She was not the first Jew to publicly take a stand against the AfD. But when Charlotte Knobloch, the chairwoman of the Jewish Community in Munich, said in an interview with “Stern” almost two weeks ago that the comparison between the NSDAP and the AfD was permissible, it caused waves again. "The NSDAP also started small and tried out everything that was possible. That's exactly what happened with the AfD," said Knobloch about the party, which is hoping for an absolute majority of seats in the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt.
Most of the other parties that are standing for election in the state on September 6th want to prevent this. But there are also other actors who share this goal. For example, the Jewish Student Union of Germany (JSUD). She is currently traveling in Saxony-Anhalt and wants to address people in small towns - especially where AfD politicians are in positions of power, the AfD has achieved particularly high election results or racist incidents have become known. Ron Dekel, the chairman of the JSUD, says: “We want to talk to people who have perhaps never met a Jew in person and convey to them on a personal level: This party puts us at enormous risk.”
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Does the AfD want to protect Jews?
The AfD, whose regional association in Saxony-Anhalt is considered to be right-wing extremist, often presents itself as a party that wants to protect Jews. In 2018, an association called “Jews in the AfD” was founded, which is against “uncontrolled mass immigration” of young men from the Islamic culture with “anti-Semitic socialization” and the “destruction of the traditional, monogamous family” through gender mainstreaming and early sexualization. That's the self-portrayal.
Dekel from the JSUD sees the AfD in a different light: officials have made anti-Semitic statements since the beginning when they spoke of the “cult of guilt” or dismissed Nazi rule as “bird shit”. “Anyone who calls for a 180-degree change in culture of remembrance cannot be a party that protects Jews.” And medical student Dekel also finds points in the “government program” for Saxony-Anhalt that scare him, such as the fact that memorial sites should no longer be funded - even though they are an important part of Germany's self-image. Synagogues could also have a harder time than before, as the AfD wants to freeze state benefits to religious communities. This would be the death knell for many Jewish communities in East Germany. They are usually very small, and today the communities cannot support themselves alone.
Every new report published by observatories shows that the overall climate for Jews in Germany has deteriorated. A few days ago, the Anti-Semitism Research and Information Center (RIAS) published figures for Thuringia. The number of anti-Semitic incidents there is higher than ever. In 2025 it was more than 400. 194 of them occurred in public spaces, i.e. on the street. However, the numbers are not a Thuringian specialty. In the annual report from June, RIAS counted 8,725 incidents for the whole of Germany. This also includes graffiti, insults or hate comments on the Internet. In mathematical terms, there are almost 24 per day, one every hour.
Number of violent attacks at a high level
Many of the incidents are serious: In a supermarket in Bad Homburg, a man pushed a rabbi in front of his children. In Hamburg, an unknown man strangled a woman while she was cleaning a stumbling block. In Erfurt, an attacker tore the Star of David necklace from a man's neck - in the middle of the tram, in broad daylight. In Coburg, a refugee stabbed a roommate because he believed the other person was Jewish. In Berlin, a man slit the throat of a visitor to the Holocaust memorial because he thought he was a Jew; only an emergency operation could save the tourist.
Although the absolute number of these violent attacks on Jews has fallen, from 187 in 2024 to 178 in 2025, the level is still far higher than before October 7, 2023. In 2022, RIAS documented 58 attacks, about a third of the current number.
For Ron Dekel from the Student Union, the world has also changed since October 7th. After more and more anti-Semitic incidents occurred in Germany following Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, many Jews were afraid to show their identity. Since then, Dekel has worn a yarmulke in public. It is an expression of his faith; But it is also a piece of clothing with which Dekel measures whether it is still possible to live in Germany. He thinks: If he had to take off the kippah, it would be time to turn his back on this country. “If it has become so unsafe in a country that you can’t wear it, you have to leave.” He has become louder: “I no longer let things that I previously tolerated, that were previously sayable, go unchallenged.” Where before he smiled away, he now resists.
What can civil society do?
Being visible has its price. Dekel is threatened. A while ago, as he wanted to cross a street in Berlin on foot, a car that had been quite a distance away suddenly accelerated towards him. Shortly in front of him it braked abruptly and Palestinian music could be heard from the rolled down windows. Something similar happened to him a second time, as he told the F.A.Z. reported. He was also spat on and was ambushed in front of the synagogue by people who had chased him in a car the day before. And these are just the incidents that he experienced himself. "But that's everyday life, it happens to everyone. My experience is not particularly unique," says Dekel in an interview with the F.A.Z.
Dekel misses support. The incidents often occurred in the evenings, in busy environments “where people noticed,” but no one was interested or helped those affected. He understands that observers are afraid of being attacked themselves if they intervene. But he would like the majority of society to at least commit to Jewish life in Germany. That non-Jews go to demonstrations for Jews and that they become aware of how Jews currently perceive their reality. That they inform themselves about anti-Semitic sentiments on social media, that they don't look away from graffiti, and that they perhaps also edit their own biographies - that is, deal with their own family's Nazi past.
Many Jews feel abandoned. A survey of more than a hundred Jewish communities by the Central Council of Jews in Germany in April shows that two thirds of those surveyed feel more unsafe than before. Many people miss support from civil society: in 2023, 62 percent of Jews still felt supported by it. This year, 35 percent said they took advantage of this support. Many people are therefore withdrawing into Jewish structures and taking more part in community life than before, as the survey shows. There they feel safer and understood. This is how members of the community explain it.
For Dekel, this finding has two levels of disappointment: the personal, the many individual cases. The attacks, the hate comments. The second level of disappointment is the larger social stage: Dekel does not understand how society can fail to recognize that hatred of Jews is also about democracy. “We saw that hundreds of thousands were able to stand up when the AfD’s remigration meeting was announced,” he says. Things look different at demos against anti-Semitism. A city like Frankfurt am Main, which likes to call itself the “most Jewish city in Germany,” has 5,000 demonstrators at a rally against hatred of Jews. And this is one where there was a big crowd.
Hatred of Jews from many directions
Everyday life cannot be imagined without anti-Semitic incidents, says Dekel. If you grew up in a small Bavarian town like Dekel, you know hostility against Jews from before. Hitler salutes that are explicitly shown to him, toasts like “Ex or Jew” in his direction. Anti-Jewish acts are not new. And they come from different directions. Israel-related anti-Semitism now prevails, as Dekel's experiences and the RIAS surveys show. 807 of the anti-Semitic incidents recorded for 2025 had a right-wing extremist background. That's nine percent of all cases. Nevertheless, the number marks the highest value since the information center has collected it.
There is also anti-Semitism in the AfD. Especially in the wake of the corona pandemic, many members and officials shared conspiracy stories about “globalist elites”, such as the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke. In February 2022, after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine, the Thuringian state parliament member Thomas Rudy shared a text on Facebook that speculated that Jewish conspirators wanted to conquer all of Russia. In the same year, Bundestag member Christina Baum shared a post that placed an interview snippet of former Federal President Joachim Gauck next to a photo of him wearing a yarmulke. It is intended to serve as evidence of his alleged hatred of Germany. In the interview, Gauck expressed himself negatively about Nazi Germany. However, this is not clear in the cut; a viewer might think that he rejects the current German state. The entire time, a picture of Gauck is displayed next to it, showing him with his head bowed and wearing a yarmulke as he commemorate.
The AfD always insists that these are isolated cases. Even the report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution states: “Overall, however, neither the number nor the quality of the evidence shows that the statements identified are of such intensity that the AfD party as a whole can be said to have a predominant anti-Semitic character.” The frequency with which at least anti-Semitic codes are used in the speeches of officials still leaves many Jews with an uneasy feeling.
For Ron Dekel it is also clear: the AfD is a “huge danger for Jews in Germany”. How they do on September 6th in Saxony-Anhalt also plays a big role in the question of whether a Jew wants to stay in Germany.
