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Berlin Jews Facing ‘Extremely Tense’ Situation, City’s Top Antisemitism Official Warns
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Jews in Berlin are facing an “extremely tense” situation amid rising hostility emanating from the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, the German capital’s top official combating antisemitism warned on Wednesday.
“Since the barbaric antisemitic terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, the security situation for Jews and Israelis in Berlin has been extremely tense,” Samuel Salzborn — the antisemitism officer for the state of Berlin — told the taz news outlet. “We had a series of extremely aggressive antisemitic gatherings and rallies, the daubing of residential buildings with antisemitic symbols, an attempted arson attack on the synagogue on Brunnenstrasse, and most recently several destructions of Hanukkah menorahs. Since then, the whole thing has become more widespread, for example at universities, where Jews are treated with hostility.”
Asked whether stiffer security measures were warranted, Salzborn noted the increased police presence outside synagogues and other Jewish communal buildings. “The big risk is everyday life: situations and places in which you cannot provide full protection,” he said. “You never know exactly where in Berlin something can happen. Many live with the great, understandable, and justified fear that they could be spontaneously attacked if they are identified as Jews, for example by wearing a necklace with the Star of David.”
Salzborn highlighted the role of Islamist and pro-Hamas organizations in stirring antisemitic sentiment, describing groups such as Samidoun — a Palestinian prisoner solidarity organization that was banned following the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel — as the “drivers” of such discourse.
“I would venture to say cautiously: If the federal minister of the interior had announced the ban earlier, the escalations here would not have been so severe,” Salzborn commented. “An antisemitic meeting does not mobilize several thousand people spontaneously and out of nowhere. These are organizational structures that coordinate this, call for it, and set slogans.”
On the question of antisemitism among Germany’s Muslim communities, Salzborn highlighted the historical context, pointing out that during the Nazi era, support for Hitler’s regime was widespread in the Arab world. “It is clear that not all Muslims hold antisemitic positions,” he remarked. “But what the people representing them say is also crucial in this milieu: How do they control things, how do they influence things? Islamists focus on hatred of Jews, and if there are no opposing voices from a Muslim milieu, it stays in the room.”
The post Berlin Jews Facing ‘Extremely Tense’ Situation, City’s Top Antisemitism Official Warns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.