Several thousand people turned out for a demonstration against anti-Semitism in Berlin on Sunday.
Police estimated that about 3,200 people gathered in the German capital, while organisers put the figure at 10,000, German news agency dpa reported. The protesters, called “Never Again Is Now,” marched to the Brandenburg Gate.
According to a group that tracks anti-Semitism in Germany, the end of November saw a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the month following the Hamas attack – a total of 994, up 320 per cent from the same period a year earlier.
Germany’s top Jewish leader, Josef Schuster, said that “anti-Semitism is commonplace in Germany in the middle strata of society” and called for solidarity with Israel and Jewish life in Germany.
German Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said many decent people were too silent on the issue. He said:
“We don’t need a decent, silent majority – we need a clear and loud majority that speaks out now, not later.”
The event was widely supported, with the speaker of the German parliament and the mayor of Berlin among its supporters.
Germany has recorded hundreds of criminal offenses linked to the Gaza war. In particular, there has been a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents, including the targeting of a Berlin synagogue with Molotov cocktails in October.
Berlin police said on Sunday that authorities were investigating an incident in the capital in which a swastika was daubed on the door of a house displaying an Israeli flag. Nadine Meshulam, an Israeli living in Berlin, told AFP during the demonstration:
“When speaking Hebrew in the street, I always turn around to see who is around.”
Last week, the Hamas media office said the Israeli military had killed at least 16,248 people in Gaza since 7 October, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women. Thousands more are missing and believed to be buried under rubble.
