At least two people were killed in a carefully planned terrorist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Halle on Yom Kippur, an attack that followed an earlier attempt to attack a synagogue in Berlin ahead of Rosh Hashanah.
This is Germany in 2019. And this is no longer a phenomenon that can be diminished or treated as a passing wave. This is an epidemic.
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Germany is once again a dangerous place for Jews. All efforts to deny this reality, whether from the authorities, local Jewish leadership, or recent Israeli immigrants, crumble in the face of the terrible day-to-day reality, which is the product of an industry of repudiation and denial. Barely a week passes without violent assaults on Jews in the country. In Berlin alone, over 400 anti-Semitic attacks were reported in the first half of 2019. We can assume the actual figure is higher since not every attack is reported to the authorities.
Jews, with kippot on their heads and Stars of David around their necks, speaking Hebrew, cannot feel safe outside of their homes and cannot convene in Jewish institutions without fearing that either on their way there or back, something bad will happen to them. And now, we can add another element of fear to this trepidation: Even if meticulous safeguards are in place, an attack can be carried out inside a Jewish institution, synagogue, or community center. Luckily, in these two most recent incidents, these safeguards proved relatively effective.
The attack in Halle is the result of the failure of German authorities; it is the result of the incomprehensible forgiveness that the country's law enforcement chooses to show the perpetrators of attacks against Jews, which in recent years have been largely carried out by either members of Arab and Muslim immigrant communities. Although the perpetrator of the Halle attack was a member of the radical Right, the day-to-day physical threat to Jewish security in Germany is sacrificed at the altar of Germany's policy of appeasement toward Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism. And when they are able to attack Jews as they please, other radicals get the sense the spilling of blood is permissible so long as the targets are Jews.
Jews in Germany have once again become easy prey.
Following World War II, German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller famously wrote:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
In today's Germany, the Jews are at the top of the list of victims. Following each attack, we hear from the country's "professional apologizers." But that is where it ends. There is no action. The authorities are surrendering to the violence. But after the Jews, the others' time will come.
