No one denounces racism like Wieland Hoban. Best known for his translations of philosophers Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin into English, the Frankfurt-based Jewish composer and activist wears his work on his sleeve. Incensed by the weaponisation of Antisemitism in German politics to discriminate against Palestinians, in 2020, Hoban began detailing his concerns in The Battleground. Covering everything from non-Jewish officials attacking Jews for Antisemitism to interviewing Palestinian and Israeli expats about living with German racism, German Apartheid Politics is an eye-opener for those who believe the country purged itself of Nazism. Nothing drives this home better than Hoban's article on Germany's Roma-Sinti community and how, to this day, it struggles with being recognised as an equal victim of the Nazi genocide. Even at the European Union level, Wieland Hoban struggles to find something different from German Holocaust remembrance culture. So pervasive are German efforts to lead the fight against Antisemitism that the EU Handbook for Fighting Antisemitism repeats everything wrong with its national approach across the bloc. Criticising Israel is not Antisemitism. Yet, given the EU's faltering approach to the Gaza war and its inability to adopt a unified approach, its German ideological leadership is partly to blame. Wieland Hoban's book is long overdue. A sign of the German Jewish community's growth in recent years, particularly the immigration of progressive Israeli and Anglo Jews to the country, German Apartheid Politics is a statement of its time. Though some Germans will give it a thumbs down, the book is a testimony to the German Jewish zeitgeist and what to expect from the country's rapidly changing community in the future.
