Abraham Melzer is a German-Israeli independent publisher, author, translator, and political essayist based in Germany. He is one of the pioneer voices of the dissenting German-Jewish left, having founded the independent publishing house Melzer Verlag and the critical political journal Der Semit. Melzer’s decades-long career has focused on translating and disseminating non-conformist historiographies—including the works of Israeli “New Historians” like Ilan Pappé—that challenge political Zionism and German memory orthodoxies. Due to his anti-Zionist stances, he has engaged in long-standing legal and rhetorical confrontations with mainstream German-Jewish institutions, turning his defamation lawsuits into landmark case studies on the legal boundaries of free speech and antisemitism accusations in Germany.
Born in 1945 in Soviet Uzbekistan (Uzbek SSR), Melzer was the son of Joseph Melzer, a Polish Jew who fled eastward into the Soviet interior to escape Nazi persecution. Following the end of World War II, the family successfully immigrated to the newly established State of Israel in 1948, where Melzer completed his primary education.
In 1958, disillusioned by the pervasive militarization of Israeli society, his father relocated the family back to Germany, where Melzer continued his secondary education in Cologne and Düsseldorf. He later returned to Israel to fulfill his mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—an experience that radically catalyzed his transition toward pacifist dissent. He subsequently returned to Germany to establish his career in independent publishing.
Melzer utilized his publishing house as a structural bulwark against ideological uniformity. He translated and disseminated groundbreaking critical histories, most notably the German editions of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
He also conceptualized and edited the independent socio-political magazine Der Semit, creating an essential pluralistic platform for dissenting Jewish, Arab, and leftist German commentators. In his 2017 text, Achtung Antisemitismus! (Beware of Antisemitism!), Melzer delivered a searing critique of the state-sponsored instrumentalization of antisemitism accusations, arguing that expanding the definition to shield Israeli state violations inflicts structural harm upon the democratic space and the integrity of actual Jewish safety.
Melzer vs. Charlotte Knobloch
In 2016, Charlotte Knobloch, the influential former President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, publicly designated Melzer a “notorious antisemite” due to his defense of the speech rights of BDS movement advocates, attempting to deplatform his public lectures. Melzer initiated a civil defamation lawsuit against Knobloch.
Ultimately, the court ruled that Charlotte Knobloch had no right to ban Melzer’s lectures, confirming that his freedom of speech to criticize Israeli policies and support the BDS movement is protected by law. However, the court also dismissed Melzer’s lawsuit, ruling that calling him an “antisemite” in a public letter did not constitute defamation; instead, it was viewed as a “personal subjective opinion” within a fierce political debate. This decision sparked widespread discussion and controversy across German society. Supporters believed it defended the right to speak, while many dissenting Jews were disappointed, arguing it essentially gave the mainstream a license to legally label dissidents, leaving independent voices even more isolated.