Jewish leader in Germany warns of normalization of anti-Semitism

There is a dangerous level of habituation of the current very high level of anti-Semitism in Germany, the president of the Central Council of Jews told dpa in an interview published on Sunday.

"These are untenable conditions," Josef Schuster said in the interview following the terror attack in Australia on December 14, in which two men shot dead 15 people, most of whom were Jewish.

Even though the situation in Gaza has been relatively calm, following the October tentative ceasefire, there has not been an ease in anti-Semitism, Schuster said.

"That is not the case," he told dpa. Instead "anti-Semitism in Germany has surged explosively" since the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 and resulted in around 250 taken hostage to Gaza. Israel then launched a massive attack against Gaza resulting in some 70,000 killed and mass condemnation.

Warns against getting used to anti-Semitism

Schuster noted that data shows that anti-Semitism is consolidating "at a high, far too high, level. Much worse, my feeling is that our society is experiencing a habituation and normalization effect regarding anti-Semitism. That must not happen."

Schuster emphasized that for Jews and Palestinians to coexist, a dialogue is needed, but stressed that basic conditions must be met for that to hapen.

"Israel's right to exist is not negotiable for me. I cannot enter into dialogue with people who want to make demonization of the Israeli state a condition for Jews to participate in social life."

He referred to his predecessor at the Central Council, Paul Spiegel, who launched an "Uprising of the Decent" to stand up against hatred against Jews.

"Looking around today, I have to conclude that either the decent have become far fewer or they are sitting idly in the stands," Schuster said.

The Jewish leader said he believes "the security situation for Jews in Germany is comparatively good" but repeated that the "core problem" is people getting used to a certain high level of anti-Semitism.

"We have reached a degree of habituation to anti-Semitism so high that political measures often exhaust themselves in protecting Jewish life. It is widely accepted that Jewish life is only possible under immense protective efforts. What we are seeing is symptom treatment, nothing more."

Although Schuster said he was "very grateful" for Germany's security efforts for the Jewish community, he said "these conditions are intolerable."

He called on politics and civil society to work together to combat hatred against Jews - "only then, is the vision of Jewish life without a protective shield conceivable."

Schuster, 71, is a physician and has been president of the Central Council of Jews since 2014. His family fled Nazi Germany and went to what was then Palestine. They returned to Germany in the 1950s.