A survey published this week by the German Central Council of Jews reports that a third of Jews in Germany have experienced some type of antisemitic attack since October 7th. The attacks have ranged from antisemitic graffiti to personal insults, and almost all communities report increased psychological pressure, receiving threatening calls and threatening emails.
A stunning 80% of the Jewish religious congregation leaders surveyed stated that life has become more unsafe for Jews—specifically Jews who wish to express their faith in public in any form—since the October massacre.
Central Council president Josef Schuster called the reports “shocking” and noted the growth of the trend, telling Die Welt, newspaper, “Since October 7, we have been experiencing an increase in anti-Semitic statements and actions from left-wing, unfortunately also academic circles.”
While noting that ‘far-right’ antisemitism had not gone away he added, “It’s just that the others have the louder voice right now. I name this because it affects us. We want to live freely in Germany, in our country.”
Schuster said that the situation had become worse in several major cities, such as Berlin, and several others in the North Rhine-Westphalia region saying, “There, Jews who wear a kippah or a Star of David on their chains have to fear being insulted or even attacked.” Noting a persistent indifference to the threats to Jews, he said,
Hamas proclaims the day of rage, parents are afraid to send their children to Jewish kindergartens or to sports, but a lot of people don’t care at all. They don’t think anything. They don’t say anything. The hatred of us does not affect them. This silence is bitter.
Left-wing activists and even politicians have engaged in antisemitic, anti-Israel, or pro-Hamas statements across the Western world since October 7th. This trend is not limited to Germany.
Shortly after the attacks, many left-wing politicians refused to outright condemn Hamas’ actions as a terrorist attack, such as former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis who stated:
Those who try very hard to extract from people like me and DiEM25 a condemnation of the attack by the Hamas guerillas will never get it. And they will never get it for a very simple reason. Those who care about humans without any discrimination, those who care equally about a Jew and an Arab, must ask themselves a very simple question: what exactly is their idea of the cessation of hostilities? That Palestinians are going to lay down their arms and go back into the largest open-air prison in the world where they are constantly suffocated by the apartheid state?
In the United States, the Washington Post newspaper also highlighted the issue last month, calling on Democrat President Joe Biden to call out antisemitism on the Left. The op-ed notes,
while antisemitism exists across the spectrum, right-wing antisemitism is largely a fringe phenomenon. You don’t see students at Ivy League schools holding neo-Nazi rallies. Left-wing antisemitism, by contrast, is an elite phenomenon.
The author, columnist Marc A. Thiessen, also highlighted antisemitism in academia, saying:
On campuses where kids complain that speech is violence, students have celebrated actual violence against Jews: women and girls raped and mutilated; children slaughtered and burned; fathers with eyes gouged out; victims decapitated with farm equipment; even terrorists’ mass slaughter of youths their own age at a music festival. ‘They’ve got tanks, we’ve got hang-gliders, glory to the resistance fighters!’ a crowd of students at George Mason University chanted.
Left-wing antisemitism predates October 7th, with the Jerusalem Post newspaper warning in August of this year of its growth on the European Left.
The newspaper notes that, while most German political parties on the Left do condemn antisemitism, the situation on the ground and on the streets is very different for Jews. The newspaper continues,
Terror attacks against Israeli civilians are celebrated as anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist resistance. And they say ‘Palestine should be free from the river to the sea,’ which is little more than a call to wipe Israel off the map.
