Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Center and Museum in Jerusalem, has distanced itself from a call for an arms embargo against Israel made last week by the honorary chair of the board of trustees of the Friends of Yad Vashem in Germany association.
What the honorary chairman, Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, wrote “does not reflect the position of the Friends of Yad Vashem association, and it certainly was not written with their consent nor the consent of Yad Vashem,” a spokesperson for Yad Vashem in Jerusalem told JNS. “The members of Friends of Yad Vashem are among the staunchest supporters of Israel in Germany.”
Casdorff wrote in an op-ed published in the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Wednesday: “There should be a moratorium on deliveries [of arms] like spare parts for battle tanks and artillery ammunition” from Germany to Israel, because “Anyone supplying weapons must be able to be absolutely certain that they will not be used in violation of law and morality.”
The humanitarian situation in Gaza “is catastrophic,” and while the “German government is not the sole decisive voice in Europe or the world, it is a decisive one. It must help pave the way to a ceasefire, to peace,” Casdorff wrote.
He also suggested that because Nazi Germany and its helpers murdered six million Jews, modern Germany should stop sending weapons to Israel.
Germany’s “historical responsibility,” which is evident in the “Holocaust Memorial for the six million murdered Jews” [Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe] makes it “important to be consistent with the values that have been achieved,” he wrote.
Casdorff, 66, was the editor of the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel from 2018 to 2024, and is currently editor-at-large at the daily.
Gady Gronich, the Munich-based CEO of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), told JNS that the text “raises questions as to the suitability of Mr. Casdorff to be affiliated with Yad Vashem.”
This is because “it’s a distortion to cite the Holocaust in order to prevent Israel from receiving equipment it needs to defend itself,” said Gronich, who is chief of staff to Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis. “Preventing such arms from reaching Israel is helping its enemies in their attempts to destroy it,” he added.
Gronich said that “discussing the humanitarian situation in Gaza is legitimate and understandable,” but it is “wrong to call or attempt to boycott Israel and isolate it over this issue, in which Hamas is deeply complicit but is rarely held to account in the German and European media over how it’s exacerbating the challenges facing Gaza’s population.”
France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands are among the countries that have frozen or slowed down their defense exports to Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a regional war on several fronts.
On June 4, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that “Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries.”
Germany approved €326.5 million ($384 million) in arms exports to Israel in 2023—a sharp increase from previous years, according to Reuters. In 2024, however, export approvals halved. But even after the decrease, the volume of defense exports from Germany to Israel last year was more than five times larger than in 2022.
