The surprising trend among anxious Jewish parents in Berlin

One summer day, I went to talk with kids from a Jewish school in the centre of Berlin. They invited me to talk about my Mizrahi identity. As I was about to enter the school, which was guarded by a big silver fence, two German policemen told me to talk to a sun-tanned guy with black hair in English at the entrance.

We soon switched to Hebrew. I asked the Israeli guard if he was enjoying the sunny day. He told me that he didn’t enjoy being in Berlin. "Why?" I asked. He said he didn’t want to be there; he wanted to be back in Israel and fight for his land.

I entered the old school building, which had a big hall and white marble stairs leading me to the second floor. On the first floor, I saw Israeli news in English. On the walls hung pictures of Ben Gurion and other leaders, reminiscent of those I had seen at my school back in the day. I still pondered whether the Israeli security guard at the high school was directing his words towards me because I live outside of Israel.

I saw a classroom full of happy children. I heard noise all over the building. I sat in the waiting room and read the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper until the teachers approached me. We spoke about the running order of the upcoming event. One of the teachers then told me that the number of students in the school has significantly increased in the last year.

"Is it because of the refugees who came from Israel, because of the war?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "It's due to the lack of security that Jewish and Israeli students feel in other schools around Berlin”.

Parents from other suburbs of Berlin have started enrolling their kids in this school. These parents are registered in the schools closest to where they live, but they passed up the automatic registration for their children's local high school in favour of sending them to a school far from their place of residence, because it is protected by an Israeli guard, German policemen and a wall around it. There are usually no guards at Berlin schools.

The enrolment trend has been so strong that the school has opened two new classrooms to accommodate all students from the fifth grade to the twelfth grade. So of course, I asked myself, should I also send my child to this school?

There is a picture in the Jewish Museum in Berlin that shows the daily schedule of a Jewish student in 1938. The student started studying at eight in the morning and finished at six in the evening. In those days, the school was considered a safe place for young boys and girls. Of course, parents wanted their children to study a lot, but it also kept them busy and protected while they were working. Actually, the “normal” schools weren’t allowed to have Jewish students after the rise of Hitler in 1933. So those overcrowded Jewish schools were more like the last oasis for Jewish children.

I do not hide my eyes from the rise in antisemitism. A report by Deutsche Welle radio in January showed an alarming picture of antisemitic incidents in Germany since October 7. Felix Klein, the German Antisemitism Commissioner, said that "more than 2000 times in little more than 100 days, here in Germany, a Jew was attacked, threatened, insulted, frightened, or there was an antisemitic hate speech".

This number is equal to the total number of antisemitic incidents that occurred in 2022. It is said that much of the daily threat is coming from opponents of Israel. I know that there is an open discussion about the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which Klein is using, and which may have inflated the number of incidents. However, I want to use it in this case to highlight the feeling of fear it creates within Israeli and Jewish people in Berlin.

But in any case, the Gaza war has increased our general insecurity in the city, and children also suffer from this and are targeted by antisemitic attacks from other children. One thing is certain: tension, conflict, and hostility penetrates the circles of kids. Perhaps those children who bullied them were influenced by the news and social networks, indoctrinated with hatred against Israel. It saddens me.

Perhaps there is also a lack of trust among Jewish and Israeli parents towards Berlin's education system and schools that should support and protect students. In many schools, there aren’t any security guards, and this frightens them. Perhaps Jewish parents want to send their children to a school that has a lot of security and is surrounded by a sharp metal fence. Maybe they want to prevent the next attack.

My meeting with the school students was successful, but it left me with a sour feeling, like a warning light, flashing: what will I do with my child? Will I also have to transfer my child to this Jewish school in another neighborhood, surrounded by children from different areas, making it difficult for them to meet friends naturally in their own neighbourhood?

Will the war in Gaza continue to impact our lives thousands of kilometres away in Germany? Will Jewish schools with security measures be targeted again, as they were during the Holocaust? Is the public space not particularly safe for Jewish children? Is this process being dealt with in the broader question of Berlin's fight against antisemitism?

I encountered the Israeli security guard who doesn't like me on my way out. I'm the Israeli in Berlin who might not fit the patriotic mold. As he looks at me, I hesitate. I don't want to return to Gaza and fight. Ten years ago, I decided to live in Berlin, which is also my way of politically protesting against the continued oppression of Palestinians.

Yet, I can't escape the fact that the reality of the Gaza war follows me even here, filling me with anxiety about the life of the small family I've created in this city.