David, a 23-year-old Israeli IDF soldier, recently attended the 2024 Euro games in Berlin, Germany, with his friends. What he expected to be an exciting sports event turned into a troubling encounter with widespread antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.
David reported in an interview with Israel Hayom that signs of anti-Israel attitudes were evident from the moment he arrived. "First of all, the moment you get there, you see graffiti on the walls of 'Free Palestine.' Somebody went around with an ink stamp and stamped 'Free Palestine' everywhere," he said. He was surprised by how prevalent the topic was, noting, "Even the taxi driver from the airport mentioned the Palestinian situation. It's a very common topic all around. You wouldn't imagine that they care so much, but it's one of the mainstream topics people talk about in Europe."
The young soldier observed a stark contrast in how Jewish and Israeli establishments present themselves in Berlin. "Any shul, any Israeli embassy, is guarded like crazy with no Jewish symbols outside," David explained. He added that kosher restaurants in the city also avoid displaying any Israeli imagery, describing the situation as "very censored." When asked if anyone wore an Israeli flag out, David responded, "No, nobody. Nothing Israeli."
David's personal interactions were also affected by his nationality. "When I said, 'I'm from Israel.' Suddenly, their faces change, and the conversation ends a sentence later," he recounted. This led him and his friend to create false identities to avoid negative reactions. "I switched from saying that I was from Israel to saying that I was from Canada," David admitted.
The situation became so tense that they resorted to elaborate measures to conceal their identities. "We had to create an alibi for my friend, who can't speak English. Initially, we said he was from Portugal or Spain because he has a Spanish look. But then we stumbled across people who knew Spanish. When they started speaking to him in Spanish, he just mumbled. After that, we created a perfect alibi. I told him, 'From now on, you say you're from Fiji because nobody knows how people from Fiji look or what language they speak.'"
"People heard our Hebrew conversations and were suspecting something. They asked what language we were talking to each other, and we said it was a combination of Portuguese and Maldivian. We just made up random things. We were speaking Hebrew to each other once, and a group questioned us, 'Is that Hebrew?' We were afraid, and then they were like, 'It's okay, we're Jewish,'" David explained.
David also touched on the demographic changes in Berlin, particularly noting the large Muslim population. He described an incident where they accidentally entered a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, which "every Israeli we met had collectively told us, 'Just don't go to Neukölln – it's very dangerous.' We felt like we were in Ramallah or Jenin – mosques and hijab stores, and everybody was clearly Muslim on the street, people with the Palestinian kaffiyah. We were like, 'Oh sh*t, this is Neukölln.' So, we stopped talking in Hebrew and started talking in English."
Reflecting on his overall experience, David expressed dismay at the pervasive negative attitudes towards Israel. "You really feel like everybody's opinion is negative. Nobody has a positive opinion about Israel," he stated. "You hear it's bad in Europe. But you never actually understand how bad it is, how one-sided the conversation is, and how they really have zero clue about what's actually happening. It's a very bad feeling."
