German antisemitism czar says country facing ‘tsunami’ of Jew hatred since Oct. 7
Felix Klein warns ‘open and aggressive antisemitism’ is ‘stronger than at any time since 1945,’ says ‘under no circumstances’ should Jews be blamed for events in Mideast
BERLIN — Germany has faced a “tsunami of antisemitism” since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, according to the government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Jewish hatred.
Felix Klein told AFP that “open and aggressive antisemitism in all its forms” was “stronger than at any time since 1945,” both in Germany and worldwide.
Klein said that “since October 7 we have experienced a tsunami of antisemitism” and that the Hamas attack had led to “further breaches in the existing defenses in our society” against such prejudice.
The surge pointed to a “worrying absurdity” as the October 7 attack had killed “more Jews than at any point since the Holocaust,” said Klein, the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism.
He noted that in the crime statistics for 2023 there were around 5,000 antisemitic incidents, of which “half were committed after October 7.”
Klein told AFP that alongside “classic German antisemitism of a right-wing kind,” it was also on the rise in left-wing and Islamist milieus and “alliances between different currents.”
During the Hamas-led October 7 attack, Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages while committing brutal atrocities, starting the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Social ‘poison’
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 348.
Germany, influenced by its own World War II history when millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis, has steadfastly backed Israel and its right of self-defense following the October 7 attack.
However it has also pushed for a ceasefire in Gaza and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to abide by international law. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Klein called on civil society “under no circumstances to allow Jews to be made responsible for what is happening in the Middle East.”
Antisemitism was a “poison for social cohesion,” he said.
However Klein maintained that Germany was “well-equipped” to deal with antisemitism compared to other countries, pointing to institutional changes which were now “bearing fruit.”
These included the creation of antisemitism commissioners in all of Germany’s federal regions and “more awareness” of the issue among police and prosecutors.
Klein said there had been no noticeable trend of Jewish people leaving Germany over the past year and that surveys had shown that German security services were trusted.
He cautioned that security for the Jewish community was the “prerequisite for its visibility” and that Jewish life in Germany was “under greater pressure than at any time since the foundation of the Federal Republic” in the years after World War II.
Klein called for more action on antisemitism prevention in German schools to combat what he called a “massive deterioration in discourse,” as well more transparency from judicial authorities about the number of investigations into antisemitic offenses.
He warned that antisemitism programs “must not be cut,” in an allusion to government negotiations over next year’s federal budget.
The Times of Israel Community.