Jews form own caucus within German Social Democrat party

Caucus expected to seek to influence party policy on issues involving Israel, Middle East conflict and Jewish immigration into Germany.

By DPA
A Jewish caucus has been set up within Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the first Jewish organization within a major German party since the Nazi takeover in 1933, a report Thursday said. The Caucus of Jewish Social Democrats was founded by a Frankfurt city councillor, Peter Feldmann, a Berlin law professor, Sergey Lagodinsky, and others, the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said. It quoted Feldmann saying after a meeting in Berlin with Social Democratic leaders, "the SPD welcomed us with open arms." He predicted several hundred Jews would join the group. The caucus is expected to seek to influence party policy on issues involving Israel and the Middle East conflict as well as the policy on Jewish immigration into Germany. All the main German parties have Jewish members who have spoken out on those issues. But in the other parties, Jews have not established formal groups similar to the existing business, Christian or women's caucuses.