Growing Anti-Semitism: How Jews in Germany Are Dealing with a Changed Reality
SOURCE:Spiegel International
Life has changed for Jews in Germany since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Netanyahu's vicious war in Gaza has led to rising anti-Semitism and increased fear in the Jewish community. Three members of that community describe what it's like.
An Israeli flag being waved at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
Foto: Michael Kuenne / ZUMA Press / picture alliance
Ben Salomo is standing on the rooftop terrace of the Jewish Campus in Wilmersdorf, a district of Berlin, and looking down at the Chabad community. The perch offers an excellent view of "our little wagon circle,” as Salomo refers to the tightly secured compound made up of a synagogue, a school and a couple of outbuildings. A quarter of an hour before, he escorted two of his three children through the security checkpoint into their classrooms.
Salomo, 47, conceals his kippa beneath a baseball cap and he is wearing a bomber jacket and sneakers. A Berlin Jew and rapper, Salomo grew up among Muslims in the Moabit neighborhood. When the anti-Semitic hostility in the music scene grew too intense for him, though, he backed out. Since then, he has ben visiting schools across Germany to explain to young people what it means to be Jewish.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 41/2025 (October 2nd, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL.
On this morning in September, Salomo is speaking about just how dramatically Jewish life in Germany has changed since the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023. About why Jews are once again hiding their Jewishness, even in cosmopolitan Berlin, which almost 5,000 Israelis call home and where Jewish congregations count around 11,000 members. Or about why many, including an increasing number of his friends, are considering leaving Germany for Israel.
Salomo points to the synagogue across from the school – both structures surrounded by sturdy metal fencing. There are surveillance cameras, a security checkpoint and new bollards in addition to a constant police presence day and night. Salomo then points to a non-Jewish school a couple of buildings down the street – where, he says, "Free Palestine” stickers are handed out and "I love Hamas” is sometimes spraypainted onto the walls, which he and his wife paint over or scratch from the light posts.
Rapper Ben Salomo at the Jewish school run by the Chabad community in Berlin.
Foto: Fiona Ehlers / DER SPIEGEL
On his phone, he shows hateful messages he has received along with screenshots of Instagram comments sent to the Orthodox rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, who founded the "Jewish Community Chabad Berlin” in 2007. They include such missives as "Fuck you and your family tree,” or "We used to make lampshades out of you,” or "Your end is near.”
Salomo catches sight of his son on the athletics field behind the fences and waves. Like all Chabad students, the five-year-old is wearing a kippa and tzitzit, the traditional tassels that hang out of the pants. Being both so visibly Jewish and so carefree is only possible for him at a school like this, says his father. "I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen the difference.”
Hanging on the fence is a poster of the people Hamas took hostage, including five German citizens who may still be alive. In other places – at synagogues, churches and schools – such photos have been removed or ripped down, says Salomo. "No sympathy for us Jews, just hate and disgust. It’s starting again.”
Two years have passed since the Hamas terror attack, during which 1,200 people were murdered in Israel and 251 others were taken hostage. It was the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. But for Jews living in the diaspora, as Jewish historian Rafael Seligmann wrote last year in DER SPIEGEL, it was also "the greatest catastrophe since 1945.” Regardless of whether Jewish people support the war against Hamas or not, "we are being made scapegoats for Israel,” Seligmann recently said.
On the second anniversary of the Hamas attack, three Jewish people living in Germany discuss here how their lives have changed since the massacre: a conservative rapper, an Israeli psychologist named Marina Chernivsky and the Israel-critical musician Michael Barenboim. They describe how they view Israel and Gaza today, whether they feel threatened by the pro-Palestinian protests in Germany, and whether they are considering leaving Germany.
The longer the war in Gaza goes on, says Ben Salomo above the rooftops of Berlin, the more intensely Jews in Germany are being targeted: insulted as warmongers, implicated in demonstrations for the manner in which Netanyahu is waging the war, and blamed for the plight of starving Palestinians.
![The flag of the Palestinian Fatah movement at the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in late September in Berlin.](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/e70e3b67-39e7-437c-90c0-42909399b7a8_w488_r1.5001500150015001_fpx60.65_fpy44.98.jpg "The flag of the Palestinian Fatah movement at the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in late September in Berlin.")
The flag of the Palestinian Fatah movement at the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in late September in Berlin.
Foto: PRESSCOV / Sipa USA / picture alliance
Statistics bear witness to this trend: In the second quarter of 2025 alone, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) recorded significantly more anti-Semitic crimes than during the same time period in 2024, a category that includes incitement, insults and physical assaults. For all of 2024, the BKA recorded 6,236 cases, an increase of more than 20 percent – after the number in 2023 more than doubled relative to the previous year as a consequence of the terror attack.
In contrast to the BKA, the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) also documents incidents that fall below the criminal threshold. As such, the number of cases is far higher – and also shows a drastic increase. For 2024, RIAS counted 8,627 anti-Semitic incidents, an increase of 77 percent over the preceding year. Statistically, that means that in 2024 there were 24 anti-Semitic comments or attacks reported every single day in Germany – almost twice as many as in 2023.
"It is evident that the massacre of October 7 marked the start of a new era,” a RIAS spokesman told DER SPIEGEL. "Jewish life in Germany has become more constrained and Jewish men and women report diminishing empathy and growing isolation.”
RIAS categorizes most of the incidents as "Israel-linked anti-Semitism,” such as the rejection of a Jewish state or the demonization of Israel at protests. Jews are insulted and spit on, monuments are defiled, incendiaries are thrown at synagogues. In February 2024, a university student beat up a Jewish student so badly he had to be taken to the hospital. In February 2025, a Syrian is alleged to have attacked a tourist at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin with a knife. According to the police, the man said that he had developed a plan "to kill Jews.”
With the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7 now upon us and violence in the Middle East ongoing, Germany could become home to yet more attacks. "I am convinced of it,” says Ben Salomo.
“In the last two years, I have made more complaints to the police than I have given autographs."
Ben Salomo
Which is why he documents every anti-Jewish sticker he sees and reports to the police every death threat he and his family receive. "In the last two years, I have made more complaints to the police than I have given autographs.”
He sees his visits to German schools as a Jewish rapper as a fight against ignorance, prejudice and fear. He seeks to counter the "pro-Hamas Tik Tok narratives” students consume on their smartphones – and to do so in a language that young people understand. He receives requests from across the country, with his project provided with financial support from a number of sources, including the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which has ties to the business-friendly FDP party. Usually, says Salomo, he is the first Jew the schoolchildren have ever encountered – "live, in color and rather provocative.” He has written about his experiences in a new book appearing this month.
During his appearances, he raps a verse from a song that he released after October 7 and dedicated to the hostages:
"Germany, you know we have to do some work,
for in your mind, certain patterns lurk.
You claim history does not come back,
I say: It rhymes, if you don’t break with your granddad.”
During his visits, he asks teens a number of questions, such as: Who has ever heard before that Jews don’t have to pay taxes, that they control the media, that they are wealthy? Those who say yes are asked to stand on their chair. "By the end, most are standing,” says Salomo. The exercise, he believes, gives them a good understanding of how anti-Semitism works. Or he tells them about the security measures taken at his son’s school and asks whether they, as Christians or Muslims, are familiar with such things. "And then I see how they shake their heads, and I know that my message has hit home.”
![Participants in the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in Berlin on September 27.](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/30f36112-84c1-4afb-87f1-72ea72ca2665_w488_r1.502982107355865_fpx43.24_fpy44.99.jpg "Participants in the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in Berlin on September 27.")
Participants in the "All Eyes on Gaza" demonstration in Berlin on September 27.
Foto: Olaf Schülke / SZ Photo / picture alliance
Almost always, a discussion develops in the classrooms about the situation in the Middle East – it’s unavoidable, he says. Salomo believes there is no alternative to the war. He vehemently objects when students compare Israel to Nazi Germany or Netanyahu with Hitler. That, he says, is pure hatred of Jews and is not the basis for discussion. He tells them that the protest slogan "Free Palestine” means the same thing to him as "Destroy the Jews” and that the kufiyah, the Palestinian scarf that rap stars often wear, is anything but a harmless fashion accessory. Rather, he says, it is "terrorist dress code.” Students, he says, are often shocked when he says such things – just as he is about their lack of interest and their ignorance of the Holocaust.
Salomo says he has become more devout since the attack on Israel. He celebrates the Sabbath with his family and maintains a kosher diet. His Jewish identity now provides him with more of a sense of grounding than it used to. Emigration is not something he is currently considering – "because honestly, I want to stay.”
The Counseling Center for Anti-Semitic Violence and Discrimination (OFEK) is located in eastern Berlin. There is no sign on the door, and, for security reasons, the physical address is not public knowledge. Marina Chernivsky is both the head and the founder of the center. A psychologist born in the Ukrainian city of Lviv and raised in Israel, she came to Berlin 25 years ago for her university studies. She is a slight woman in her late 40s with long, dark curls and a passion for dancing tango.
OFEK founder Marina Chernivsky.
Foto: IPON / IMAGO
On this particular day, a television team is with Chernivsky at the counseling center, asking for her comment on an incident that made headlines in mid-September. In Flensburg, a shop owner hung a sign in his front window reading: "JEWS are not welcome here!!!! Nothing personal, it’s also not anti-Semitism, I just can’t stand you.” Chernivsky’s comment is a depressing observation: "Anti-Semitism has never stopped existing. It has always been there.”
Together with social scientist Friederike Lorenz-Sinai, Chernivsky is currently studying the effects that October 7 has had on Jews and Israelis in Germany. The preliminary results of their study, which involves 111 participants, show how "deeply shaken” Jews in Germany are. They have had to confront "two-fold violence: the terror and war in Israel and Gaza in addition to the anti-Semitic mobilization and threat here in this country.”
Her team collects experiences from people who feel persecuted or attacked – at work, by neighbors or on the street. People who have found swastikas daubed on their doorbells – or the Star of David, as an indicator that a Jew lives there. Immediately following October 7, 2023, the number of people approaching OFEK for counseling spiked, and two years later, it remains high. OFEK often directs people to the appropriate authorities who, as in the Flensburg case, investigate cases of hate speech or other criminal offenses.
Jews as a collective are being blamed for Israel’s war policies, “even in the course of daily activities like in the taxi, at the swimming pool or at the doctor."
Marina Chernivsky, head of the counseling center OFEK
"There is a climate of uncertainty,” says Chernivsky. Jews are experiencing very little support. After October 7, the question has been asked over and over again: "Why isn’t the non-Jewish majority saying anything?” Like Ben Salomo, Marina Chernivsky also says that Jews as a collective are being blamed for Israel’s war policies, "even in the course of daily activities like in the taxi, at the swimming pool or at the doctor.” One consequence, she says, is that many are trying to hide their Jewishness.
Chernivsky says the Jewish community has also been gripped by an "anticipation of a possible catastrophe,” the feeling that additional attacks could take place at any time, even here in Germany. The current climate has even led some to feel transported back to the era their forebears endured during the Shoah. Chernivsky describes it as "trauma passed down through generations.” That which Jews thought had passed into history and was no longer possible, she says, happened again on October 7, 2023, "as a continuation of previous persecution and injustice.”
Marina Chernivsky has also written a personal-literary book on this issue, released in September by the S. Fischer Verlag publishing company.
"Will we know when it is too late?” is a question many Jews are currently asking themselves, Chernivsky says. They want to know if they still have a future in Germany, or if it is time to go.
Two weekends ago, a demonstration took place in Berlin called "All Eyes on Gaza – Stop the Genocide.” It was the largest such protest yet, with around 60,000 people taking to the streets to condemn the attacks of the Israeli army. The mood was largely peaceful. And when it ended, a Berlin Jew was standing on stage for the rally at the Victory Column: Michael Barenboim. He held a furious speech, saying: "Israel’s genocide is an attempt to destroy Palestine’s past, present and future.” And he laid some of the blame on Germany.
Barenboim is a musician, a professor of violin and the concertmaster of the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, in which Israelis and Arabs perform together. A few days before the rally, he was sitting in the lobby of a hotel in central Berlin. In his suitcoat, vest and loafers, he doesn’t much look like a pro-Palestinian activist, and he is likely one of the few 40-year-olds out there who smokes a pipe.
Musician Michael Barenboim at a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin.
Foto: Stefan Boness / IPON
Barenboim was born in France and came to Germany at the age of seven. Both of his parents are Jewish, and he says that Jewishness is part of his identity, though he isn’t observant. His father is the great conductor Daniel Barenboim, who was the music director of the Berlin State Opera until 2023.
Michael Barenboim says he feels no great connection to the nation of Israel. He has been there a number of times, to be sure, "but I’ve also been to a lot of other countries.” He says the idea of seeing Israel as a kind of life insurance policy, as other Jews in Germany do, is "absurd.” He refuses to consider Israel as a safe place, he says, if the price is the extermination of the Palestinians.
. “There are lots of white, blond, blue-eyed anti-Semites in Germany. Who is talking about them?"
Michael Barenboim
"Nobody blamed the Tutsi for the genocide in Rwanda, of which they were the victims. Or the Bosniaks in Srebrenica,” says Barenboim. "But the Palestinians always supposedly share responsibility for what happens in Gaza.” Barenboim’s view is: When it comes to the genocide in Gaza, the fact that Hamas fighters killed Israelis and took hostages on October 7 has no bearing, because the obligation to prevent and punish genocide is absolute.
Such views are well-received at pro-Palestinian rallies, but they have also made Barenboim plenty of enemies. As soon as he gives an interview, the hate mail comes pouring in. He is insulted for allegedly being a self-hating Jew, or is branded a Hamas supporter who is fanning the flames of anti-Semitism with his activism. Do such accusations bother him? "I don’t take them seriously,” he says.
He says he is fully aware of the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, but he finds it frustrating when, for example, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as he did at the reopening of the synagogue in Munich, speaks of people from countries "where anti-Semitism is essentially state doctrine and hatred of Israel is taught to children in school.” Barenboim believes this debate is being used to stir up hostility against Muslim migrants. "There are lots of white, blond, blue-eyed anti-Semites in Germany. Who is talking about them?”
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His involvement is multifaceted. With his musician collective "Make Freedom Ring,” Barenboim organizes benefit concerts for Gaza. He and the Palestinian violinist Tyme Khleifi also hold a monthly discussion series called "Kilmé,” which features Palestinian intellectuals. They sometimes talk about poetry, at others the focus is on history or philosophy. "The largest Palestinian community in Europe lives in Berlin, but hardly anyone knows that.”
At the meeting in the hotel lobby, Barenboim says he is most depressed by the fact that the genocide isn’t being stopped. And that there are perhaps music festivals to which he will no longer be invited because of his political activities. Still, he insists, he doesn’t want to complain, he insists. "We are complicit in Gaza if we do nothing. I am doing my part as an artist.”
On October 7, the second anniversary of the largest massacre of Jews since the Shoah, the secular Jew Michael Barenboim plans to be in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, for rehearsals ahead of a violin concert there with the national symphony orchestra.
Psychologist Marina Chernivsky will be celebrating the first day of Sukkot on that day, a festival involving wooden huts that recalls the exodus of Jews from Egyptian slavery. She plans to build a hut with her children on the balcony, in which they will eat, sing and look at the stars. The view to the skies symbolizes a God that protects us better than any home made out of stone.
Rapper Ben Salomo will also be spending the day in a hut with friends and family. Hoping that the next time October 7 rolls around, he will be able to celebrate the release of the hostages and victory over Hamas.
