A lone figure in the audience that day declined to stand and applaud. Ignatz Bubis, the chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a towering figure of moral authority in the country, believed that Walser’s remarks, while strenuously couched in language aimed at providing cover against charges of antisemitism, were essentially divisive, threatening to take the country back, not forward. The day after the speech, Bubis issued a statement to the German press accusing Walser of “spiritual arson,” or geistige Brandstiftung. The two, Walser and Bubis, engaged in a lengthy public debate
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