by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
Both the municipality and the federal government are two-faced about the problem of antisemitism.
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Antisemitic, pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin, July 17, 2014, photo by Boris Niehaus via Wikipedia
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,305, October 3, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Berlin has surpassed Malmö
as Europe’s antisemitism capital, with a wide variety of anti-Jewish
and anti-Israel attitudes on display. They include dozens of cases of
physical aggression against Jews, including rabbis. Jewish pupils have
had to leave public schools. Thirty-five percent of Berliners view Israelis as analogous to Nazis. An Al-Quds Day march takes place annually that calls for the destruction of Israel. Both the municipality and the federal government are two-faced about the problem of antisemitism.
For years, experts viewed Malmö, Sweden’s
third-largest city, as the capital of antisemitism in Europe. Incidents
of anti-Jewish hatred occurred there on a regular basis. Mayor Ilmar
Reepalu, a former socialist, was an antisemite. A bomb was thrown at a
local synagogue. Complaints filed by Jews were ignored by judges. The
Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) put out a travel warning concerning the
town.
Antisemitism in Malmö has not weakened
significantly, but even a superficial look at the scale of classic
antisemitism and anti-Israelism in Berlin shows that it by far surpasses
Malmö. There are so many facets to antisemitism in the German capital
that any summary remains incomplete.
With 3.5 million inhabitants, Berlin is a much
larger city than Malmö, the population of which is less than 350,000.
Berlin contains 40,000 Jewish citizens to Malmö’s approximately 500. A
report published by Berlin’s Research and Information Center on
Antisemitism (RIAS) recorded 1,083 antisemitic incidents in 2018
compared to 951 during 2017. This is but a fraction of the total, as
many incidents go unreported.
One much publicized case among many occurred in
July 2019, when Berlin’s Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal was spat on and insulted
by Arab speakers on his way home with his son from synagogue. In August,
Rabbi Jan Aaron Hammel was aggressively shoved, spat upon, and verbally
abused in Arabic. The attack sent him to the hospital, and after it he
had to walk with crutches.
In 2012, Rabbi Daniel Alter was severely beaten on
a Berlin street by four Arab- looking youngsters in the presence of his
seven-year-old daughter. Berlin antisemitism commissioner Lorenz
Korgel, who was appointed in May 2019, warned that Jews who wear a
kippah in public could experience frequent attacks.
Gideon Joffe, chairman of Berlin’s Jewish
community, said one-third of the pupils at the Berlin Jewish High School
had suffered harassment at non-Jewish public schools. “In the year 2019
our high school is full of Jewish refugees,” he said. The alleged
perpetrators are often the children of Muslim immigrants.
The most publicized case of such antisemitism
occurred in 2017 at a public school. It concerned a Jewish boy whose
first name was changed in the media to Oscar Michalski. His tormenters
were pupils of Arab and Turkish descent. An older student shot at the
child with a realistic-looking gun and choked him to the point of
unconsciousness.
In August 2019, graves of Jewish soldiers killed
in WWI were defaced at a large Jewish cemetery. In the same month, a
Berlin Jewish woman received a letter containing ashes.
On September 25, 2019, a pro-Palestinian
demonstration took place at the Brandenburger Gate. Only a few hours
before, the Berlin Senator of the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD),
prohibited the participation of two rappers, Shadi al-Bourini and Shadi
al-Najja, one of whose songs includes the lines: “Burn Tel Aviv down, we
want to burn Tel Aviv down” and, about Jews: “I want to trample you
under my feet.”
At a Berlin demonstration in 2017, placards were
carried demanding the destruction of Israel and an Israeli flag was set
on fire, an incident that attracted international attention.
These are only a few examples of the more severe
incidents to date. The official – contested — assessment supported by
RIAS is that the main perpetrators of antisemitic incidents in Berlin
are German and do not come from the 300,000 large Muslim community. RIAS
does, however, add that 49% of the perpetrators are “unknown.” Geisel
(SPD) has promised to better scrutinize the motives behind antisemitic
offenses, saying: “It is obviously unjustifiable to ascribe a motive of
right-wing extremism to every one of these unsolved crimes.”
Antisemitic incidents are only part of Berlin’s antisemitism. The year 2019 marked the publication of the first Berlin Monitor, which provides insights into the views of city inhabitants on major themes. The Monitor
found that Israel-related antisemitism is thriving in Berlin.
Twenty-eight percent of inhabitants with no migrant background regard
the establishment of Israel as a bad idea and 35% view the behavior of
Israelis as comparable to that of the Nazis under Hitler. Of Berliners
with a migrant background, up to 55% agree with these statements.
In this atmosphere, where hatred of Israel is
widespread, the Jewish Museum in Berlin has been severely criticized for
a number of anti-Israel programs over the years. Ultimately they led to
the resignation of director Professor Peter Schäfer in June 2019.
Though a renowned scholar, he evidently lacked the managerial capacities
required to prevent multiple scandals.
In 2009, the Berlin University of Applied Science,
founded in 1971, was renamed after Christian Peter Wilhelm Beuth
(1781-1853), a Prussian statesman and virulent antisemite. He called for
the murder of Jews and, inter alia, embraced blood libel accusations.
The march on Al-Quds Day, which calls for the
destruction of Israel, is an annual event in Berlin. There is also a
mosque of sympathizers with Hezbollah. The German government refuses to
outlaw local branches of this genocidal terrorist organization.
Yet another issue is the attitude of the local
government. Mayor Michael Müller (SPD) has declined to publicly oppose
high-profile anti-Israel events in Berlin. He came under renewed
criticism this summer when he received the Mayor of Tehran. Berlin State
Secretary for Federal Affairs Sawan Chebli (SPD) is the initiator of
the Berlin Senate’s Working Circle to combat antisemitism, yet in June
2019 she shared the podium with a Jewish pro-BDS supporter at an event
in Berlin.
Finally, there is the two-faced attitude of the
German government, which is housed in Berlin. President Frank-Walter
Steinmeier (SPD) visited Rabbi Teichtal after he was attacked, but also
congratulated the Iranian government, which speaks openly about genocide
against Israel. Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Christian Democrat,
regularly speaks out against antisemitism – but her asylum policy has
brought hundreds of thousands of antisemites from Muslim countries into
Germany. She has also expressed solidarity with antisemitic Democrat
American Congress members Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
FM Heiko Maas (SPD) attended a solidarity prayer
service with Rabbi Teichtal at a synagogue in Berlin, yet on his
authority, Germany supports a huge number of anti-Israel resolutions at
the UN General Assembly. The anti-Israeli deputy FM Niels Annen (SPD)
paid a congratulatory visit to the Iranian embassy in Berlin to
celebrate the 40th anniversary of the revolution.
In Berlin, three antisemitism commissioners are
active. There are detailed plans to combat antisemitism. Yet as long as
two-facedness is prominent at the highest levels in the municipality and
in government, one can only wonder at the prospects for the fight
against Berlin and German antisemitism in either its classic or its
anti-Israeli forms.
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is
a Senior Research Associate at the BESA Center and a former chairman of
the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He
specializes in Israeli–Western European relations, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism, and is the author of The War of a Million Cuts.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/berlin-antisemitism/
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