German Jews fear backlash from country’s welcome of refugees

Times of Israel: Jewish communities are concerned that a massive influx of Arabs will make their own minority status even more minor.

…But many Jews here believe that Germany’s atonement for its past is coming at Jewish expense. They’re worried that the influx of hundreds of thousands of Muslims will turn Germany into a place hostile to Jewish concerns and to Israel – and that along with the migrants there are terrorist infiltrators who will try to realize their dreams of jihad on German soil.

It’s not that Jews in Germany are unmoved by the plight of the downtrodden migrants — many Jews here are themselves migrants from the former Soviet Union — but sympathy takes a back seat to the harsh concerns of realpolitik.

“I have no problem contributing some money to help some people, but for the German government to accept a tide of refugees? No,” said a Jewish immigrant who lives in Potsdam, near Berlin. Like others interviewed for this story who criticized Merkel’s welcome of the refugees, he asked that he not be identified.

“These Arabs have no possibility of integration,” he said. “They can’t contribute to society. I prefer Balkan immigration.”

For now, Germany’s Jews are keeping a low profile. They number some 200,000 in a country of 80 million. Their political influence is negligible.

“Why should the Jews talk publicly about it?” the Potsdam Jew said. “We’re not significant enough to make a difference in state policy.”

Jews aren’t the only ones with deep reservations, even resentment, toward the migrants. Many Germans share similar concerns about terrorist infiltrators and how Germany might be transformed by a massive influx of Arab and Muslim migrants. They, too, don’t want the problems of France, where unemployment, poverty and radicalism are problems among the country’s six million Muslims….