“Showing Face” is this year’s motto of the German Brotherhood week organized by the German federal chapter of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation. The festival was opened Sunday morning with the awarding of the 38th annual Buber-Rosenzweig Medal.
This year’s prize was awarded to prize winning Dutch novelist Leon de Winter along with the organization which gave this year’s festival its motto – “Showing Face”.
‘Showing Face! Open-minded Germany Campaign’ was founded in 2000 by German consul Uwe-Karsten Heye, Central Council of Jews in Germany chairman Paul Spiegel and television moderator Michel Friedman as a forum for showing Germany’s commitment in its fight against right-wing radicalism.
For the inclusion of minorities
De Winter, 52, the son of Orthodox Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, is known for his commitment against right-wing and Islamic intolerance – a reality that is echoed in his literary works.
According to a ZDF TV report, “Leon De Winter’s Jewish soul is expressed in his books. His literature expresses the modern-day challenges of humanity in its relationship to culture, politics and faith”.
The prizes were awarded in Berlin’s House of World Cultures where Rabbi Henry Brandt gave the first speech.
“Carnival is over. The masks can be set aside...People can show their faces the way they really are.” Brandt recently received Germany’s most important Islamic honor, the Muhammad-Nafi-Tschelebi Prize.
Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Woworeit, told the audience that the existence of freedom “can only be measured by the proliferation of individual expression. Such initiatives give us the freedom to muster courage to learn not to look away when a wrong is committed.”
Asked whether a clash of cultures could happen in Germany today, Woworeit answered that “it will not happen here as long as we include all people, also those from migratory backgrounds, in their communities and, thus, in their own destinies”.
Dialogue
Iris Berben, one of Germany’s best-known actresses, said of de Winter: “His words make us realize that we cannot simply take things for granted. No one really knows what it takes to muster true courage until one is confronted with the issue of showing face. De Winter paves a way for others to follow.”
Berben also asked why society looks away when tragedies happen around them. The devout German Catholic who is married to a Jew and resides part of the year in Tel Aviv asked “why are main streets blocked off so often in order for roller-blade parties to take place but not for mass demonstrations against wrongs that confront our society?”
De Winter said “cultures are abstractions. We should discuss laws and those things that make a society work. But we should not focus dialogue on the differences that cultures possess. Society needs to have dialogue not based on our differences but rather based on our equal standing.
In receiving his prize, Heye said that since the launch of his organization, “showing face” still has the same meaning. “We have to make clear that nobody is born anti-Semitic or racist. We have to get society to correct the wrongs that come out of society itself.”
Live and let live
ZDF TV found consensus among school children who agreed that racism and anti-Semitism were not just German problems. “It is a worldwide problem,” said one child. “We should not look away when people harass us,” said another.
The House of World Cultures ended the ceremony with the expression of the hope that people would follow Goethe’s “live and let live” philosophy.
The prize is named after Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber – two of Germany’s strongest advocates and promoters of intercultural dialogue.
Rozenzweig is considered the first person to actively seek dialogue between Christian and Jews. Together with Martin Buber he began translating Jewish theological texts in order to bring Jewish philosophical thought closer to non-Jewish society.
Reprinted by permission of European Jewish Press