Tair is an activist in the Palestine Solidarity movement, working with Jewish antizionist groups as well as Student organizing for Palestine. She hosts workshops, speeches and lectures on Holocaust Memory and its weaponization.
In her lecture, Tair addresses the birth of modern Zionism in 19th century Europe and it's dynamic relationship to Anti-semitism and Nazi Germany. In the wake of WW2 and the Genocide of European Jews amongst other German genocides, Israel and (West) Germany establish themselves as new states at a similar time and begin to have a material relationship that serves both parties. The national identity needed for state building/state maintenance is both in Germany and Israel in a close relationship to a memory of the Holocaust. The way and mechanisms it is being addressed in schools, public, etc. in accordance to national policies is shown in this lecture with examples from both societies. A need for multidirectional memory practices that work against exceptionalization through made up hierarchies and the weaponization of the memory of violence for more violence, is underlined.
Correction of the slide on Haavara agreement: it was officially abandoned when Germany started WW2 in 1939 and was controversially looked upon, although helping to make Germany "judenrein" - free of Jews in the first years of German Fascism. The "Final solution to the Jewish Question", that stated that all European Jewry must be exterminated, was decided in 1942 at the Wannsee Conference. The continuities of racist persecution towards deportation policies and then annihilation can be seen in this developement. Adolf Eichmann, who was planning the extermination of European Jewry had also worked in implementing the Haavara agreement and pushing Jews outside of Germany and Austria in his earlier Nazi career.
Sources and resources
A. Dirk Moses, 2021. The German Catechism, Geschichte den Gegenwart
A. Dirk Moses, 2025. The German Reason of State as State Anti-semitism, American-German Institute
Eyal Sivan, 1991. Izkor (film)
Constantin Goschler, 2022. The Luxemburg Agreement, the mirage of reconciliation, K.
Felix Helberg, 2025. How Postwar Germany Fell in Love With Israel, Jacobin
Michael Rothberg, 2024. Multidimentional Memory, Metropol
Wolfgang Streeck, 2024. A matter of state: The politics of German anti-anti-Semitism. European Journal of Social Theory
