after they found out details on the anti-Semitic outbursts of the Christian-Democratic deputy Martin Hohmann. Overrating the role of the Jews in the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, Hohmann qualified them as "a people of perpetrators". Those who conducted the survey also wanted to find out if the Germans believe that anti-Semitism is spread in the country or not. 79 percents of the surveyed think the Germans have a positive attitude towards the Jews, and only 1 percent deem the Germans anti-Semites.

The surveyed also point out some reasons why the media displayed a certain reluctance towards the Jews or the Israeli political life. 65 percents of the respondents believe that the main cause of the critics against the Jews is Israel’s policy. 52 percents think that the requests for material compensation for the hardships endured during the Holocaust are a reason for criticism. 32 percents believe that the economic and social power of the Jews is what causes criticism.

In an attempt to measure the spreading of an old stereotype according to which Jews allegedly control or decisively influence international politics, the survey reached the following result: 25 percents believe this is true, while 67 percents think that the Jews cannot influence international politics.

According to "Financial Times", an organ of the European Union blocked the publishing of a report on anti-Semitism that reached the conclusion that groups of Muslims and pro-Palestinians were responsible for the examined incidents. The organ’s name is The European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUCM), and it is based in Vienna. The study was ordered last year, following a series of anti-Semitic incidents in European countries, and was conducted by the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism of the Technical University in Berlin. Its conclusions were considered by the EUCM as "inflammatory". The decision not to publish the study was taken in February 2003, after its authors refuse to operate the changes that were proposed to them. Among others, the authors were reproached for using a definition of anti-Semitism which included some anti-Israeli acts, and for only focusing on the Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators. The newspaper suggests that the board members of the EUCM would rather had it recorded that the authors of the anti-Semitic acts were French, Belgian or Dutch citizens, in Muslims or pro-Palestinians that reside in these countries.