By Gunnar Schupelius
After the massacres in Israel, Jewish life in Berlin changed dramatically. We can’t accept that under any circumstances, says Gunnar Schupelius.
Memory is short-lived. It almost seems as if we have already forgotten the incredible hatred against Israel and the Jews that erupted on the streets of Neukölln after October 7th. People tend to suppress and forget what is frightening.
But anyone who is Jewish cannot forget it; the images are burned into their minds: Yes, in our city the massacres were cheered, it was celebrated that Arab men from the Gaza Strip randomly attacked people in the south of Israel to torture and murder them. Whoever celebrates this can also become a murderer?
Nothing is the same for the Jews in Berlin. They retreat, they make themselves invisible. One of my neighbors who attended a Jewish event didn’t dare tell the taxi driver who asked him about it. He was afraid of the driver who knew his address where he picked him up.
The Jewish community in Berlin invites members with “big, big birthdays” to a celebration, with shortened names on the invitation on the Internet. “Due to the current anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incidents (…) we have decided to only print the names of our birthday and bar/bat mitzvah children with abbreviated last names at the moment in order to not potentially endanger anyone,” writes Jewish community.
The community newspaper is now sent in a neutral envelope, like the “Jüdische Allgemeine”, which also comes without a return address. If the envelopes are in the mailbox, the neighbors shouldn’t be able to tell that Jews live in the house.
For the same reason the “mesuzah” disappears from the doors. This is a small capsule with a scroll that observant Jews touch when entering the apartment. And Berliners who have a classic Jewish name remove it from their doorbell, I was also told this first hand.
Years ago we asked the question whether you could move around unmolested in neighborhoods where Turks and Arabs live with a Star of David. Now this question is superfluous, no one dares to do it anymore. Believing Jews who go to the synagogue on Fraenkelufer in Kreuzberg on Shabbat are already afraid on the way there.
Some Jews no longer feel safe even in their own apartment. A Berlin woman told me that the parcel delivery person identified her as a Jew, who then insulted her and threw the parcel at her feet.
A total of 159 Jewish institutions in Berlin have to be heavily guarded by the police, around the clock. Of a total of 1,500 police property guards, 650 – almost half – are only busy defending synagogues and Jewish schools and kindergartens. I saw security guards from the criminal police surrounding a Jewish doctor who was being threatened with death.
And while that is the case, the hatred continues to be stoked, on the streets and on social media. There is lying and agitation that the bars are bending on all channels, from Tik Tok to Instagram. Anti-Semitism is an old mental illness. She broke out again.
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