Foreign Minister Avigdor and Prime Minister Lieberman

Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief David Horovitz and I interviewed Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday. Since then I've been asked quite frequently about my impressions of the man.

Everybody wants to know about Lieberman. What's he like, this "Russian King" as a friend called him [actually he's Moldovan]. When I posted photos of our interview on Facebook, I got comments and questions ranging from disgust [try get the stain off your hands Lady Macbeth!; ewwwww!; when is he going to be indicted?; shame you didn't barf on him; did you ask him if he really believes the bullshit coming out of his mouth or does he just like the perks? why doesn't the jpost punch people in the stomach anymore?]. "How bad is he?" another concerned friend asked.

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Letter from Germany

Benjamin Weinthal is the Jerusalem Post correspondent in Germany. In addition to covering Germany, Benjamin reports on Austria and Switzerland. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of New York University where he received a BA in Philosophy.  He earned a Master of Philosophy in European Culture and Literature from the University of Cambridge in England.

BERLIN - The topsy-turvy events of 2008, including an unprecedented German-Israeli diplomatic crisis provoked by Chancellor Angela Merkel administration's decision to approve a more than 100 million euro trade deal to build three gas plants in Iran, consumed my reporting at the time; this deal reflected the common phenomenon in Germany, where I live and work, of playing down anti-Semitism worldwide, including Iran's genocidal threat to Israel and dictatorial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's persecution of his country's small Jewish community.

A deeply moving, but highly disturbing, Jerusalem Post column by this paper's editor-in-chief David Horovitz in late February 2008 (When Jewish communities lose their voices), which dealt with rising anti-Semitism in Venezuela, stoked by Hugo Chavez, reminded me of my attempt to draw attention to the precarious situation of Venezuela's Jews and Chavez's state-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign. A little over a year before David published his column, I found myself in the position of the messenger who is attacked for blowing the whistle on a reporter's anti-Semitic article. I had uncovered a journalist writing freelance articles for the main German Jewish paper while simultaneously filing an anti-Jewish article for a hardcore anti-Israeli leftist German daily.

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Blogging from Germany

The Jerusalem Post's News Editor, Amir Mizroch, is currently in Germany for the German-Israeli Young Leaders Exchange 2008 with 10 other people from Israel to explore German-Israeli relations.

Read their group blog to get a glimpse of their experiences around Germany,  the program and each other.

Amir Mizroch writes his own blog at Forecast Highs where he's also written about the program.