Millions in German funds to fight antisemitism went to unvetted groups, probe says

JTA — Germany’s leading party is being investigated in Berlin for funneling millions to groups that proposed fighting antisemitism but lacked transparency about their use of the funds, including one group whose director has been accused of antisemitic language herself.

The Berlin branch of the Christian Democratic Union, the center-right party leading the federal government, is being probed by a parliamentary committee for allegedly improperly allocating 2.6 million euros (about $3 million) to combat antisemitism. The party, the committee alleges, did not vet the groups adequately or monitor their spending.

The government allocated special funds toward fighting antisemitism at the end of 2023, shortly after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that spurred a spike in antisemitic incidents in many places.

Among the grants triggering concern was 390,000 euros (about $450,000) to the Zera Institute, founded in December 2024 by an Iranian-German music producer named Maral Salmassi. She has been accused of posting antisemitic rhetoric online.

In a post on X from February 2025, Salmassi said the Jewish billionaire George Soros “is and always has been a parasite.” Nazi-era propaganda frequently depicted Jews as parasites. Since the comment was resurfaced by Die Tageszeitung, Salmassi has deleted it and expressed regret.

Daniel Eliasson, a local Green Party politician, called the post a “clearly antisemitic statement” to a local newspaper. “As a Jew, I find it nothing short of a mockery that the Berlin CDU is providing this person with 390,000 euros (about $450,000) to fight antisemitism,” he said.

Berlin’s antisemitism commissioner, Sigmount Königsberg, resigned from the expert council of the Zera Institute after the post came to light.

Salmassi has also referred to philosopher Omri Boehm, journalist Peter Beinart, and scholars Amos Goldberg and Raz Segal — all staunch critics of Israel — as “token Jews.”

Salmassi is a CDU member who sits on a local board of the party. Several other funding recipients have been discovered to have ties to the party, and some have no verifiable experience in combating antisemitism, according to Stern magazine. They include a real estate company and other recently founded groups.

Staffers from the CDU’s Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, which was responsible for awarding the grants, testified at a parliamentary inquiry hearing on Friday. The investigation, initiated by the Left Party and the Greens, will determine whether funding was disbursed based on unclear criteria and cronyism.

During Friday’s hearing, one witness said “the expertise and the resources were lacking” for their department to handle the large sum of funds allocated in the wake of Oct. 7, according to Berliner Morgenpost. The next hearing is scheduled for Friday.

When Der Tagesspiegel contacted 12 organizations that received funding to implement projects in the 2025 fiscal year, only three gave answers about how they used or planned to use the funds. One of these projects organized an exhibition about Israel’s Nova music festival, a target of the Hamas attacks. Another group organized concerts, workshops, and exhibitions to combat antisemitism in the music scene, and a third supported Israeli artists in Berlin.

Uffa Jensen, deputy director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Berlin Institute of Technology, told Der Tagesspiegel that he was skeptical about where the 2.6 million euros (about $3 million) would end up.

“Based on the selection of the funded projects, I have doubts as to whether it is effective or whether it will achieve the goals that the funds were intended to pursue,” said Jensen.