Germany: 'Respectable antisemitism'

Representatives from more than 50 countries gathered in the German capital to confront a phenomenon that Europe had hoped belonged to the past. Yet the context made the urgency unmistakable. In the wake of the Second Intifada and the Iraq War, Europe was witnessing the most severe wave of attacks on Jews since the end of World War II.

Many of these attacks originated, though not exclusively, within growing immigrant Muslim communities. Even a decade before the major refugee influx into Europe, the Arab-Israeli conflict had already been exported on a significant scale to the continent.

Nevertheless, several European countries, particularly those with large Muslim immigrant populations, were reluctant at the OSCE conference to acknowledge the existence of antisemitism within segments of these communities. Instead, they preferred to focus on Islamophobia and struggled to recognize that developments in the Middle East were fueling antisemitic rhetoric and violence in Europe.

Only sustained pressure from the German government and the US ultimately enabled the adoption of the conference’s concluding document, the Berlin Declaration. It stated unambiguously that “international developments or political issues, including those in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, never justify antisemitism.”

The declaration included a list of concrete measures designed to monitor and combat antisemitism across multiple areas of public life. All OSCE participating states committed themselves to implementing these steps. However, effective monitoring required a clear definition of antisemitism.

In 2005, the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia published the first “working definition of antisemitism.” However, it was never formally adopted by EU institutions, largely because it addressed the sensitive question of when criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism.

IN THE 22 years since the Berlin Declaration, Germany has positioned itself as a leading European force in combating antisemitism. Some argue that history obliges it to do so.

The country has developed one of the most extensive and sophisticated systems for monitoring antisemitic incidents. It appointed a federal antisemitism commissioner and established regional commissioners in 15 of Germany’s 16 federal states. These officials are tasked with developing strategies, coordinating responses, and overseeing implementation.

In 2019, the German Bundestag became the first parliament in the world to label the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic, citing the IHRA definition. Yet despite these institutional measures, the practical effect has been limited. Antisemitism has continued to rise.

Following Oct. 7 and the global fallout, Germany’s federal antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein warned that “Jewish life in Germany is now at greater risk than at any time since the Shoah” and that “antisemitism is present in all segments of society.”

The most recent data appear to support this assessment.

According to the latest report from RIAS, the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on antisemitism, 2024 saw a dramatic surge to 8,627 recorded antisemitic incidents. This compares with 4,886 incidents in 2023, and 2,610 in 2022. Preliminary assessments suggest that 2025 is unlikely to show a significant decline.

Berlin alone accounted for more than one-quarter of the incidents, with 2,496 cases, which included violent assaults and the marking of buildings housing Jews or Israelis. Notably, RIAS reported that 57% of incidents could not be clearly attributed to a specific ideological camp, such as the far Right, radical Left, or Islamist movements. At the same time, the organization observed a marked increase in far-right antisemitic activity compared with previous years. Incidents in universities and schools have also risen sharply.

Paradoxically, even as Germany strengthened its institutional response to antisemitism, it became the central European battleground over the legitimacy of the IHRA definition itself.

Left-wing activists, prominent figures in the arts and cultural sectors, academics, supporters of Palestinian nationalism, and Islamist actors have increasingly joined forces to argue that the IHRA definition infringes upon constitutionally protected freedoms of expression, art, and academic inquiry. They portray it as a form of state censorship designed to silence criticism of Israel and expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians.

At the heart of the controversy is the IHRA’s position that denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, including through claims that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor, can constitute antisemitism. Some Israeli and Jewish intellectuals have also become leading voices in opposition to the IHRA framework.

THE FIRST major coordinated pushback in Germany emerged in 2020 with the “Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit” (Initiative for World Openness), signed by dozens of directors and representatives of German cultural and scientific institutions, many of which are publicly funded. The initiative’s founding statement argued that Germany’s historical responsibility should not lead to the blanket delegitimization of other experiences of violence and oppression, and that such debates must remain possible within publicly funded cultural spaces.

In 2021, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism was issued, which explicitly sought to provide an alternative framework, and excluded most forms of anti-Zionism from being categorized as antisemitic. Although initiated by the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, three of its eight coordinators were German, underscoring Germany’s central role in the definitional struggle.

Benjamin Steinitz, director of RIAS, views these developments as part of a longer trajectory.

According to Steinitz, critics of antisemitism at such gatherings are increasingly portrayed as enemies of free speech. “Anyone who raises concerns is quickly framed as someone trying to restrict freedom of expression, art, academia, and assembly. These accusations have become normalized. Because RIAS bases its work on the IHRA definition, we are accused of being an arm of the Israeli government. Other organizations face the same attacks, and they have intensified since Oct. 7.”

He argued that the conflict with Germany’s cultural sector is now entrenched. “You create a discourse claiming that artistic freedom is under threat because of government action against BDS and antisemitic structures. Then Jewish and other critical voices are gradually marginalized until they withdraw or are excluded entirely.”

Steinitz added that the Jerusalem Declaration was prepared in close consultation with experts from the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at the Technical University of Berlin. The ZfA itself has faced criticism in recent years for allegedly downplaying antisemitism while increasingly focusing on Islamophobia.

Remko Leemhuis, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office, has publicly accused the center of failing to contribute meaningfully to public discourse on antisemitism after Oct. 7.

STEINITZ’S OWN biography reflects Germany’s complex postwar trajectory. Born in 1983 in Communist East Berlin, he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors who fled to Sweden and Mexico before returning to Germany after the war. Judaism played little role in his upbringing in the Soviet-aligned German Democratic Republic. Only after reunification did he become active in efforts against neo-Nazi structures, and later in debates surrounding Israel, where he encountered left-wing antisemitism.

The turning point came in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. A wave of antisemitic incidents across Germany, combined with what Steinitz regarded as an inadequate official response, prompted him to establish the first RIAS office in 2015. Today, RIAS operates in 12 of Germany’s 16 federal states.

“The events of 2014 made many Jews in Germany feel surrounded by antisemitism from multiple directions,” Steinitz recalled. “They did not know where to turn.”

He acknowledged that German authorities have improved significantly since then. Police cooperation with Jewish communities has strengthened, and prosecutions have become more consistent. Still, serious gaps remain.

“Demonstrations are still sometimes permitted on Shabbat near synagogues, which creates a deeply uncomfortable and even traumatic atmosphere, especially for Holocaust survivors,” he noted. “There also remains inconsistency among federal states in recognizing what constitutes an antisemitic incident. As a result, Jewish confidence in authorities varies.”

VETERAN WRITER-PUBLICIST Henryk M. Broder has long warned about antisemitism on the German Left. Born in 1946 in Katowice, Poland, to Holocaust survivors, Broder moved to Germany in 1958, and later emerged from liberal-left intellectual circles.

He identified left-wing antisemitism decades ago in his 1986 book, The Eternal Antisemite. He was therefore not surprised when, shortly after Oct. 7, young demonstrators in Berlin chanted, “Free Gaza from German guilt.”

“In Germany, there is a culture of left-wing antisemitism,” stressed Broder. “I wrote about it when it was still an absolute taboo. Ulrike Meinhof and the whole Baader-Meinhof terror group were antisemitic. The terror attack on the Jewish community center in West Berlin in 1969 was carried out by leftist antisemites, as well as the attack on the Jewish elderly house in Munich in 1970. The German leftists were never free from antisemitism.”

Broder contends that modern anti-Zionism often functions not as open hostility toward Jews as such but toward “Zionists,” a distinction he views as largely semantic.

“Jean Amery, the Austrian writer and Holocaust survivor, called it ‘the respectable antisemitism.’ This antisemitism is not directed against the Jews but against Zionists,” Broder said. “Now we all know that this anti-Zionism is a disguise for antisemites. And who is redefining the antisemitism definition? It’s not the right-wing parties. It’s the liberal and left-wing forces, who want to take from us the possibility to call them antisemites. If criticism of Israel is taken out of the definition, then they are not antisemites. They want to cancel the IHRA definition in order to be respectable again.

“Today, the effort is to redefine antisemitism so that criticism of Israel is automatically excluded,” Broder said. “If anti-Zionism is removed from the definition, then those promoting it can claim respectability.”

His views reflect a wider debate now playing out across Germany’s political and cultural landscape.

THE PERSONAL toll of this environment is illustrated by Stefan Hensel, until recently the only Jewish antisemitism commissioner in Germany. Hensel served in Hamburg, one of Germany’s city-states, before stepping down last December. He is now a candidate to replace Felix Klein as the Federal Commissioner for fighting antisemitism.

“One reason I left was the level of hatred I faced,” Hensel said. “Since Oct. 7, I required security protection at public events. I received threats and insults online.”

Hamburg’s Jewish community numbers roughly 3,500 registered members, though estimates suggest as many as 8,000 Jews live in the city. Hensel recounted a particularly disturbing incident that occurred while driving with his child and playing Hebrew children’s music.

“A driver next to me heard the song and began shouting insults,” he recalled. “He followed me and tried to force my car aside. Only the presence of a police vehicle prevented escalation. He told officers that my people should live in constant fear.”

The suspect, a Jordanian national with a prior record, has yet to be convicted.

Hensel said that Hamburg made significant progress during his tenure, such as constitutional amendments and research showing that the true number of antisemitic incidents may be eight to 10 times higher than reported cases.

Yet implementation proved difficult. “There are regular meetings in Hamburg to coordinate boycotts of Israeli academics and scientists,” he said. “Under the IHRA definition, that can constitute antisemitism and contradicts Hamburg’s own strategy. However, violations rarely carry consequences.”

He described a persistent double standard. “When Jewish children are attacked, and we identify it as antisemitic, the response is often ‘No, it is criticism of Israel.’ In other contexts, such reasoning would never be accepted.”

RABBI YEHUDA Teichtal, chairman and chief rabbi of the Chabad community in Berlin, lives under heavy security protection. Having arrived from New York three decades ago, he has played a central role in rebuilding Jewish life in the German capital.

“On the street level, it has become more difficult to be visibly Jewish in Germany since Oct. 7,” Teichtal said. “Communities across the country report growing fear. Sometimes it is objective, sometimes subjective, depending on the neighborhood and how openly one expresses Jewish identity.”

Teichtal himself has faced verbal abuse in public. Authorities uncovered concrete threats against him two years ago, and he now lives under constant police protection.

He emphasized that antisemitism in Germany has multiple sources. “In major cities, the most felt antisemitism often comes from Islamist extremism. In other areas, it may come from the radical Left or the extreme Right.”

At the same time, he cautioned against one-sided conclusions.

“There is also another side to the story,” he said. “Many people in government and civil society genuinely want vibrant Jewish life in Germany, and there is a large middle group that is simply misinformed about the Middle East and influenced by one-sided media coverage.”

DESPITE THE challenges, Jewish life in Berlin continues to grow. Teichtal pointed proudly to Chabad’s new school campus serving 400 students and to the steady flow of newcomers.

“We still see immigration from Israel and from across Europe,” he noted. “After the start of the Ukraine war, we took in 586 Jewish refugees. We operate Europe’s only Jewish refugee home. Families continue to arrive from Russia, the UK, France, and the US.”

His conclusion was cautiously hopeful.

“There is rising antisemitism, yes. But there is also a vibrant and growing Jewish life in Berlin. Jews today are looking for communities where they feel welcome and connected. Our task is to ensure they can live openly and safely.”

Germany is in a unique position, probably because of its history. At the official level, there are serious efforts to battle and quell antisemitism. Unfortunately, the antisemites appear to be moving faster than the efforts of the government.