BERLIN — A German politician who has been outspoken in promoting the need for early Holocaust and anti-Semitism education is poised to be the next mayor of Berlin. Seeking to succeed the German capital’s incumbent, Klaus Wowereit — the city’s first openly gay leader — Palestinian-born Raed Saleh may become Berlin’s first immigrant mayor. Saleh, 37, who was born in the West Bank and came to Berlin at age 5, offers a story of social advancement and tolerance he hopes will win over voters and set an example for others. The son of a Palestinian “guest worker” who brought his family to then-West Berlin in the early 1980s, the 37-year-old Saleh started out working at Burger King and later co-founded a company that provides printing services. “At the moment, a lot of young people have the feeling that they don’t have a share” in society, he said. Berlin is home to a large immigrant community, including many people with Turkish roots, some of them poorly integrated. A growing new generation of disenfranchised first-generation Germans is a major cause of rising anti-Semitism in a society long-known for endemic racial hatred, Saleh told The Times of Israel. But Saleh said this trend can be easily reversed. The cure? Experiential education. “With young people with foreign roots, I regularly visit Auschwitz and Birkenau to explain that German history is also part of their history… because they were born here and must be acquainted with both the positive and negative aspects of German history,” Saleh said. However, anti-Semitism education must begin earlier than it does now, said Saleh, “especially where we have classes in which 70 percent of the children are of foreign origin.” For the past eight years Saleh has promoted mutual respect among Berlin’s religious and ethnic groups through a “Dialogue of Religions” program. There, Christians, Jews and Muslims discuss and learn about each other’s religions and volunteer in their communities. If elected mayor, Saleh promises to ensure law and order and has taken an outspoken stance against anti-Semitic slogans chanted during protests against the Gaza war. “You can criticize if you have a different political view,” he said, “but nothing justifies hatred of Jews.”  Saleh joined the center-left Social Democrats of the current mayor, Klaus Wowereit, at 18 and rose steadily the local party hierarchy. When Wowereit announced in August that he was stepping down, Saleh — now the party’s regional caucus leader — became a natural candidate to succeed him. Members of the ...      Read more