11.11. Zoom withGerman parliament
Bundestag meeting of the Committee for Culture and Media. I was invited as an expert witness. The topic: "Protecting Jewish Life." No comment regarding the session itself. Here is the statement I contributed (as published by the Bundestag):
Statement for the expert discussion held by the Committee on Culture and Media of the German Bundestag on November 11, 2026, on the topic: “Protecting Jewish Life, Countering Antisemitism: Lessons from November 9, 1938”
I welcome the German Bundestag’s initiative to convene an expert discussion on this subject, and I am grateful for the invitation.
As a native of Berlin—having lived first in the eastern part of the city—I have been a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1984, a span of 42 years, and I can attest to developments in both parts of Germany from personal experience. In short: the situation for Jews in Germany has deteriorated dramatically over the last decade. It is currently more precarious than at any other time since the founding of the Federal Republic. Protecting Jewish life is becoming a serious challenge for the politicians and security agencies responsible for it.
I assume that the German government and the members of the Bundestag consider the protection of Jewish life in Germany to be essential. The task of protecting Jewish life is more difficult today than it was in 1938. Why? The pogrom of November 9, 1938—known as Reichskristallnacht—was, as the historian Götz Aly, who has researched this field for decades, recently explained to me, organized by state authorities. It was not an uprising by segments of the population, nor was it an action driven by grassroots groups, as we see today. It was set in motion by directives from specific state institutions—the Reich government and the NSDAP—and was brought to an end in the same manner: “by order from above.” Subsequently, the persecution of Jews took other forms, but the overt street terror of November 9th—at least within German cities—concluded on that very day. Meanwhile, the unrest and rioting in German cities—which began with Hamas’s massacre of Jews on October 7, 2023, and have thus persisted for three years—show no signs of abating. Evidently, they are not so easily brought to an end. On the contrary, open street terror directed by Muslim and leftist groups against Jews and the Jewish state is becoming a permanent fixture in Germany. The reason for this is clear: the government, the police, and the judiciary are failing to take serious action against these organized Jew-haters and opponents of Israel.
This is particularly glaring in the case of overt calls for the murder of Jews by Turkish and Arab protesters—calls that have now become an everyday occurrence. These include popular chants such as "From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free"—which demands the elimination of the Jewish state—as well as "Yallah, yallah, Intifada..."—which incites the killing of Israeli citizens—and the explicit call for murder: "Hamas, Hamas, Jews into the gas!" Such incidents frequently take place in front of synagogues and within range of security cameras. To my knowledge, not a single person who has engaged in such chanting has been convicted by a German court—even though openly calling for the murder of Jews (like any incitement to murder) constitutes a criminal offense in Germany and should be prosecuted (punishable by up to five years in prison under Section 111, Paragraph 2 of the German Criminal Code). For this reason, as early as 2021, I posed the following question in the Berlin-based online publication Achse des Guten: "Is calling for the murder of Jews still a criminal offense in Germany?" In 2021, I wrote: “Identifying those who shouted ‘Jews into the gas’ should not pose an insurmountable problem, given that these incidents were filmed and even posted online in numerous instances. If the German police truly wanted to, they have brought lawbreakers to justice with far less evidence. If I—or any other non-Muslim German—were to commit a crime in Germany tomorrow and allow ourselves to be filmed doing so, I would bet that the case would be solved in no time. It seems, however, that there are certain coddled and protected milieus where the will to investigate simply fades away.”
At the time, I also pointed to the contagious effect of such failures in law enforcement, asking: “Is calling for the murder of Jews in Germany actually a punishable offense, or is it merely one on paper? Are there ‘protected’ groups for whom such behavior is permitted? If so, it will soon spread to other circles—to young neo-Nazis or Antifa militants—making life truly dangerous for Jews in Germany, as well as for those Germans who stand up for them.”
The infection of indigenous German milieus with imported, Islamic-rooted Jew-hatred has long since taken hold. According to Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to Germany, this is now primarily a phenomenon found within leftist circles. As reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung on October 27, 2026, Prosor stated: “The greatest danger to Jews in Germany does not come from the AfD. Left-wing antisemitism is the most dangerous form: in the cultural and academic spheres, the red line between freedom of expression and incitement has long since been crossed.”
Within the party Die Linke (The Left), an intermingling of leftist milieus with militant Islamist or clan-criminal circles has already taken place. "A governing coalition led by Die Linke in the Berlin House of Representatives would pose a threat to Jewish life," the ambassador warned. "Jews are afraid to ride the subway wearing a Star of David or a kippah. Jewish students feel unsafe on university campuses. And Jewish families are pulling their children out of public schools to keep them safe."
In light of such conditions, the phrase "protecting Jewish life" becomes little more than a formula for self-reassurance. The eruption of widespread, openly declared hatred toward Jews—which the Federal Republic of Germany has witnessed since October 7, 2023—comes as no surprise. For years, antisemitism and hostility toward Israel stemming from Muslim and leftist circles were excluded from serious scrutiny. The focus remained entirely on antisemitism from the political right, while antisemitism from the left and from Muslim quarters was largely ignored. State institutions, in particular the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), have contributed to obscuring the true nature of the threat.
The BKA has presented statistics in which the chant "Hamas, Hamas, Jews into the gas!" was categorized as an antisemitic offense with a "far-right background"—even though this chant originated almost exclusively from Arab and Turkish protesters. Assaults on Jews committed by Muslim perpetrators were subsumed within BKA statistics under the vague, generalized category of "politically motivated crime (PMK) – religious ideology," a phrasing chosen specifically to avoid using the word "Islam." As recently as 2020, the BKA claimed in its annual statistics that 94% of all antisemitic offenses in Germany could be attributed to the "far-right" category of politically motivated crime. It was only in reports from the last three years—when the phenomenon of Islamic Jew-hatred could no longer be ignored by any stretch of the imagination—that it finally began to receive attention in formal investigations.
Yet, as early as 2017, a widely noted study from Bielefeld University—based on surveys of several thousand German Jews—found that the overwhelming majority (81%) of antisemitic assaults originated from Islamic circles. (In contrast, the 2017 statistics from the Federal Criminal Police Office, or BKA, cited a figure of only 2%—a clear case of data manipulation.) Furthermore, an Israeli study commissioned by the World Zionist Organization in Tel Aviv—titled in Hebrew Aliyat HaYamin HaKizoni ve HaAntishemiyut ("The Rise of the Far Right and Antisemitism")—concluded, as reported by the Jerusalem Post on February 3, 2020, that "the rise of the far right is not the main source of antisemitism in Europe."
The ideologically driven misjudgment by German politicians and the media regarding the true causes behind the alarming surge in antisemitic incidents has significantly contributed to the worsening of the situation. Partisan political interests took precedence over the safety of German Jews. Looking at the overall picture, I conclude that the federal and state governments of the past decade have done almost nothing effective to combat the growing Jew-hatred in Germany; in fact, they bear partial responsibility for its continued rise.
Moreover, major German media outlets (with the exception of Bild) have, through their persistent anti-Israel bias over the decades, helped foster an anti-Israel sentiment—which, inevitably, has also evolved into anti-Jewish sentiment. The reporting was one-sided, often factually incorrect, and in many instances untrue; it did not even shy away from employing age-old antisemitic stereotypes. The State of Israel was increasingly demonized. Current expressions of shock regarding antisemitic tendencies among German youth lack credibility: one cannot spend decades—in the media and in school textbooks—portraying Israel as a neo-colonialist occupying power and describing the construction of Jewish settlements as an occupation in violation of international law, only to then feign surprise when the younger generation becomes susceptible to hatred of Israel and antisemitism.
Until 2015, Jews in the Federal Republic of Germany could, by and large, feel secure. This is not to say that Jew-hatred did not exist, but it was not permitted to manifest openly. Great consideration was shown for the feelings and sensibilities of German Jews. Antisemitic remarks made by Germans were met with emphatic—at times even excessive—condemnation from the media and politicians. (A case in point is the forced resignation of CDU politician Philipp Jenninger as President of the Bundestag in 1988, following several ill-judged passages in his commemorative speech marking the anniversary of November 9th.)
Yet, German society finds itself almost defenseless against the unbridled, religiously and culturally motivated Jew-hatred brought by Muslim immigrants. From 2015 onward, this hatred began to manifest increasingly in the public sphere. A policy of fearful looking-away allowed it to spread unchecked.
t has had a catastrophic impact on the younger generation in Germany. The growing dominance of young Muslims in German schoolyards has led to a situation where antisemitic stereotypes have once again become an everyday occurrence for young Germans.
This trend will continue unless it is vigorously countered by political and media actors. How can this new German antisemitism be stopped? In concluding this rather depressing overview, let me offer a few proposals. I advocate for a combination of:
- Measures based on the rule of law—specifically, what is known in English as "law enforcement": the application of existing laws, primarily through criminal prosecution.
- Education about Judaism and Israel.
The criminal prosecution of publicly expressed hatred toward Jews—especially calls for the murder of Jews—must be taken more seriously than it has been to date. No one who stands in front of a German synagogue shouting, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews into the gas!" should be allowed to go unpunished. The perpetrators must be identified and brought to trial—with the greatest possible public and media attention.
Distorted portrayals of Judaism and the Jewish state must be countered through state-sponsored educational efforts. The goal here is to foster a better understanding of Judaism and the Jewish state—particularly within schools and universities. To this end, young Jews and Israelis should be invited to schools and universities (with the necessary police protection guaranteed) to participate in discussions, answer questions from young Germans about Jewish life and the Jewish state, and present counterarguments to common prejudices and misinformation.
Works by Jewish and Israeli authors should be incorporated into the curricula of Gymnasien (secondary schools). In this context, it is important to ensure that the full spectrum of political and ideological perspectives within the highly diverse body of Jewish and Israeli literature is appropriately represented.
I particularly recommend establishing school partnerships between German and Israeli Gymnasien (secondary schools), involving student group exchanges to each other’s countries. In my experience, nothing is more effective at dismantling anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudices than a trip to Israel.
https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/1232046/Stellungnahme-Chaim-Noll.pdf
Gestern zoom mit dem Deutschen Bundestag
Sitzung des Ausschusses für Kultur und Medien. Ich war als Sachverständiger eingeladen. Thema: „Schutz jüdischen Lebens“. Zur Sitzung selbst kein Kommentar. Hier ist meine Stellungnahme (wie vom Bundestag veröffentlicht):
https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/1232046/Stellungnahme-Chaim-Noll.pdf