Published: 13 March 2020
Last updated: 5 March 2024
SHAHAK SHAPIRA WAS 14 when he moved with his mother and brother from Petach Tikvah in Israel to Laucha, a small town in Germany.
That was where his mother’s boyfriend Olaf lived — along with a significant local population of white nationalists. Today, about 13% of the town’s residents vote for NPD, a far-right, ultranationalist party.
Shapira just knew that he wasn’t readily accepted.
“I passed for German until they learned my name,” he said of the people there. “Then I became the town’s Jew. You don’t want to be the town’s Jew.”
Nearly two decades later, Shapira is not just Laucha’s Jew — he is one of the most prominent Israelis in Germany. Through stand-up comedy and a late-night TV show, the 31-year-old has lampooned the country’s rising far right and the German people’s relationship to the Holocaust alongside more lighthearted topics such as Israelis’ love for hummus.
But after his show was canceled for what the comedian suspects were political reasons, Shapira — a grandson of one of the Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics — is contemplating moving on.
“I’m not sure I see a future for myself in Germany,” Shapira told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I don’t feel at home here, not anymore.”
FULL STORY His comedy mocks Germany’s history with Jews. After his TV show was cancelled, he’s thinking about leaving the country (JTA)
Photo: Shahak Shapira (courtesy)
