German center dismisses pro-Israel scholar
BERLIN – Germany’s publicly funded Berlin Center for Research on Antisemitism and its director Wolfgang Benz improperly used their influence to dismiss a scholar from the editorial board of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, according to leading professors in the field.
Dr. Clemens Heni, a Berlin-based scholar who had criticized the center’s neglect of Islamic anti-Semitism and Israel’s security, has since been reinstated (in February) to the Journal’s editorial board.
In an exclusive investigative report, The Jerusalem Post obtained previously unpublished internal e-mails between the editors of the Journal and Israeli, American, German, South African and British anti-Semitism experts who objected to the removal of Heni from the its editorial board. The e-mail exchanges cover the period between December 2009 and last month.
“I wonder as to the role of Dr. Wolfgang Benz (director of the Berlin Center) in influencing the dismissal. It seems that this sorry affair seems t