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Stephen Stern
Dr. Stephen Stern PhD

A Jew called a German abuser a Nazi at Berlin’s airport. Was it hate speech?

Photo from shitterstock
Photo is from shutterstock

When may a Jew call someone a Nazi? Who is ethically authorized to police the use of it?

I witnessed a couple feud the other day over the Jewish person’s use of the word “Nazi.” The Jewish woman is American. I’ll call her Rebecca. Her partner is an American immigrant from Austria. Call her Heidi.

Here is the backstory. Last week, Rebecca was flying back from Berlin to New York when she realized she would not make it through security in time to make her flight, meaning she would lose the money she paid for the ticket and have to pay an exorbitant amount for a new flight. When some other travelers took pity on her and allowed her to cut in front of them in the security check line, a German doctor behind them was outraged.

Rebecca explained the situation to him kindly and the doctor only got more agitated, demanding that first in, first out must be absolutely obeyed and that human wellbeing is irrelevant. He became belligerent. It was rules uber alles.

As her friend Sarah filmed on her phone, he demanded that because he was a doctor that he was to be obeyed. Rebecca appealed to the doctor’s humanity, someone who helps people for a living and here was a person in need of help that required less than he usually had to give.

As the doctor elevated his complaints to staff and anyone who would listen and continuing to pester her, Rebecca turned to him and asked him to leave her alone, to stop acting like a Nazi. His wife pushed him back as he prepared to strike Rebecca. The specialist insisted that the check-point aides call airport police to issue a citation as it was illegal under German law for Rebecca to call him a Nazi. Rebecca snarked. How ironic for a Jew in Germany to be reported to authorities with guns for calling an authoritarian jerk, a Nazi. Calling a German a Nazi, Rebecca would soon find out, is indeed a hate crime worthy of a citation. (Note: Rebecca is not shy in using the word Nazi. She wasn’t employing it because he was German. She would have called anyone behaving that way a Nazi.)

Police came with holstered pistols and listened to the doctor. They refused to remove Rebecca and Sarah from where they began in the line, but asked Rebecca to apologize to him so they wouldn’t have to write her a citation. Rebecca wanted to be issued the citation, asking if being issued one meant having to leave the line. She was advised, yes. Rebecca apologized to the doctor. He accepted it and ordered her to never again speak to him. She answered in silence.

I heard the story and saw the video in a friend’s Sukkah. The video unnerved me. Rebecca protested the doctor’s authoritarian hostility to her. Many missed the ugliness experienced by Rebecca, including some American non-Jews who watched the video, such as Rebecca’s partner, an American immigrant who fled childhood horror in Austria, Heidi.

Heidi has experienced being called a Nazi by a few Jews over the years, even asked by a well known Jewish woman in the media when attending a Jewish event with Rebecca, “what are you doing here?” She speaks with a German accent that is experienced by a few baby-boomers and Gen X Jews as fingernails on a chalkboard. It was and is hate speech to call Heidi a Nazi.

Heidi stated that calling the doctor a Nazi absolutely was hate speech and scolded Rebecca for it. As someone who had experienced this very attack, she declared that this was over the line. Yes, Rebecca could be annoyed at the doctor, but her verbal attack was not only hurtful, but hateful.

Rebecca is a published professor in antisemitic studies who equates Nazism with authoritarianism. Heidi—not a professor, but an artist—argued that we should employ the word only when talking about those who were actual Nazis during Hitler’s reign or neo-Nazis who seek to revive his despicable doctrines. To employ the word “Nazi” for any other purpose, especially one less impactful, is to abuse the term, to adopt hate rhetoric. Heidi explained how it feels to be someone opposed to bigotry and yet be labeled as genocidal because of her accent. If those who attacked her with the false accusation of being a Nazi were wrong, then so too was Rebecca. She finished by softening the claim with “it’s only my opinion.”

Rebecca responded that “no, it’s stronger than ‘only an opinion,’ it’s a conviction that allows for no other standpoint. It would be an opinion if you limited your criticism to the airport context. It is one thing to say that when I used the expression Nazi, it was hate speech, although it’s not. That’s different from saying it is always hate speech unless describing historical or neo-Nazis.”

Heidi asked stunned in the Sukkah, “Are you seriously implying that I’m being antisemitic, me your partner who came with you here to this Sukkah supporting you as a Jew the way I always do?”

Rebecca said, “” No, I’m just noting how ironic it is for Germanic peoples, descendants of Nazis, to police Jews, descendants of the victims of Nazis, on when and how to use the word ‘Nazi’.”

Heidi was furious and stormed out.

Rebecca then explained to the rest of us sitting there uncomfortably, “I intentionally use the word ‘Nazi’ as synonymous with authoritarianism because I firmly believe that if we isolate our use of it to the Holocaust, then we deny ourselves opportunities to learn from it, to show how other authoritarian movements are like Nazism. If we understand “never again,” then we must fight authoritarianism everywhere. The only people who may tell me I am misusing the term “Nazi”—if it’s not a life-threatening moment—are other Jews. And some do. They think I am watering down the term by overusing it and disrespecting those who were victims of the actual Nazis. That’s fine. I understand, but disagree with them. But that is a debate that Jews may have among ourselves.”

No one replied, just sat there not sure what to say. What do you think? What would you say to them?

About the Author
Dr. Stephen Stern has co-authored The Chailight Zone: Rod Serling Secular Jew, co-authored Reclaiming the Wicked Son: Finding Judaism in Secular Jewish Philosophers, and authored The Unbinding of Isaac: A Phenomenological Midrash of Genesis 22. Stern is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies & Interdisciplinary Studies, and Chair of Jewish Studies at Gettysburg College.