Above the historic building in the heart of Berlin rises the golden dome of the New Synagogue, built in the 19th century. Out front, police officers ask who you are and where you’re headed. Past the first security door, your bag goes through a scanner.
Then come more doors, all of them extra thick. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and the outbreak of the war in Gaza, antisemitism has surged across the Western world, according to a study by Tel Aviv University. Berlin — where senior Nazi officials gathered at a lakeside villa in 1942 to coordinate the murder of Europe’s Jews — is no exception.
Joffe, 54, who chairs the Jewish Community of Berlin, one of Germany’s largest, has grown used to a life under protection. For decades, such security has been a fact of Jewish life across Europe, with synagogues and schools fortified and, in many cities, guarded by armed police. But the situation has rarely been as bad as it is now, he tells me.
The Tel Aviv-born former businessman does not come across as a timid man: a firm handshake, a shirt straining at every seam and a deep and penetrating voice. Yet the mood at his conference table, where the community’s secretary general and its spokesperson also sit, is one of great concern. The subject of that concern: The result of the recent Berlin election, in which the Left Party — a successor to the communist party that ruled East Germany until 1989 — came in first with 26% of the vote.
It’s a record for the party in the capital, and more than double its previous result. Germany has been arguing about the consequences ever since. Among the trio sitting at the table, the Left Party’s Berlin branch is seen as not just radically left-wing but also a hotbed of antisemitism.
The party made opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza a central plank of its election campaign. While some Jews have declared their support for the Left, leading Jewish institutions have criticized it. At the center of the debate is Elif Eralp, the Left’s lead candidate in the Berlin election who has become the face of the party’s transformation.
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