Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center here, indicated that he is satisfied with the apology he had demanded from the publisher of a local German-language newspaper which described Mayor Edward Koch of New York as “Der Jude Koch” (The Jew Koch).
The publisher, Peter Eichmann, printed a frontpage apology in his paper, Staats Zeitung, and admitted to “a very poor choice of words.” The slur was contained in a story in which Koch at a recent meeting with Austria’s visiting Foreign Minister, raised the issue of former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky’s favorable attitude toward the Palestine Liberation Organization.Kreisky is Jewish.
According to Hier, the term used in the Staats Zeitung was shockingly similar to the title of the notorious anti-Semitic propaganda film “Jud Suss” produced in Germany during World War II. He said he demanded an apology which was forthcoming. “It certainly was an apology that was well deserved, “Hier said yesterday.
A spokesman for Koch in New York said the Mayor had not seen the article containing the slur.
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