From the Liveblog of
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Scholz vows to protect Germany’s Jews amid rising antisemitism: ‘Never again’ is now
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Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledges to protect Germany’s Jews against a “shameful” upsurge in antisemitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Speaking in a Berlin synagogue that assailants targeted with two Molotov cocktails last month, Scholz says: “Essentially this is about keeping the promise given again and again in the decades since 1945…the promise ‘never again.'”
The German leader was speaking on the 85th anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass or Kristallnacht, a spasm of orchestrated violence that ushered in the Nazi’s slaughter of six million European Jews during World War II.
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi thugs murdered at least 90 Jews, torched 1,400 synagogues across Germany and Austria and destroyed Jewish-owned shops and businesses.
Since the devastating Hamas attack on October 7, some 2,000 antisemitic incidents linked to the war have been reported so far in Germany, federal police say. Authorities have boosted security around Jewish institutions.
In October two men hurled Molotov cocktails at the Beth Zion synagogue in Berlin. No one was hurt, but the attack left many Jews in the capital rattled.
Rallies on German streets have in some cases seen far-right and far-left extremists chanting anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans and sparked clashes with police.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.