Jewish Voice for Peace in Germany had their bank account frozen. Bank demands names and adresses of all members the organization alledged

EDIT: The header of the english statement has been updated in the statement on the website of the group. The term confiscation has distinct legal meanings that could be confused and the way the term is often used in common language is inaccurate for the legal meaning. See @geissi s comment showing the legal distinction.

In 2024, Jewish money is once again being confiscated by a German bank:Berliner Sparkasse freezes Jewish Voice account

On 25 March 2024, our account with the Berliner Sparkasse was frozen with immediate effect. In a letter, the Sparkasse informed us that it had taken this step as a precautionary measure and that we should submit numerous internal documents by 5 April to update our customer data. As a public corporation, the bank is bound by public law and may therefore not arbitrarily freeze accounts without providing an explanation, which it did not. It is also highly unusual that the required documents include a list of our members with their full names and addresses.

Why should this information be important to the Berliner Sparkasse? It sounds more like a question that might be asked by an intelligence service or the police, who have been politically persecuting us as a Jewish organisation for some time. Our previous account with the Bank for Social Economy was closed in 2019 because of our support for BDS. This happened after agitation by Israeli journalist Benjamin Weinthal and pressure from the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

This pressure and political persecution are increasing as Israel and its apartheid policies in the state of Israel and the West Bank, and now its genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip, lose support around the world. Germany is one of Israel"s last loyal allies, and the German state is co-operating with Israel"s apartheid and genocide, even though over 80% of the population does not support the German government"s policy.

The Palestine Congress will take place in Berlin in mid-April and will feature a wide range of international speakers, including the former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. The closer the congress gets, the more intense the persecution becomes; for weeks, there has been shrill defamation from the tabloid media and local politicians, such as describing it as a “hate summit” for which “thousands of anti-Semites” will be coming to Berlin. Because the journalists can"t write anything factual about it, they try to delegitimise the congress through guilt by association.

However, because the organisers are independent of politics, the usual methods such as cancellation or denial of spaces do not work. The congress is financed by ticket sales and donations; we, the Jewish Voice, have made our account available for this purpose – which is why it has now been blocked. We will not be intimidated by this, even if we lose our account: Our position on genocide is derived from our Jewish values and is not dependent on financial resources. Our membership grows with every day and every act of repression. Anyone who is a member of our organisation knows it themselves. It is none of any bank"s business. We are taking legal action against the arbitrary, politically motivated freezing of our account, which is unacceptable in a democracy.

theacharnian, (edited )
@theacharnian@lemmy.ca avatar

German institutions in particular should stay out of the business of fucking with Jewish groups. I mean, malaka, come on.

arymandias,

Germany defining what it means to be Jewish again.

They have a special responsibility due to their history, but they deal with this crisis with all the gracefulness of a bull in a china shop.

According to the researcher Emily Dische-Becker, almost a third of those cancelled in Germany for their supposed antisemitism have been Jews.

Etterra,

Well I mean have you seen their language? It’s the verbal equivalent of brute force.

Lupus108,

Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft, Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft. … Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint! Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht, ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht;
drum besser wär’s, daß nichts entstünde. So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde, Zerstörung, kurz das Böse nennt, mein eigentliches Element.

Jumi,

German politics are about activism and populism, nobody gives a fuck about useful results

geissi,

Tbf I am also curious what the specific legal reason is but really:

Jewish money is once again being confiscated

That is not true. No money has been confiscated. The account was temporarily frozen.
According to a statement by the bank they seem to be conducting a legitimacy check.
That is something banks can be obligated to do e.g. when there are indications for money laundering.

I’m not saying the bank is necessarily right here but the linked article here by the investigated organization itself is hardly unbiased.

brainrein,

Nobody said it was confiscated, you’re just making that up. The money is being seized according to the headline. While inside the article the word frozen is being used.

geissi,

Just FYI, I literally quoted the text of the article at that time, which is also why nobody who disagreed with me disputed the wording.
Online outlets are known to change the wording of their articles, which seems to have happened here and OP also confirmed this.

tryptaminev, (edited )

At the time there was no news article available.

EDIT: the following only applies to the usage of the term in common language. It is not accurate in the legal sense, where the term has a distinctly different meaning from the term freezingA bank account being frozen can be referred to as confiscation though. It means that you loose the factual control over your property. When a teacher confiscates the phones of students to give them back at the end of the school day. Or when police confiscates all your electronics in a criminal investigation, only to give them back month later.

It is true that there currently is not the level of permanence that the term can also include. However it means that the organization is unable to operate and there is strong reason to believe their stance that this is done for politican reasons just shortly before they want to hold a conference.

geissi,

A bank account being frozen can be referred to as confiscation though.

I’m pretty sure that is neither true in English nor in German.
Those are two legally distinct measures.
For example many Russian accounts have been frozen in light of the Ukraine war but the money has explicitly not been confiscated.
See www.europarl.europa.eu/…/EPRS_STU(2024)759602

I’m not denying the impact on their operations and I have neither pro nor contra arguments as to whether this is politically motivated.
But I think that confiscated is factually wrong. And at least to me personally it seems deliberately chosen to invoke an image of Germany seizing Jewish property “once again” like the Nazis.

tryptaminev, (edited )

EDIT: The following is only referring to the usage in common used language. The legal distinction is as pointed out by @geissi and freezing in legal terms is different from confiscation.

The factual control over that property is taken away from the owner. That is confiscation (in the common used language not in legal terms). For any physical property that term is used directly in that sense. The term “freezing” for bank accounts has established in that sector but it remains valid to speak of confiscation as the factual control over that asset is seized from the owner.(in the common used language not in legal terms) For that is is irrespective of whether the recognized ownership has changed. I.e. if a police officer takes all the money out of your wallet and puts it in a safe at the police station it still has been confiscated from you, even if he gives you a letter stating it is still your money. You are denied access to it, until some decision has been reached by someone.

The only legal distinction here is that the bank is a regulated private or in this case public entity that is legally seperate from the executive, whereas the police is a direct executive organ.

geissi,

Listen, there is a legal distinction between the two terms. I’ve provided a source.
If you disagree with that, please take it up with legislators and the courts.

It doesn’t help your argument that you specifically point out that it applies to physical objects, which a bank account is not.

tryptaminev, (edited )

When i checked again the statement by the group has been updated, now using the term freezing in the bold part of the statement:

Berliner Sparkasse freezes Jewish Voice account

You are right that there could be a legal confusion around the term confiscation and the statement was updated probably to reflect the point you made about the legal meaning.

In the common usage both in English and German the term is broader what i argued for.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confiscation

Confiscation (from the Latin confiscatio “to consign to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury”) is a legal form of seizure by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, or of any seizure of property as punishment or in enforcement of the law.

tryptaminev,

For context, the Berliner Sparkasse is a subsidiary bank of the Landesbank Berlin. It used to be owned by the state of Berlin but has been sold to the group of Sparkassen in 2007 to deal with the states debt. It is therefore owned by a few hundred state and muncipality banks.

The bank is in full public ownership. The government of the state of Berlin can remove members of the executive board at any time if it sees the banks actions in violation of any law. There is also an advisory board that is appointed by the state government and members can be removed from the advisory board at any time, without any specified reasons in the law.

The bank is publicly owned and subject to possible direct intereference by the state government of Berlin, which has been particularly strongly cracking down on peace activists including arrests of jewish activists for peace and bans of demonstrations by jewish peace organizations such as the Jewish Voice for Peace in the first month after Hamas attacked Israel on 07. October.

middlemanSI,

Collaboration in genocide, is that like an investment? Unless this group did illegal stuff, the bank (Sparkasse again - which also finances invasion in Ukraine) is a criminal organization.

downpunxx,

Jewish Voice for Peace, is coincidentally none of those things, all all

hannes3120,

The text mentions them supporting the “don’t buy from Jews”-BDS movement

Sounds very weird for a Jewish organisation indeed

theacharnian,
@theacharnian@lemmy.ca avatar

Only the bds movement is not about “don’t buy from Jews”, it is about “use peaceful means to pressure Israeli institutions to change course”.

downpunxx,

yeah, lol, they're not Jewish, they aren't a voice for Jews, and their end goal is the destruction of the Jewish state by any means necessary, they support every terrorist organization to have ever threatened and attacked actual Jews in Israel, and they are as far from a peace organization as you can possibly get. their very name is Jew baiting. they are demons.

GrymEdm, (edited )

Way to dodge my request for evidence, and ignore the evidence I provided, in favor of repeating extremist misinformation. It’s pretty clear your claims are baseless but luckily basically no one else seems to believe them either.

tryptaminev, (edited )

You comment is a perfect example of how jewish people dissenting with the unconditional support for Israel stance are targeted using antisemitic conspiracies, insults and and propaganda attacks.

The zionist movement is not just allying with antisemites both historically and today. It itself is using the fully playbook of antisemitic tropes to attack dissenting jews.

I would say that modern zionism cannot exist without anitsemitism. Zionism relies on the same inhumane cruelty and doublethink patterns that fascist ideologies rely on.

sqgl, (edited )

Their statement declares Israel is practicing genocide and apartheid. Neither is true.

…medium.com/the-hypocrisy-of-pro-palestine-protes…

tryptaminev,

The ICJ just ruled again, that Israel is not upholding its obligations to prevent genocide, in particular that it must finally allow for full humanitarian access and end the starvation of the people in Gaza.

I trust the highest court of the world to be more qualified to recognize genocide than some pro Israel propaganda piece.

sqgl, (edited )

What do you mean again? When? At last count the UN said it is not genocide but warned them to not turn it into genocide.

I think IDF should GFO (as does that author) even if it doesn’t get to genocide.

But to bring it back on topic, the website you shared uses language which informed Jews wouldn’t.

tryptaminev,

There was a new decision on Palestinians facing immediate starvation and demanding Israel to fully comply with with the prior ruling as well as working together with the UN and immediately allow unobstructed access for humantarian aid.

timesofisrael.com/icj-orders-israel-to-increase-h…

Also the court did not rule that there was no genocide in its first ruling. It said that there is a plausibility of genocide and that Israel needs to comply with the provisional measures to not increase the risk of genocide. Given that it had to not only repeat itself on that but increase the scope of demands, it certainly does not represent Israel as being sincere about the preventionof genocide.

sqgl, (edited )

Whether it is Israel or Hamas starving the Gazans, a cease-fire agreement can sort it out. Today Netanyahu announced there is a meeting with Hamas, US, Qatar, Egypt.

Israel are saying they will resume fighting in Gaza after the hostage-prisoner swap which is absurd because they know Hamas leaders are in Qatar (not Gaza) and they know they have created thousands of new potential recruits with the carnage. I hope the “we must finish off Hamas” rhetoric is just bs for domestic right wing consumption.

GrymEdm, (edited )

Have evidence the organization isn’t Jewish anymore (because it was definitely founded by Jews and its board members are Jewish)? They are also provably advocates of a permanent ceasefire and equal humanitarian rights for Palestinians (which are peaceful goals) so you’re at least partially wrong.

jeena,
@jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

Germany historically always had problems with jewish voices.

GrymEdm, (edited )

So Germany is bullying and obstructing the free speech of Jews in order to protect Israel from dissenting opinion? Because that’s what it sounds like. It’s also kind of dumb that they are accusing Jewish Voice for Peace (an organization of primarily US Jews) of being antisemitic. No true Scotsman and all that?

Microw, (edited )

I highly doubt that the government is involved in this. Most likely other Jews (the Central Council) are bullying the bank to do this

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