The editors of Nachrichtenblatt, the official newspaper of East Berlin’s Jewish community, published their annual greetings on the occasion of the Jewish New Year on Monday, with one significant deviation from the norm.
They expressed the hope that the establishment of diplomatic relations between East Germany and Israel “will logically unfold.”
The message appeared only hours before news reached here that Hungary had become the first East bloc country to re-establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, broken in 1967.
According to observers, it is safe to assume that the Communist Party officials assigned to keep tabs on the tiny Jewish community approved the wording in advance.
The paper noted that the past year was the first in which East German Jews were permitted to observe Israel’s Independence Day.
East Germany, facing a mass exodus of its citizens to the West, has a serous image problem.
By alluding to a possible opening toward Israel, the Communist regime may be trying to demonstrate that it is not shutting itself off.
The New Year message appeared in the form of an editorial signed by Siegmund Rotstein, chairman of the community, and his colleagues, Peter Kirchner of East Berlin, Hans-Joachim Levy of Magdebug and Raphael Scharf-Katz of Erfurt.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
