Abraham Melzer

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Abraham (Abi) Melzer (born February 5, 1945 in Samarkand ) is a German Jewish publisher , author and blogger .

Life

youth

Melzer was born in Uzbekistan , where his father Joseph Melzer had fled from Nazi persecution as a Jew. In 1948 the family managed to travel to Israel . Abraham attended elementary school there. After his family returned to Germany in 1958, he continued his education in Cologne and Düsseldorf. After an apprenticeship in publishing at Werner Verlag in Düsseldorf and working for Bärmeier & Nikel in Frankfurt, he temporarily returned to Israel in 1968 to do his military service .

Activity in publishing

In 1970 Melzer joined his father's publishing house . In 1979 the Melzer Verlag was deleted from the commercial register due to lack of assets. In the same year he founded the Abi Melzer Verlag limited liability company . With the change of name to Weiss Verlag Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung in 1982 he resigned as managing director, but was then again managing director from 1986 to 1987 and from 1988 to 1991 due to lack of assets. In 1976 Melzer founded the "Abi" Melzer Productions Verlag limited liability company , which was deleted in 1990 due to lack of assets.

In 1988 he founded the irregularly appearing magazine SEMIT , which he continued as a blog under the similar name Der Semit after it was discontinued in 2012 .

In 2001 the Melzer Verlag was re-established with Jewish and Israeli topics.

In 2012 Melzer closed his publishing house again. In 2016 he founded Cosmics Verlag.

Anti-Zionist activism

Melzer has described his political path as one from Zionist to non -Zionist to anti-Zionist . Together with Henryk Broder, he published the magazine KONTAKTE for German-Jewish friendship during his training . Over time Melzer developed into a critic of the occupation and settlement policy of the State of Israel and began to publish books by "Israel-critical" authors in his publishing house. Melzer's activities did not meet with unanimous support, especially in German Jewry - even his mother Miriam wrote: “Abi, these are bad lies, why are you doing that?” Melzer's authors include Ted Honderich , who appeared in Melzer's treatise After the Terror believes that "the Palestinians exercised a moral right by terrorism against the Israelis".

The publication of Hajo Meyer's book The End of Judaism: Personal Reflections on Judaism, the Holocaust, and Israel sparked a bitter controversy between Melzer and his former friend Broder. Meyer described the Holocaust as a "whim of history", speculated about the Jews' future intentions for world domination and compared Israeli politics several times with that of the National Socialists. Broder therefore accused him of having discovered a gap that he “diligently fills with brown dirt”. He and Meyer are "capacities for applied judeophobia". The Frankfurt am Main regional court initially prohibited Broder from making both statements. The formulation "How two Jews do Adolf for Leipzigers", however, made it a permissible expression of opinion. The higher court held on 8 November 2007 on appointment of Broder only the prohibition of the "brown mud" formulation upright. Everything else is covered by freedom of expression, which also includes abusive, exaggerated and disparaging remarks; this applies in particular to “voluntary participation in a provocative opinion dispute”.

On September 23, 2016, Melzer was supposed to give a lecture entitled “Anti-Semitism Today” in cooperation with the association “Salam Shalom Arbeitskreis Palestine-Israel eV” in the city-sponsored Munich One World House . The One World House withdrew the room approval after an intervention by the Munich cultural advisor Küppers, for whom it was obvious that “the line between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism will be crossed in the event”. City councilor Dominik Krause from the Greens also condemned the event and pointed out that the flyer for the event explicitly referred to “ethnic cleansing” by Israel and justified Palestinian terror. After Charlotte Knobloch , the president of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Munich and Upper Bavaria , intervened against the rental of replacement rooms and accused Melzer of being "downright notorious for his anti-Semitic remarks", Melzer had her forbidden by the Munich Regional Court I for an injunction . In the main proceedings, however, the court dismissed the action because it had named three statements by Melzer which, according to the court, it was allowed to judge as anti-Semitic.

When Melzer wanted to hold a reading of his book Die Antisemitenmacher on October 13, 2017 in the Saalbau Gallus in Frankfurt am Main , the municipal operating company of the building canceled the lease, referring to a decision in the Main and Finance Committee of the Frankfurt City Council that one Antisemitism does not want to give room and therefore the Israel boycott movement BDS no longer wants to rent rooms. The lecture took place at a different location.

Publications

As an author

  • Germans and Jews - an insoluble problem . 1966
  • Israel in court. Essays by an anti-Zionist Jew . Zambon, Frankfurt, 2015
  • The anti-Semite makers. Germany, Israel and the new right ; also under the title Die Antisemitenmacher: How the new right prevents criticism of the politics of Israel . Westend, Frankfurt / Main, 2017

As editor or publisher

  • Melzer's comic book reader . Melzer, Darmstadt, 1975.
  • Ted Honderich : After the terror . Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2003.
  • The best of Semit, the Jewish magazine . Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2004.
  • Hajo Meyer : The end of Judaism. The decline of Israeli society . Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2005.
  • Uri Avnery : Jewish State or Israel. Plea for a "Semitic Union". Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2009
  • Ted Honderich: Humanity and Terrorism. Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7. Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2010.
  • Martin Buber : Political Writings. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt / Main, 2010
  • Report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza Conflict ("Goldstone Report") . Melzer, Neu-Isenburg, 2010
  • Diana Carminati, Alfredo Tradardi: Israel-Boycott: a non-violent approach. Zambon, Frankfurt / Main, 2011
  • Ilan Pappe : What's Wrong With Israel: The Ten Main Myths Of Zionism. Cosmics, Neu-Isenburg, 2017

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curt Vinz, Günter Olzog: Documentation of German-Language Publishers , Volume 4, p. 331 ( Google Books )
  2. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 1684 of the Darmstadt local court
  3. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 982 and 1791 of the district court of Langen
  4. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 624 of the Langen Local Court
  5. ↑ [1]
  6. ↑ Magazines - Abi, why are you doing this? , Der Spiegel 39/1989, page 265f
  7. ↑ FAZ about LG Frankfurt 21.01.2006
  8. ↑ Alex Feuerherdt : "Den Adolf made" In: Tagesspiegel. November 9, 2007
  9. ↑ OLG Frankfurt on JURIS
  10. ↑ Felix Müller: Accusation of anti-Semitism: City forbids left-wing events in the One World House. www.merkur.de, September 22, 2016, accessed on January 6, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Jakob Wetzel: Knobloch loses in court. www.sueddeutsche.de, November 30, 2016, accessed January 6, 2018 .
  12. ^ LG Munich I, final judgment v. November 30, 2016 - 25 O 17754/16
  13. ^ LG Munich I: Knobloch wins legal dispute over allegations of anti-Semitism on beck-aktuell.de
  14. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Accusation of anti-Semitism in Frankfurt: Abraham Melzer is not allowed to read . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed October 19, 2017]).
  15. ↑ cf. Johannes Feest , Israel criticism and anti-Semitism, in: Vorgangs , Heft 220 (2018)
personal data
SURNAME Melzer, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Melzer, Ab
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Jewish publisher, author, translator and editor
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Samarkand