Jews, Muslims and Germany

From Ynetnews.com

The first rabbi to be ordained in Germany since the Holocaust is so worried about being identified as a Jew that he often wears a baseball hat over his skull cap.

And while rightwing sympathy is on the ascendant in Germany, the country's largest ethnic minority does not share the secular mainstream's idea of German national identity.

Germany has been for decades a multi-ethnic society but very few Germans imagine Germany as a multicultural society. German intellectuals brag a lot about being secular, well how about secularizing the German State and dumping Christianity and Judaism from the national budget.

German identity is rooted in the past and is culturally tied to race, and ethnicity. Becoming German is very difficult even for those who are born in Germany; speak German better than most natives but happen to look like me rather than Boris Becker.

It's not hard to see how this 'secular' view of national identity provides fertile ground for neo-nazi movements to thrive.