![\"Wolfgang](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Wolfgang-Seibert.jpg\")
<\/a>Wolfgang Seibert<\/p><\/div>\n
An investigation by Der Spiegel magazine into the biography of Wolfgang Seibert, head of the 250-member Jewish community of Pinneberg since 2003, revealed that he may be an imposter.<\/span><\/p>\nSeibert is denying the Spiegel report, which was published Friday, telling the German media he would respond after speaking with his lawyer. He also refuted the magazine\u2019s claim that he said he would withdraw from his position.<\/span><\/p>\nThe position is unpaid but gives its leader access to community funds.<\/span><\/p>\nSeibert, 71, has described himself as having been born in a displaced persons camp for Jewish survivors in Germany and said his grandmother survived Auschwitz. He calls himself a liberal Jew and has been active as a promoter of interfaith dialogue.<\/span><\/p>\nBut Spiegel reporters Martin Doerry and Moritz Gerlach found documents indicating that Seibert was born on Aug. 16, 1947, to Protestant parents in Frankfurt, and was baptized a few days later. His grandparents also were Protestant, the report says, adding that it is unlikely that Seibert had any Jewish ancestors. His paternal grandfather was a German sergeant in World War II and his father was a private.<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to the magazine, Seibert was convicted several times for fraud and embezzlement and served time in jail well before he began his Jewish leadership role.<\/span><\/p>\nRabbi Walter Rothschild, who had served as head rabbi for the Reform Jewish communities in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein from 2003 to 2015, raised the question of Seibert\u2019s identity with the Jewish court, or beth din after the rabbi was fired from his post. Rothschild served the small Reform congregations in the state and thus became acquainted with Seibert, and reportedly recalled the difficulty that Seibert had in documenting his Jewish roots.<\/span><\/p>\n(As he could not adequately document those roots, Seibert had started a conversion process in 2002 at about the time he was co-founding the Pinneberg Jewish community, according to Spiegel. But the conversion process was dropped the following year after Seibert presented papers showing he had been a member of the Jewish community of Frankfurt am Main from 1972 to 1982 and that his mother\u2019s maiden name was Cohen.)<\/span><\/p>\nThe rabbinical court decided that there was enough proof that Seibert was Jewish and let the matter go.<\/span><\/p>\nBut the Spiegel reporters found otherwise after consulting numerous archives, including the Institute for City History in Frankfurt, the Memorial Center of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen in Germany. They also interviewed people who had known Seibert, including former members of the Pinneberg community as well as Seibert himself.<\/span><\/p>\nThough Seibert told them he had incontrovertible evidence of his Jewishness, and this time said his mother\u2019s maiden name was Sznajder, he did not produce any documents. He also said he had been leading prayer services himself while waiting for the community\u2019s newly hired rabbi to begin his duties next year.<\/span><\/p>\nThe journalists suggested in their report that it is not politically correct in Germany to challenge Jewish identity, thus it may have been relatively simple to hide under the protective cover of a presumed Jewish past.<\/span><\/p>\nIn a second interview with Seibert, the journalists confronted him with their documentary evidence. At this point, Seibert reportedly told them that the most important thing was that he had \u201cfelt\u201d Jewish from an early age and that he had told stories to \u201cmatch the Jewish identity I felt I had.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nHe also told them he would resign from his position in Pinneberg \u2014 a claim Seibert now denies.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The alleged impersonation is not the first time a non-Jewish Germans falsely claimed to be a Jew. Or as David Irving jests: “What a hoot! Lying must be in their DNA”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178158,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178154\/revisions\/178158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}