Anti-antisemitism in Germany

Anti-antisemitism in Germany is the German state's institutionalised opposition to antisemitism, in acknowledgement of German history and the murder of some six million Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust. Anti-antisemitism has been described as "a defining marker of post-war German identity" and a commitment to supporting Israel is considered a "Staatsräson", a fundamental principle guiding the German state's actions. Following the 2015 European migrant crisis, the German federal government and most of Germany's states set up commissioners for fighting antisemitism. Controversially, the German government officially classifies the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, the accusation that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, and the depiction of Israel as a colonial or settler-colonial entity as antisemitic.

Creation of antisemitism commissioners

In the wake of the 2015 European migrant crisis, German institutions created full-time or part-time positions for fighting antisemitism. The German Parliament decided to establish the office of "Commissioner of the Government for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism" in January 2018; in addition, 15 of the 16 federal states (Bundesländer) had appointed their own antisemitism commissioners by 2024, with five of these states having additional commissioners in their chief public prosecutors' offices. The commissioners are non-Jews who work in concert with German Jewish organizations and the German-Israeli Society.

According to Germany's Federal Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, Felix Klein, the reason for the creation of these positions was the large influx of immigrants and refugees from the Middle East, thought to harbour anti-Jewish sentiments. German antisemitism commissioners frequently speak of an "imported" antisemitism. While only a small fraction of antisemitic incidents (1 percent in 2021) are classified as Islamic, and there is no apparent correlation between immigration and violent antisemitic attacks (committed almost entirely by far-right ethnic Germans), the vast majority of the discourse revolves around racialized minority groups and those intellectuals who stand in solidarity with them. Judith Gruber writes that the belief that Germany has successfully confronted The Holocaust enables the projection of antisemitism onto the outside world, especially to Muslim immigrants—a subtle form of Islamophobia that coexists with the vehement rejection of antisemitism.

Although hate-motivated violence against asylum seekers, Muslim Germans, and refugee aid workers occurs much more frequently, no equivalent institution was created on behalf of Muslim victims of hate crimes. The antisemitism commissioners were controversial from their outset and continuously over the first five years of their operation.

Ideology

Both the call to boycott Israel and the characterization of Israeli apartheid are labeled as antisemitism in Germany

German discourse on antisemitism is premised on it being eliminationist and irrational.

In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, German anti-antisemitism has involved the infusion of new tropes into German public discourse, with a focus on "post-colonial antisemitism", "Israel-related antisemitism" and "hatred of Israel", creating a semantic link between antisemitism—hatred of Jews—and anti-Zionism. It is used to insinuate that solidarity with Palestinians, which is particularly widespread in the global south, is due to hatred of Jews rather than the expression of a legitimate political view of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the aim being to prevent postcolonial academics as well as the German art and museum scenes from fostering the spread of such views. Major public debates surrounded the invitation—and subsequent disinvitation due to political pressure from Commissioner Klein—of postcolonial Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe to the 2020 Ruhtriennale festival and the invitation of a Palestinian art collective to the Documenta 15 art exhibition in 2022.

Particular points in the German debate include the controversial characterization as antisemitism, and consequent rejection, of the following:

• the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement,
• the accusation that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, and
• the depiction of Israel as a colonial or settler-colonial entity.

In 2019, the Bundestag passed a resolution declaring Germany's "unique historical responsibility", which entailed prioritizing "the fight against antisemitism and a commitment to Israel’s security" as part of Germany's Staatsräson. The resolution also declared the BDS movement antisemitic and compared it to the 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. This comparison—and belief that BDS is "nothing less than the start of a road to another Holocaust"—is prevalent in German discourse. However, this comparison has been described as "highly questionable, if not pure demagogy" by peace researcher Gert Krell, who highlights the difference between objecting to a military occupation versus targeting a powerless minority in a totalitarian state. In 2024, Germany labeled BDS an extremist organization—despite its commitment to non-violence. Although the ability to block BDS is limited by protections on freedom of expression, the anti-BDS efforts have had a significant effect.

The German position is that the apartheid allegation is "demonization of the Jewish State of Israel"; therefore, slogans and stickers such as "no pride in apartheid" have been registered as antisemitic incidents. In contrast, the International Court of Justice stated in its 2024 advisory opinion on the "Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem" that Israel had violated Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which contains the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid.

The Staatsräson ideology has come to be supported by all major political parties in German, including the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

Deplatforming and arrest of Jews

Numerous Jewish speakers—including Nancy Fraser and Masha Gessen—have been deplatformed in Germany due to criticism of the Israeli state deemed beyond the bounds of German public discourse, while other Jewish activists—including Adam Broomberg and many other members of the anti-Zionist group Jüdische Stimme (Jewish Voice)—have been arrested at pro-Palestinian protests. Jüdische Stimme also had its bank accounts repeatedly frozen amid accusations that it supports BDS and "demonizes and delegitimizes the Israeli state in particular".

Eyal Weizman, the founder of Forensic Architecture, said that it was ironic that he and other Jews were "being lectured by the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators who murdered our families and who now dare to tell us that we are antisemitic". Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham similarly said, "To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire—and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger." A group of Jewish-Israeli students in Berlin working on an art project titled "Unlearning Zionism" had its funding withdrawn and was accused of antisemitism—"How can we and our work be placed in an intimate connection with the ideology of Nazis?" asked Yehudit Yinhar, a member of the group, whose grandmother fled Berlin in 1938. According to researcher Emily Dische-Becker, nearly a third of the people cancelled over antisemitism allegations in recent years have been Jews.

Reception

Pro-Palestinian protestors in Frankfurt, 2024. The banner states, "Stop the criminalization of the Palestinian resistance and Palestine solidarity". In the background: "Israel kills, America supports, Germany finances, Palestine suffers".

The approach has led to complaints about a type of McCarthyism from German and international scholars, artists, writers and intellectuals. Critics of the commissioners argue that they rely heavily on reporting from pro-Israeli NGOs, who investigate the backgrounds of invited speakers in order to find material that can be used in an attempt to cancel them. In 2023, more than 400 scholars, among them Judith Butler and Noam Chomsky, published an open letter “opposing ideological or political interference and litmus tests in Germany." Several dozen prominent Jewish academics signed another open letter critical of commissioner Klein. Philosopher Susan Neiman noted that Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein would not be able to lecture at publicly funded institutions in present-day Germany, given that both had signed an open letter in 1948 calling Israeli violence "fascist"—a statement that today would fall under the IHRA definition of antisemitism used by the German state and adopted by German universities in late 2019.

Hannah C. Tzuberi argues that in Germany, anti-antisemitism can go beyond the identification of Germans with Jews because it can even include the identification of Germans as Jews and the identification of Germany as Israel.

In 2024, the Conference of European Rabbis awarded Federal Commissioner Klein the Moshe Rosen Prize for his work.

Further reading

• Hermsmeier, Lukas (2023-12-06). "Opinion | How Germany Became Mean". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2023-12-13. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
• Michaels, Ralf (2023-11-22). "#Staatsräson. Zum Gebrauch des Begriffs nach dem 7. Oktober". Geschichte der Gegenwart (in German). Retrieved 2024-08-27.
• Neiman, Susan (2023-11-03). "Germany on Edge". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2023-11-09. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
• Schwab, Manuel (2023-12-17). "Germany pledged 'never again.' Here's how it's grappling with Israel's bombing of Gaza". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
• Solomon, Erika (2023-11-10). "Germany's Stifling of Pro-Palestinian Voices Pits Historical Guilt Against Free Speech". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2023-11-30. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
• Veracini, Lorenzo (2024). "Germany's anti-antisemitic complex and the question of settler colonialism". Settler Colonial Studies: 1–18. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2024.2397261.
• Younes, Anna; Al-Taher, Hanna (2024). "Erasing Palestine in Germany's Educational System: The Racial Frontiers of Liberal Freedom". Middle East Critique: 1–21. doi:10.1080/19436149.2024.2383444.