. . .The recent decision of Essener Tafel, a food bank in the city of Essen, Germany, temporarily to stop issuing membership cards to non-Germans has triggered an outcry among German politicians, journalists and activists, who have accused the charitable organization of "racism". Serving about 16,000 poor people in the industrial city of Essen, Essener Tafel is one of the biggest charities in Germany, operated by volunteers only.
. . . Essener Tafel's announcement read:
"Due to the increase in the number of refugees, the share of foreign fellow citizens among our customers has increased to 75 percent. To guarantee a reasonable integration, we see ourselves forced currently to accept only customers with a German passport."
Karl Lauterbach, an MP for the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) and the party's healthcare expert, tweeted: "Hunger is the same for everybody. Too bad, xenophobia has arrived among the most poor."
Berlin's Secretary for Integration, Sawsan Chebli (SPD) tweeted: "I'm shivering. Food only for Germans. Migrants excluded."
Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who needed a whole year to express her condolences to the relatives of the victims of Berlin's jihadist massacre in December 2016 -- immediately gave a television interview in which she berated the decision as "not good". One "should not use such categorizations", she advised; instead, "one should look for good solutions".
. . .According to Sartor, he and the other volunteers had observed that a "large number" of local elderly women and single mothers had stopped coming in for food:
"The German grandma is crowded out because she feels uncomfortable among the foreign men in the queue who all speak Arabic... Would your mother, when she leaves the streetcar on a Wednesday and sees 50 Arabs, join the queue?"
If there was only one troublemaker, Sartor said, he could sort him out. "But they're a pack." The journalist commented: "Sartor doesn't care about diplomatic language."
A female client of the Essener Tafeltold a journalist that many Arab men just walked past the queue and "pretend that they don't understand German". Another woman said that she had stopped coming for a while because she had been tired of the "pushing and shoving". Her daughter added: "This is really bad. The men who cut the line don't even react when they are spoken to."
