Jews attack immigration curbs

Apparently, Germany is not allowed to have its own immigration policies:

German Jewish leaders have criticised plans to curb the immigration of Jews from Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union under a new regulation aimed at restricting the entry of unskilled foreign workers.

Interior ministers from Germany's 16 powerful federal states, or länder, decided last month to allow in only those immigrants who speak German or have decent job prospects. They also want to shelve existing entry applications made by 27,000 Jews. Germany's Jewish population has risen more than three-fold since 1990, when the country started allowing them free entry.

The proposed limits coincide with a new law that came into force this month aimed at reducing the immigration of unskilled foreign workers into a labour market already straining under the weight of more than 4 million unemployed.

And Jewish leaders have even resorted to making thinly-veiled threats against the German government:

Jewish leaders complain they have not been adequately consulted on a sensitive topic which could unnecessarily provoke new charges of anti-semitism against the country that carried out the Holocaust.

And I wonder which group will be making those charges? In fact, Germany has bent over backwards in recent years in its efforts to help Jewish immigrants:

Germany opened its borders to Jewish immigrants from the east after the break-up of the Soviet Union in a sign of reconciliation and to strengthen its Jewish community, which in 1990 numbered just 30,000. It now exceeds 100,000, but remains just a fraction of the country's pre-war Jewish population of 670,000.

Stephan J Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews, told the Guardian: "We all agree that after 14 years we need a revision but the way in which it is happening and the way in which we have been treated as spectators in recent weeks is unacceptable. It is damaging and unnecessary."

Mr Kramer said delaying thousands of applications, many of which had been filed years ago by Jews in the former Soviet Union, was intolerable, and called for revisions to the planned restrictions.

"If they want to introduce speaking German as an entry criterion they should first give people the chance to learn German," he said. "And how do you check whether someone will get a job or not? Do you look whether they are healthy, attractive or have healthy teeth? I don't know how this would be carried out in practice."

He admitted the need for change, because the Jewish community did not have the means to cope with the large number of immigrants. Almost 200,000 people have used the system to move to Germany since 1990. Many of them have failed to get jobs.