Michel Friedman

Michel Friedman (German pronunciation: [miˈʃɛl ˈfʁiːtman]; born 25 February 1956 in Paris) is a German lawyer, former CDU politician and talk show host. From 2000 to 2003 Friedman was vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and president of the European Jewish Congress from 2001 to 2003. From 1998 to 2003 he had his own show on German television. Since 2004 he has been hosting a weekly talk show on N24 called Studio Friedman.[1] Friedman is a lawyer by profession and studied law and philosophy.

Friedman at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018

Early life and education

Friedman was born to a Polish-Jewish family. His parents and his grandmother were Schindlerjuden, i.e. Oskar Schindler had recruited them for slave labor, thereby rescuing them from a concentration camp. They had been in the most infamous of all camps, the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the Second World War, his family opened a fur shop in Paris. In 1965, the family returned to Germany and settled in Frankfurt am Main.

Friedman began studying medicine, but then switched to law. He graduated from law school in 1988 and became a doctor of law in 1994. He has a brother living in Israel.

Career

After qualifying as a lawyer in 1988, Friedman became a partner in an international law firm specializing in financial and media law. He is today a professor for real estate and media law.

From 2000 until 2003, Friedman served as President of the European Jewish Congress (EJC).

Friedman's career in TV began with a talk show called Caution! Friedman on public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk in 1998. Since 2004, he has been presenting "Studio Friedman" on Germany’s Welt channel. His talk show Auf ein Wort premiered on Deutsche Welle in 2017.[2]

Other activities
  • Wall GmbH, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2003)[3]
  • Atlantik-Brücke, Member
  • Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS), Member of the Advisory Board
  • ZDF, Member of the Broadcasting Council (1990-2003)

Recognition

Controversy

In 2003, Friedman was convicted in a case involving prostitution and drug usage. Friedman had been accused of offering cocaine to Ukrainian prostitutes he had ordered through an escort service that was being investigated for forced prostitution.[4] Friedman's crime was discovered almost by chance, when police wiretaps for the investigation into forced prostitution led them to the name "Paolo Pinkas", which turned out to be Friedman's alias when using the service.[5] However several Jewish leaders claimed Friedman's arrest was part of an anti-Semitic witch-hunt.[6] Investigators raided his home and found small quantities of cocaine.[5] He was fined €17,400 for possession of cocaine,[6] on 8 July 2003. The settlement enabled him to avoid a trial.[6] After publicly admitting to the drug possession Friedman stated "I have made a mistake. Drugs are no help. I am resigning from all public offices that I hold."[6] As well as resigning from the Central Council of Jews Friedman also resigned from the Christian Democratic Party.[6]

However, since he did not apologise to the forced prostitutes themselves (keeping silent about the nature of his "mistake"), the German women's' rights organisation Terre des Femmes and others strongly criticised Friedman's speech.[7]

When Friedman interviewed Youth and Sports Minister Akif Çağatay Kılıç in 2016 about the Turkish coup d'état attempt, mass layoffs and arrests that followed the failed putsch, and the media situation and the position of women in Turkey, the Turkish government confiscated the recordings. In response, Deutsche Welle Director-General Peter Limbourg condemned Turkey the seizure of the video tape as "a blatant violation of press freedom."[8]

Personal life

Since July 2004 Friedmann has been married to Bärbel Schäfer, a former German TV celebrity. They got married at Park East Synagogue. The couple has two sons, Samuel (*2005) and Oscar (*2008 - named after Oskar Schindler).

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References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-08-08. Retrieved 2010-11-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. „Auf ein Wort“ – Michel Friedman mit neuer Talkshow Hamburger Abendblatt, October 12, 2017.
  3. Christian Backe (July 25, 2003), Michel Friedman bekommt zweite Chance – bei Hans Wall Der Tagesspiegel.
  4. Paterson, Tony (June 17, 2003). "Police investigate German chat show host as cocaine and call-girl scandal deepens". The Independent. Retrieved March 8, 2010.
  5. Fleishman, Jeffrey (July 9, 2003). "German TV Host Admits to Possession of Cocaine". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
  6. Paterson, Tony (July 9, 2003). "Cocaine scandal forces resignation of Jewish leader who hosted TV show". The Independent. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
  7. "Dossier on the Friedman affair". arendt-art.de (in German).
  8. Erik Kirschbaum (September 6, 2016), Turkish government seizes interview tape from broadcaster Deutsche Welle Reuters.

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