In Germany, tough TV host finds shoe on other foot
 
Mark Landler NYT
Saturday, June 28, 2003
FRANKFURT Michel Friedman is an aggressive, unyielding, even abrasive television interviewer, whose in-your-face style has earned him as many enemies as admirers in Germany. He is also the most visible Jew in a country where most Jews still try to avoid standing out.
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Those two facts have come together in combustible fashion since Friedman's popular television show was suspended after a drug raid on his home in Frankfurt, which turned up packets containing what the police said appeared to be traces of cocaine.
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German prosecutors have not brought any charges against Friedman, who is also vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
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He and his lawyer, Eckart Hild, have declined to comment until the prosecutor's investigation is completed. They did not return repeated telephone calls. The broadcaster of his show, Hessischer Rundfunk, has urged people not to prejudge Friedman.
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Still, citing his wishes, the broadcaster canceled the last three episodes of his weekly program, "Vorsicht! Friedman," or "Watch Out! Friedman," before it was scheduled to go on a summer hiatus. His second show, on the national network, ARD, was also pulled.
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The scandal has been catnip for the German news media, with its delectable story line of a righteous crusader brought low by the same moral lapses he deplores among society's wealthy and powerful.
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That Friedman is a Jew has given the story added piquancy, provoking a debate over whether the news media are going easy or hard on Friedman, or simply being an equal opportunity scandalmonger.
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Given the enduring question of what constitutes "normality" in German-Jewish relations 60 years after the Holocaust, the debate is an invitation to see the world flat or round. Depending on whom one asks, Friedman's Judaism is either largely beside the point or absolutely central.
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"The Jewish angle is the icing on the cake," said Josef Joffe, editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. "People want to see someone who is aggressive, biting, almost merciless on the screen get his comeuppance. That is true for anybody with high visibility."
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Joffe predicted that the scandal would have little impact on the Jewish community in Germany, which has grown to about 100,000 people in recent years, boosted by new arrivals from the former Soviet bloc.
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Despite Friedman's influence and official status, he is viewed by many as less a voice for Germany's Jews than as a voice for himself. "He belongs to that set of people in the world, whose real addiction is not cocaine, but attention and acclaim," Joffe said.
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Other commentators, however, said Friedman's status as a Jewish leader has made the press - particularly the more serious newspapers that generally avoid trafficking in rumors - more aggressive in their coverage than they have been in scandals involving non-Jews.
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The only detail that the police have confirmed is that they found traces of what they said was cocaine in Friedman's home and law office. They have also said they are testing a sample of his hair to determine whether he used the drug.
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Friedman's friends, who include film stars, directors and publishers, have rallied around him. They complain he is being treated unjustly because of his outspoken, pro-Israeli views.
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"We don't have normality in relations between Germans and Jews," said Salomon Korn, chairman of Frankfurt's Jewish community.
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"We'll see how far we have progressed toward normality, based on whether Michel Friedman is treated like any other German."
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Korn said Friedman would not be asked to resign from the Jewish Central Council unless he was convicted.
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Some commentators noted that many among Germany's political elite have leapt to Friedman's defense. His unusual status, these people say, has made the news media more, not less, cautious. "If you accept the normal laws of the media, he's being treated more fairly than if he were non-Jewish," said Lutz Hachmeister, a professor of journalism at the University of Dortmund. "If he were just another person involved in a scandal, the reporting would be much harsher."
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Friedman, 47, is anything but a normal German. Born in Paris of a Polish-Jewish family that was saved from the Nazi camps by the German businessman Oskar Schindler, he came to Frankfurt as a boy with his family in 1965, where they set up a fur-trading business.
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Friedman became a lawyer, and joined the conservative Christian Democratic Union. The leader of the party, Angela Merkel, rebuffed calls last week for Friedman to leave the party.
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He became a household name in Germany in 1998 when he started his television show. Despite his pugnacious style - accentuated by a studio set that puts Friedman nose to nose with his hapless guest - the program attracts the biggest names in German politics and society.
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Along with the attention, he has piled up enemies. His archrival was Juergen Moellemann, an equally outspoken right-of-center German politician, who last year accused Friedman of fomenting anti-Semitism in Germany with his "intolerant and spiteful manner."
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Moellemann's attack alienated many Germans, costing his party, the Free Democrats, many votes in the national elections last fall. He made matters worse by using party funds to distribute a pamphlet condemning Friedman and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
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After the police raided Moellemann's house in early June to investigate the misuse of funds, he plunged to his death from an airplane in a parachute jump that appeared to be a suicide.
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The New York Times

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