Carol Kahn Strauss Lecture in Jewish Studies

German Reactions to Israel’s Establishment, 1947-1949

From November 1947 until June 1948, the diplomatic and military struggle for Palestine was widely covered in the German press. Postwar German silence regarding the Holocaust is well known, but the predominance of reportage on Israel attests to both unexamined antisemitism and unacknowledged guilt – a guilt that could be more safely expressed via admiration of Israel than through compassion for Jewish Displaced Persons on German soil. This story illustrates the influence of particular national interests and sensibilities on global opinion about the 1948 Palestine War.