‘Not the life I wish for us’: In Berlin, ‘afraid to be visibly Jewish or talk Hebrew’
A German-Israeli and her family scrap plans for their life in the German capital and gear up to move to Israel, as Hamas war spurs hatred on the street against Jews and Israelis
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel.
October 6 was a beautiful day for German-Israeli Sarah Cohen-Fantl. Together with her husband, an Israeli chef from Jerusalem, Sarah was taking measurements in their new house in Berlin. On the same day, they were also checking out premises that they were about to rent to open a kosher Israeli restaurant in the city.
A day later on October 7, Sarah said, she and her family got a call from her mother-in-law who lives in Jerusalem, which she described as unusually early on a Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. They turned on the news and soon realized that this was not just another terror attack.
Some 3,000 Hamas terrorists had burst into Israel from Gaza by land, air and sea, sweeping through communities on the southern border, brutally killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, including babies, children and the elderly. Many were murdered in their homes, hundreds were massacred at an outdoor music festival and some 240 of all ages were taken hostages, all under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
In response, Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, launching a campaign that has left swaths of the Strip in ruins and thousands of people dead according to unverified Palestinian claims. The toll has drawn international criticism and pressure on Israel along with a rise in antisemitic incidents around the world.
Sarah recalled that for a very few days following the Hamas-led onslaught, there was some solidarity with Israel on Berlin’s streets. But once the army responded with large-scale airstrikes on Hamas targets, the sentiment changed — and with it their plans to build a life in Germany. The ongoing war with the Hamas terror group has amplified a spate of increasingly violent pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the streets of Berlin.
Born and raised in Germany, Sarah moved back to Berlin last year with her Israeli husband and their two small kids, after living in Israel for five years. In 2021, Sarah, along with many Israelis, was running for shelter as Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at cities and towns throughout Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls. Now she is seeking shelter for herself and her family from the rising antisemitism and hatred against Israelis in Germany.
“Within a few days, we [my husband and I] looked at each other and there was not a big conversation needed: We decided that we will not move to the new house, which was built by a Jew in the end of the 1920s who had to run from the Nazis and that we were actually hoping to fill with Jewish life,” said Sarah. “We explained it to the people and thankfully they were very nice and understanding and let us out of the contract.”
“We also canceled the plans for the restaurant,” she said.
Sarah and her family live about 700 meters away from Sonnenallee, a boulevard lined with chicken and kebab restaurants in Neukölln, a neighborhood in the southeast of Berlin that is home to many Middle Eastern immigrants. Since the outbreak of the war, the boulevard has turned into a battleground where the Hamas-Israel conflict has been playing out with regular, often violent, pro-Palestinian demonstrations and Gaza solidarity rallies bringing thousands of activists to the area chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “Stop genocide,” and other anti-Israel slogans that glorify violence or terror.
“We are not far away from the hotspot that reminds me of Ramallah. Every window is flagged with the Palestinian flag. Many Arabs live there,” said Sarah.
“The other day, I talked to my son on the street in Hebrew and an Israeli turned around and looked at me and said: ‘Listen, I live at Sonnenallee with my wife and our little daughter, and we are really afraid. Can we maybe exchange numbers,’ so that in case they need help, that they have someone around they can call,” Sarah recounted. “In a sense, we felt really connected, a feeling that even outside, Israelis are holding on to each other.”
“But on the other hand, it was frightening, that a stranger asked to exchange numbers because he’s afraid for his life – that’s crazy!” she exclaimed.
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Sarah recalled that even before the current conflict, pro-Palestinian activists at rallies in Berlin were heard chanting “Gas the Jews” or calling for the destruction of Israel — criminal offenses under Germany’s strict post-World War II hate speech laws.
But in recent weeks tensions in Berlin and in other German cities have started to escalate. Pro-Palestinian protests have been held across major German cities despite widespread bans on such rallies that could degenerate to antisemitic incitement. Pro-Palestinian activists have been clashing with local police, hurling stones and pyrotechnics and injuring officers.
A Berlin synagogue was attacked with Molotov cocktails in October and several homes have been marked with the sign of the Star of David in German cities. In response, local police have fortified security at Jewish institutions and houses of worship.
“In the past, the police didn’t do anything about these hate speech incidents. Now we do see a lot of support from German political leaders, but that’s just words and not much action. And although the police are stepping in, they are fighting a problem that was there before and I am not sure they know how to handle the situation,” said Sarah. “There are not enough police forces, as in Berlin alone there are about 100 Jewish institutions and places such as restaurants, cafes, and schools that need more protection now.”
In the first 34 days after the start of the war with Hamas, cases of antisemitic incidents in Germany increased by a staggering 320 percent compared to the same period in 2022, according to RIAS, a federal agency tracking antisemitism in Germany. The group recorded 994 antisemitic incidents between October 7 and November 9, 2023, which is an average of 29 cases per day. During the period, about one in five incidents, or 21%, was attributed to anti-Israeli activism.
A breakdown of the antisemitic incidents listed three cases of extreme violence, 29 assaults, 72 cases of targeted damage to property, 32 threats, four mass mailings and 854 cases of offensive behavior, according to the antisemitism watchdog.
“It is just painful to see that the country I grew up in is constantly failing after all these decades,” Sarah lamented.
With the rise in antisemitic incidents, many Jews and Israelis in Germany are hiding visible signs of their identity in public spaces, by covering their kippah with a cap, tucking their Star of David pendant away, and refraining from speaking Hebrew on the street, according to the RIAS report. In the first few days after the October 7 atrocities, some Israeli restaurants remained closed and Jewish children were not sent to daycare centers and schools as a precaution.
“We are afraid to go outside visibly Jewish, we are afraid to talk Hebrew – this is not the life I wish for us,” said Sarah. “What is it worth living in a country where people make your children ashamed or afraid to say who they are, what they believe in and where they come from.”
“I just don’t want to raise my children in that kind of feeling. And in Israel, I know they can be proud and can be open and can be free about themselves,” she added.
Not all expat Israelis plan to leave Germany, of course.
Gal Cohen, an Israeli who moved to Berlin seven years ago, appears unfazed by the rise in antisemitic incidents in the capital. Cohen and his Israeli wife live in Berlin’s southwestern district Steglitz with their three kids, aged two, four and seven.
“Like many Israelis here, we are friends with German and Turkish people and we haven’t experienced antisemitic agitation since the start of the war, ” said Cohen. “Our kids go to school here, they speak both Hebrew and German, and if we felt that there was an issue with speaking Hebrew then we are in the wrong place.”
“Much of what is happening is concentrated in the Neukölln neighbourhood as there are many immigrants there from Syria, but that is not the mainstream,” he asserted.
Talking to Israelis in the Jewish community in Berlin, Sarah says many mothers are asking the same question: “Where is a safe place to live? Where can we go and live safely?”
“There are Israeli families that have kids in kindergarten with us and they say they are going to move back, as Israel is the only place — their home — and they talk about the need to go back to strengthen the country and to be united,” said Sarah. “But there are also Jewish people who are not Israelis, who say they love Israel, but they are German, or from other countries in Europe, and they built their life here and they are not leaving, and won’t be scared off – and that’s okay.”
Earlier this month, Israel issued severe travel warnings urging citizens to reconsider nonessential travel to dozens of countries, including Germany, and to avoid outward displays of their Jewish and Israeli identities if they do travel, amid rising antisemitism around the world due to the war.
“I don’t see a future here. And I wish for everybody who wants to stay here, that they have a good life,” said Sarah. “But I have the feeling at the end, we will all meet in Israel.”
