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21-09-2016, 04:10 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
For London rabbi Julia Neuberger, Britain's vote to leave the European Union has had a very personal impact: she has decided to seek German citizenship, laying to rest her family's painful legacy of the Nazi era.
Neuberger is among a significant number of Jewish Britons whose dismay over Brexit has led them to invoke a German law allowing people stripped of German citizenship by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, and their descendants, to have it restored.
"It was Brexit that tipped me off, but now in my mid-60s I feel like I've made my peace with Germany and this step will only take me closer," said Neuberger, whose mother left Germany for Britain in 1937 to escape Nazi persecution of the Jews.
Now, a German passport holds the promise of a future with full access to the EU and its practical benefits such as freedom to travel, live and work anywhere in a bloc that has 27 other nations - rights that Britons may no longer enjoy after Brexit is enacted.
Some of Britain's estimated 260,000 Jews remain implacably opposed to the idea, and for Neuberger too the decision to apply for German citizenship taps into deep emotional baggage due to the weight of history.
"My daughter asked 'why would you want to do this after all they did to us?'," said Neuberger, senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue and a member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament. "But there is some German in me after all and it goes very deep."
Neuberger, whose application is being processed, still has her maternal grandparents' old German passports. Their covers bear a black eagle with outstretched wings perched on a swastika, and the first inside pages are stamped with a red "J" for Jew.
It is a remarkable twist of history that Jews who lost family members in the Holocaust are now using such old documents to obtain modern Germany's maroon-colored passports.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said that since the Brexit referendum in June, the London embassy had received about 400 inquiries about how to apply for German citizenship under article 116 of the country's post-war Basic Law, and about 100 applications.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (https://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?235741-Forgiveness-is-the-most-wonderful-thing-in-life!&goto=newpost).
For London rabbi Julia Neuberger, Britain's vote to leave the European Union has had a very personal impact: she has decided to seek German citizenship, laying to rest her family's painful legacy of the Nazi era.
Neuberger is among a significant number of Jewish Britons whose dismay over Brexit has led them to invoke a German law allowing people stripped of German citizenship by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, and their descendants, to have it restored.
"It was Brexit that tipped me off, but now in my mid-60s I feel like I've made my peace with Germany and this step will only take me closer," said Neuberger, whose mother left Germany for Britain in 1937 to escape Nazi persecution of the Jews.
Now, a German passport holds the promise of a future with full access to the EU and its practical benefits such as freedom to travel, live and work anywhere in a bloc that has 27 other nations - rights that Britons may no longer enjoy after Brexit is enacted.
Some of Britain's estimated 260,000 Jews remain implacably opposed to the idea, and for Neuberger too the decision to apply for German citizenship taps into deep emotional baggage due to the weight of history.
"My daughter asked 'why would you want to do this after all they did to us?'," said Neuberger, senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue and a member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament. "But there is some German in me after all and it goes very deep."
Neuberger, whose application is being processed, still has her maternal grandparents' old German passports. Their covers bear a black eagle with outstretched wings perched on a swastika, and the first inside pages are stamped with a red "J" for Jew.
It is a remarkable twist of history that Jews who lost family members in the Holocaust are now using such old documents to obtain modern Germany's maroon-colored passports.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said that since the Brexit referendum in June, the London embassy had received about 400 inquiries about how to apply for German citizenship under article 116 of the country's post-war Basic Law, and about 100 applications.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (https://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?235741-Forgiveness-is-the-most-wonderful-thing-in-life!&goto=newpost).