Berlin woke to an ugly message in April when three large words, spray‑painted in English across a building in Prenzlauer Berg, called for the killing of all Jews. The graffiti was quickly covered and then painted over, but the shock lingered. Neighbors reacted with a vigil, blue‑and‑white ribbons bearing Stars of David and the slogan “Against all antisemitism,” and children who used chalk to fill nearly 100 meters of sidewalk with hearts and messages such as “No place for hate,” “Respect,” and “Togetherness.” Police posted notices describing the incident as “antisemitic incitement to hatred involving property damage through graffiti.”
The graffiti and the local response set the scene for an extraordinary meeting the following day: the executive committee of the center‑right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) convened on the campus of the Jewish Chabad movement in Berlin. It was the first time the party’s leadership met in this form at a Jewish institution. Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, who oversaw the campus, greeted the delegation. The complex—classrooms, a multipurpose hall, a kindergarten and a café—sits behind heavy security. Outside, schoolchildren sang for the guests while party leader and chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged, “We protect you,” and the press were asked not to photograph the pupils for their safety.
Standing in front of cameras, Merz warned that “Jewish life in Germany is more threatened than it has been in a very long time.” He referenced a sharp rise in crimes and assaults and the smearings of antisemitic slogans on houses, and framed attacks on Jewish life as attacks on society and democracy itself. The CDU leadership later attended a reception in the Chabad synagogue, where each guest received a book of Psalms. The gesture underlined the symbolic as well as political weight of the visit.
The CDU adopted a five‑page resolution at the education center declaring that “Jewish life is part of Germany” and promising to “clearly identify and combat every form of antisemitism.” The document issues warnings in familiar political language—”Where hatred of Jewish life grows, democracy is in danger”—and urges a broad societal stance against antisemitism. But beyond references to criminal law and financial sanctions, the resolution is short on detailed, concrete measures for people suddenly confronted with hateful graffiti, vandalized doorbells or harassment on the street for wearing a kippah.
Political leaders and Jewish community representatives have linked the rise in antisemitic incidents in part to public outrage over developments in the Middle East. Germany has seen repeated anti‑war protests in response to Israel’s war in Gaza, strikes in Lebanon and heightened tensions involving Iran. While many demonstrations are peaceful expressions of political views, German officials and Jewish leaders say that a climate of anger abroad has too often spilled over into antisemitic harassment and violence at home.
The international dimension was underscored by a visit to Berlin by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in early May. He spoke with German politicians, addressed a CDU Economic Council event and met German officials at the Foreign Ministry, noting that Jews are “the only people who are physically attacked everywhere—because they are Jews—even when they live far away from the conflict in the Middle East.” Sa’ar also visited the Track 17 Holocaust memorial at Berlin’s Grunewald S‑Bahn station, the platform from which thousands of Jewish men and women were deported in 1941 and 1942. There, with Israel’s ambassador and Rabbi Teichtal, he lit candles and paid respects at a quiet, tree‑lined site marked by steel plates listing deportations.
The municipal and civic response in Berlin has added other symbolic measures. A square in front of the state parliament was renamed Margot Friedländer Platz. Friedländer, who died in 2025 at age 103, survived the Holocaust as a young woman, emigrated to New York after the war and returned to Berlin in 2010. The new name, unveiled by Mayor Kai Wegner, was described as “a powerful signal against antisemitism, against forgetting—and for democracy and human dignity.” Friends and city leaders pointed to Friedländer’s consistent appeal to common humanity; as an eyewitness to terror, she spent her final years urging memory and empathy rather than accusation.
The recent incidents have revived difficult questions for German politics and society: how to protect Jewish life and ensure public safety, how to counter antisemitic violence and rhetoric, and how to prevent foreign conflicts from catalyzing hatred at home. The CDU has signaled intent and moral clarity, but critics note a lack of detailed, operational steps in its published response. For many Berliners—those who cleaned chalk messages into the pavement, who gathered for vigils, who maintain public memorials—the challenge is both practical and cultural: to translate political declarations into visible protection for individuals and into a wider societal refusal to tolerate antisemitism in any form.
As debates continue, local communities, Jewish institutions and political leaders have emphasized vigilance, solidarity and remembrance. The combination of immediate security measures, criminal investigations, political declarations and civic acts of remembrance reflects an effort to respond on multiple fronts. Still, for those directly affected by threats and harassment, the question remains urgent: what concrete steps will ensure that Jewish life in Germany can flourish without fear?