Universalism as an Antisemitic Weapon: Why Omri Boehm Had No Place at Buchenwald

A recent article in the German leftist magazine taz discusses the cancellation of Israeli-German “philosopher” Omri Boehm’s speech at the Buchenwald memorial, following pressure from Israeli government representatives and the Jewish community in Germany, who accused him of “instrumentalizing” the Holocaust. The author claims these accusations are vague and lack substantial evidence, portraying Boehm as a proponent of Enlightenment humanism and rational discourse. Boehm’s criticism of leftist apologists for Hamas and of postcolonial thinkers who label humanism a Western ideology is used to frame him as a moderate and legitimate voice.

However, this portrayal is biased and misleading. He completely ignores Boehm’s extensive record of attacking Zionism and rejecting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. In his book Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel, Boehm argues that the two-state solution is no longer viable and proposes a binational state. He claims that the very notion of a Jewish state is incompatible with liberal-democratic values, asserting that “in a Jewish state, a state that articulates a sovereignty of the Jewish people, non-Jews do not belong to the sovereign people.”

His critiques go further, targeting the foundational principles of Zionism itself. In a conversation with journalist Peter Beinart—another highly problematic figure who accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza—Boehm questions the compatibility of Jewish statehood with liberal democracy, suggesting that prioritizing Jewish identity in statehood inherently discriminates against non-Jewish citizens.

The symbolism of someone like Omri Boehm speaking at a Holocaust memorial site like Buchenwald is not a neutral academic gesture, as his supporters would have you believe. It carries profound political and moral implications—especially at a time when antisemitism is once again on the rise and being normalized under the guise of “critique.”

Boehm represents a radical fringe within the Jewish world, and to give him a platform at Buchenwald implicitly elevates his views as a moral or Jewish authority. That is historically ignorant and morally dangerous.

His weaponization of Universalism—to undermine national sovereignty and justify dismantling the Jewish state—is deeply subversive. It’s a textbook example of cloaking anti-Zionism in moral language to make it socially acceptable. But Universalism that ignores historical trauma, realpolitik, and the existential need for Jewish self-determination is not ethical—it’s nihilistic. It erases the specificity of Jewish suffering and the hard-won reasons for Israel’s existence.

Moreover, Boehm’s claim that defending human dignity requires the abandonment of national sovereignty is philosophically weak and politically incoherent. No other people are asked to dissolve their nation-state to be considered moral. This demand is uniquely and obsessively placed on Jews, which is fundamentally antisemitic.

Would anyone tolerate a speaker at Yad Vashem who subtly or overtly questions the legitimacy of Jewish statehood? The very idea is offensive—yet in Germany, Holocaust memory is increasingly instrumentalized in a bizarre reversal, where historical guilt is transformed into appeasement of those who now attack Jewish self-determination.

Boehm’s presence at Buchenwald would have lent legitimacy to a worldview that undermines the only political structure that has protected Jewish life since the Holocaust: a sovereign homeland. His exclusion was not censorship—it was moral clarity.