Monday, September 28, 2026
Germany’s academic centre for the denial of antisemitism
These are words that leave you incredulous and dumbfounded. Did he really just say that? Does he genuinely mean it? How cold-hearted can one be? And how detached from all the research – and from the lived reality of Jews in Germany?
The man in question is Wolfgang Benz, professor emeritus, antisemitism researcher and longstanding director of the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at TU Berlin, a public research university. In the face of numerous incidents of Jew-hatred within the Left Party, the doyen of German antisemitism research has now given a remarkable interview to Berlin’s daily Tagesspiegel.
Benz begins by describing the dramatic number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the capital as “terrible”, only to add immediately: “Jews have been saying they are afraid for 50 years. Even in the past, people would say: We are sitting on packed suitcases. It is part of the self-justification of Jewish life in Germany.”
The Tagesspiegel journalists, seemingly incredulous, pressed him on whether he did not believe the Jewish community. His answer: he believed Jews when they said they were afraid. “But I also know that they are under pressure to justify themselves because they live in the country of the perpetrators. Besides, no minority is as well protected by the police.”
In other words: feelings are subjective. Empirical evidence is another matter. Or, more precisely: don’t make such a fuss.
In fairness to the German academic, Wolfgang Benz is right. We Jews are very safe behind bulletproof glass, barbed wire and armed police officers. Every time we take our children to the Jewish nursery in Berlin’s Grunewald district, we are overcome by that warm feeling of security when, from some distance away, we catch sight of the security checkpoint, the police officers and the additional Israeli security personnel hired by the nursery itself.
The worshippers attending Yom Kippur services in Halle in 2019 must surely have felt the same cosy sense of safety before a far-right terrorist tried to shoot everyone inside. As must the Jewish community in Wuppertal a few days ago, when only hours earlier an Afghan refugee had tried to set fire to the synagogue. Or Lahav Shapira, the young Jewish trainee teacher who, after October 7, 2023, was almost beaten to death in central Berlin by a fellow student of Arab background, suffering skull fractures and swelling of the brain.
The man in question is Wolfgang Benz, professor emeritus, antisemitism researcher and longstanding director of the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at TU Berlin, a public research university. In the face of numerous incidents of Jew-hatred within the Left Party, the doyen of German antisemitism research has now given a remarkable interview to Berlin’s daily Tagesspiegel.
Benz begins by describing the dramatic number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the capital as “terrible”, only to add immediately: “Jews have been saying they are afraid for 50 years. Even in the past, people would say: We are sitting on packed suitcases. It is part of the self-justification of Jewish life in Germany.”
The Tagesspiegel journalists, seemingly incredulous, pressed him on whether he did not believe the Jewish community. His answer: he believed Jews when they said they were afraid. “But I also know that they are under pressure to justify themselves because they live in the country of the perpetrators. Besides, no minority is as well protected by the police.”
In other words: feelings are subjective. Empirical evidence is another matter. Or, more precisely: don’t make such a fuss.
In fairness to the German academic, Wolfgang Benz is right. We Jews are very safe behind bulletproof glass, barbed wire and armed police officers. Every time we take our children to the Jewish nursery in Berlin’s Grunewald district, we are overcome by that warm feeling of security when, from some distance away, we catch sight of the security checkpoint, the police officers and the additional Israeli security personnel hired by the nursery itself.
The worshippers attending Yom Kippur services in Halle in 2019 must surely have felt the same cosy sense of safety before a far-right terrorist tried to shoot everyone inside. As must the Jewish community in Wuppertal a few days ago, when only hours earlier an Afghan refugee had tried to set fire to the synagogue. Or Lahav Shapira, the young Jewish trainee teacher who, after October 7, 2023, was almost beaten to death in central Berlin by a fellow student of Arab background, suffering skull fractures and swelling of the brain.
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