‘Meet a Jew’: German scheme seeks to tackle stereotypes and antisemitism
The government-funded project encourages people in Germany to learn and think differently about the Jewish community at a time when antisemitic hate crimes are at a record high, writes Peter Yeung
Eagerly raising his arm for permission to speak, 11-year-old Niklaus makes a blunt observation to the pair of Jewish volunteers here to meet him and his classmates at a school in Berlin.
“I was expecting an old rabbi,” he says. “Not young women like you.”
It is exactly the kind of naive, unfiltered comment one might expect from a schoolchild, and the kind of stereotype that ‘Meet a Jew’ – a new government-funded project in Germany – is attempting to challenge as part of its educational and cultural outreach.
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