Levi Salomon is worried. For more than 25 years, he has been tracking signs of anti-Semitism during demonstrations in Berlin. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, “there are almost no more taboos,” he is alarmed.
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“October 7 marks a turning point” in “the dimension” of hateful behavior towards Jews in Germany, judges AFP this Muscovite who arrived in the capital in 1991, during the reunification of the country, to escape, he says, from “state anti-Semitism” which then reigned in Russia.
That day, the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, launched a bloody attack in Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians, mowed down by bullets, burned alive or dead from mutilations.
Shortly after in Berlin, “people distributed sweets to express their joy following these brutal murders”, in the Neukölln district with a large population of Arab and Turkish origin, he recalls.
“I’ve never seen that before,” he breathes, obviously shocked.
AFP
He said he also observed a sharp increase in calls for the destruction of Israel, conveyed in particular by the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
This 65-year-old man began in 1997 to identify forms of anti-Semitism in Berlin, then created in 2008 the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism, an association which documents and analyzes them.
Demonstrations, from the extremes of the right and left, or pro-Palestinian, are an area where differences are frequent.
“Indoctrinated” children
The violence of certain pro-Palestinian rallies also hit him.
In Berlin, a city with the largest urban Palestinian diaspora in Europe, barricades burned, police officers were injured by stone throwing, and dozens of participants arrested.
Yet another dimension: the high number of young people or schoolchildren protesting in the streets.
He remembers a sentence that children said to him in 2004, during research undertaken on Islamist anti-Semitism. “Knife planted, knife withdrawn, knife red, the Jew is dead,” he says.
“Today, these children have become adults.” And children “continue to be indoctrinated,” he believes.
One Saturday in early November in Berlin, he came, equipped with his camera and his bulletproof vest, to follow a parade in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, victims of the massive bombings that Israel carried out in retaliation for the attack on Hamas.
He says he has been attacked several times in the past. But this time the atmosphere is quite serene, many came with their families.
Many very young children sing “Free Palestine”.
Levi Salomon says he considers it entirely legitimate to demonstrate against the dramatic situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, where, according to Hamas, nearly 10,000 people, mainly civilians, were killed by bombs.
“But I had a slight hope of seeing somewhere a placard or a sign condemning Hamas,” he said.
A disappointed hope that day. “They just cursed Israel,” he notes.
Return of fear
All of Europe has been affected by a resurgence of anti-Semitic acts over the past month. The European Commission denounced a situation where “the Jews of Europe are once again living in fear”.
But in Germany, due to the Shoah, this situation worries even more, including the government which, through the voice of its vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has just launched a vibrant appeal, much noticed, to call for a fight against anti-Semitism in the country, including that emanating from the far left and some Muslims.
Germany has long considered its work of atonement for its genocidal past as exemplary, which has led to a certain complacency, judged Tuesday Felix Klein, government commissioner responsible for the fight against anti-Semitism.
“A large part of the population believed itself to be immune to anti-Semitism,” he said.
The director of German domestic intelligence Thomas Haldenwang even warned against the return of the “darkest hours in national history”.
The federal police announced that they had counted some 2,000 crimes linked to the war in the Middle East. In France, purely anti-Semitic acts have exceeded a thousand.
In this context, Thursday’s commemoration of the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a pogrom against the Jews of the Third Reich which took place on the night of November 9 to 10, 1938, will be of particular importance.
Head of State Frank-Walter Steinmeier as well as Chancellor Olaf Scholz are due to speak.