DIPLOMACY WATCH : Symbols Count

Germany and Spain loom so large in the 2,000-year history of the Jewish Diaspora that Jews even in Israel still identify themselves as either Ashkenazim or Sephardim, literally “Germans” or “Span- iards.” But Ashkenazi culture was shattered by the Shoah, Nazi Germany’s failed attempt to exterminate the Jews. And Sephardi culture was, if not shattered, then at least scattered by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by royal decree on March 31, 1492. As a result, neither of these cradles of Diaspora Jewry now preserves more than a memory of what was.

But from memory new life can grow.

On Tuesday, the 500th anniversary of the expulsion, King Juan Carlos of Spain accompanied President Chaim Herzog of Israel to a synagogue in Madrid where they prayed together. The king is a mere figurehead, cynics might say; for that matter, so is the Israeli president. But symbols count: The gesture of reconciliation may lead to real reconciliation.

Of course, symbols also count when they hurt. Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Kohl recently met for lunch with Austria’s President Kurt Waldheim. Kohl was under no official obligation to meet with Waldheim, an ex-Nazi who was visiting Munich as a private citizen. Waldheim leaves office, to the relief of many Austrians, in June. Kohl met with him, apparently, to curry right-wing favor.

Kohl has been criticized sharply in Germany for lunching with a leader otherwise universally shunned. Sadly, we must join with his critics. That lunch was a symbol only of disgrace.