On Monday, 16 September 2019, the Institute Pierre Werner (IPW) hosted a discussion on modern forms of antisemitism in Luxembourg with Dr. Felix Klein, Commissioner of the Federal Government for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism, in cooperation with the Luxembourg Chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Luxembourgish journalist and author Laurent Moyse, member of the Luxembourg Delegation to the IHRA, ran the meeting.
As outlined in a report of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published in March 2019, European Jews have been perceiving and experiencing growing antisemitic discrimination and acts of hate. This report was released in the same month that the Grand Duchy took over the Chairmanship of the IHRA, having been a member since 2003. Luxembourg is no exception in the matter of growing antisemitism, and Chairman Georges Santer has stressed that social inequalities and growing uncertainty in our societies prepare the ground for antisemitism and other forms of discriminations toward minorities.
Dr. Felix Klein is a German lawyer and diplomat specialised in International Law. In March 2014, he was appointed Special Representative for the Fight against Antisemitism and the issue of Jewish Life within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany. In January 2017, the function of Commissioner for the Fight against Antisemitism was created in Germany, for which the Central Council of Jews in Germany proposed Dr. Felix Klein. He has been performing this function based at the Federal Ministry of the Interior since then.
The Luxembourg writer and journalist Laurent Moyse studied Economics in Strasbourg and Journalism in Brussels. He began his professional career at the Luxembourgish newspaper Tageblatt and changed to the Luxembourger Wort in 1992. In 2002, he became editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper La Voix du Luxembourg. For eleven years, Laurent Moyse has been a freelance journalist and has written numerous essays, participated in many conferences and radio programs in politics, economics, history and culture in Luxembourg. He is also a founding member of the Auschwitz Committee (1991), Chair of the Oppenheimer Foundation and currently vice-Chair of the Committee for the Remembrance of the Second World War as well as member of the Luxembourg delegation to the IHRA.
Photo courtesy of Bundesministerium des Innern.
