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Germany’s ‘Holocaust Guilt’ Is Shaken by Hamas Pogrom
A Jewish-owned business in Vienna in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogrom of Nov. 9 and 10, 1938. Image: Screenshot.
JNS.org – In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, Germany is finding it harder and harder to mask the extremist underbelly of its politics.
A neo-Nazi group plastered a Holocaust memorial last week with stickers urging Germans to “get rid” of their “Holocaust guilt,” as well as declaring—in a sly nod to the argument often articulated about the feeble international response to the Holocaust—that “Israel murders while the world watches.” In the city of Essen, an Islamist group staged a pro-Hamas march that required the segregation of male and female participants, but representatives of both genders brandished signs accusing Israel of perpetrating a “Holocaust” in Gaza. In Berlin, a synagogue has been the target of an arson attack, and Jewish-owned homes have been daubed with Stars of David in another ominous echo of the Nazi period.
Of course, it’s not just Germany. Neighboring France has registered more than 1,000 antisemitic outrages in the five weeks since the pogrom—a national record (and not the kind one boasts about). All over Europe and North America, Jewish communities increasingly feel like they are under siege. When it comes to antisemitism, this is truly a global moment, if only because no foreign-policy issue resonates as discordantly in domestic politics as does the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Germany—the land of the Holocaust—is different, or at least, it’s supposed to be. And there are visible differences between Germany and other democratic nations. On the German left, for example, anti-Zionism is comparatively muted, while large swathes are actually pro-Israel. For example, last week Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck released a video in which he slammed German Muslim organizations for their silence in the face of the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 and warned non-resident antisemitic offenders that they faced deportation. Habeck is not a conservative but a representative of the left-wing Green Party—and if you can’t imagine a Green Party politician in another country saying something similar, you are not alone.
Yet it’s painfully clear that Germany’s well-meaning politicians are dealing with a genuine resurgence of antisemitism that they cannot control. On Nov. 9-10, Germans marked the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous Nazi pogrom of 1938 that saw hundreds of Jews murdered, thousands more deported to concentration camps, and the burning and looting of synagogues and Jewish-owned stores over a period of less than 48 hours. For Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the occasion was an opportunity to issue a reminder that antisemitism has no place in post-Holocaust Germany. But for others, like the thousands of mainly Muslim demonstrators who have taken to the streets in support of the Hamas rapists and murderers, it was an opportunity of a different sort—namely, to challenge the Germans to dispense with their guilt about the Holocaust in the name of a “free Palestine.”
As is normally the case with antisemitism, there’s a historical precedent for this. On the morning of Nov. 10, 1969—a year that marked the 31st anniversary of Kristallnacht—a cleaner was doing her chores at a Jewish community center in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg, one day after services commemorating Kristallnacht had been held there. While sweeping and polishing, she stumbled upon a package wrapped in a trench coat. Discovering an alarm clock inside, she called the police who, on arrival, determined that the package was a bomb. The explosion had been timed for 11:30 a.m. the previous day, during the commemoration service, but the bomb failed to go off because of a corroded wire.
Those responsible for planting it were not neo-Nazis but leftists. Attention quickly fell on a small group in Berlin that named itself after the Tupamaros, a left-wing guerilla army in Uruguay. The group’s leader, Dieter Kunzelmann, denied that they were responsible, and the culprits were never caught. Yet despite the lack of evidence tying him to the attempted bombing, those who knew Kunzelmann, including many of his comrades, deemed him perfectly capable of carrying out such an outrage. The question was why.
As Kunzelmann conceived it, Holocaust guilt was the main impediment to the German left embracing the anti-colonial struggle of the Palestinians. “Palestine is to the Federal Republic [of Germany] and Europe what Vietnam is to the Americans,” he wrote in an article for a Socialist journal in Berlin. “The left hasn’t understood that yet. Why? The Jew’s boy.”
This descent into crude antisemitism, using insulting language to depict the European left as a tool of Zionist interests, was particularly shocking in Germany. But Kunzelmann was not alone. Later that same year, he and a group of comrades traveled to the Middle East for military training with Palestinian terrorist organizations, a path that many German leftists would beat in subsequent years. When, in the summer of 1976, terrorists hijacked an Air France jet in Athens that had originated in Tel Aviv, the group was composed of members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the German Red Army Fraction (RAF), better known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. After diverting the plane to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, the terrorists turned into uncomplicated Nazis, separating Jewish passengers from non-Jewish ones. Only a spectacular rescue operation mounted by the Israelis prevented a massacre of the Jewish hostages.
“Kunzelmann went as far as to suggest that his group could best combat Israeli ‘imperialism’ by attacking Jews in Germany, which, of course, is the culmination of antisemitic thought,” the historian Philipp Lenhard explained in an interview last week with the German publication Geo. As outlandish as it might seem to a sensible mind, five years after Kunzelmann’s death, his belief that German Jews are a legitimate target in the Palestinian war against Israel’s existence is more widespread than at any previous time—and its main adherents are not the long-haired New Leftists of yesteryear, but German Muslims, both those born there and recent immigrants as well.
German politicians are anxious about instituting measures to protect Jews that would erode their country’s much-vaunted status as a post-World War II beacon of ethnic and religious tolerance. But that won’t do. Postwar Germany has, of its own volition, made the protection of Jewish life a raison d’état of the democratic republic, and it is that stance that is caricatured as “Holocaust guilt.”
Right now, it is failing in that task. And if Germany can’t muster the determination to defeat antisemitism in the streets that spawned the Holocaust during the last century, then what chance is there that the rest of Europe will, or can, do so?
The post Germany’s ‘Holocaust Guilt’ Is Shaken by Hamas Pogrom first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Culture Minister Cuts Funding for Film Awards After Palestinian Drama Wins Top Prize, Chosen for Oscars Submission
A scene from “The Sea.” Photo: The Israeli Academy of Film and Television
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar said his ministry will pull state funding for Israel’s Ophir Awards, which is the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars, after it awarded a top honor to a film that “defames” Israel’s “heroic soldiers,” he announced on Wednesday.
At this year’s Ophir Awards ceremony on Tuesday night, “The Sea” won best picture, which automatically makes the film Israel’s submission for the 2026 Oscars in the category of best international feature film. The drama, directed and written by Shai Carmeli-Pollak and produced by Baher Agbariya, also won best screenplay, best actor for the 13-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Gazawi, best supporting actor for Khalifa Natour, and best original score. The movie, filmed in Arabic and Hebrew, marks Gazawi’s first acting role.
The Ophir Awards are voted on by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, a nonprofit organization that is the Israeli version of the US-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It has more than 1,000 members, including filmmakers, producers, content creators, and actors.
“The Sea” follows a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Khaled, from a village near Ramallah, who gets the opportunity to go the beach for the first time in his life on a class trip to Tel Aviv. When he is forced to return home at a military checkpoint, while his classmates continue on to the beach, Khaled decides to risk his life and dodge Israeli authorities on his solo journey to reach the ocean. “The Sea” premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this summer and received support from the Israeli Film Fund.
In a statement on X, Zohar said that after the “pro-Palestinian” film, “which defames our heroic soldiers while they fight to protect us,” won the award for best film at the “shameful” Ophir Awards on Tuesday night, he decided to discontinue funding for the ceremony.
“During my tenure – the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on the heroic IDF soldiers,” he added. “This great absurdity, that Israeli citizens are still paying out of their pockets for the disgraceful Ophir Awards ceremony, which represents less than one percent of the Israeli people – is over. Starting from the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. The citizens of Israel deserve for their tax money to go to more important and valuable places.”
Several winners on stage at the Ophir Awards ceremony, including Carmeli-Pollak and Agbariya, sported a black T-shirt with a message that called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and said in Hebrew and Arabic “a child is a child.” Others wore shirts that called for the return of the hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and talked about the devastation taking place in Gaza during the ongoing war. Acclaimed Israeli director Uri Barbash received a lifetime achievement award at the ceremony, and in his acceptance speech, he condemned actions of the Israeli government and Zohar, pleaded for an end to the war, and called for solidarity between Jews and Arabs.
“It is our sacred duty to bring all the hostages back to their families immediately,” he said. “To end the accursed war and replace the ‘divide and rule’ regime that has declared war on Israeli society!”
Other movies that competed alongside “The Sea” for best film at this year’s Ophir Awards included Nadav Lapid’s “Yes,” “Dead Language – which made its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and is an expanded version of the Oscar-nominated short film “Aya” – and Natali Braun’s “Oxygen,” which is about a single mother fighting to pull her son out of military service and his deployment to Lebanon.
Israel has had 10 nominations in the category of best international feature film at the Oscars but has yet to win. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will announce on Dec. 16 a shortlist of 15 contenders for the 2026 Oscar for best international feature film. The final list of nominations will be announced on Jan. 22, 2026, and the 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15, 2026.
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HBO Max Acquires US Rights to Scripted Series ‘One Day in October’ About Hamas Attack
Bartender and survivor of the Nova Festival, May Hayat, takes cover as rocket sirens sound, during her first visit to the scene of the attack, on the one-month anniversary of the attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, near Re’im, Israel, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
HBO Max has acquired exclusive rights in the United States to “One Day in October,” a scripted series based on real-life, first-hand accounts from the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“One Day in October” is the first real-time scripted portrayal of personal stories from the massacre in southern Israel, where Palestinians terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. The attack was the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“One Day in October” will debut on HBO Max in the US on Oct. 7, the two-year anniversary of the attack, FOX Entertainment announced on Monday. Filmed on location in Israel, the four-episode series is co-produced by FOX Entertainment Studios in partnership with Israel’s yes TV, the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Israel’s ZOA Films, in association with Moriah Media.
The series “presents seven emotionally gripping and artistically interwoven narratives of love, courage, sacrifice and survival,” according to a description provided by HBO Max. “From families torn apart to moments of hope emerging in the face of unspeakable tragedy to incredible bravery against the odds, each episode reveals the human cost and resilience born out of chaos. The series portrays the victims’ and survivors’ experiences of that day and is brought to life by a distinguished cast and acclaimed creative team.”
“One Day in October” is created by Daniel Finkelman, founder of the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Oded Davidoff, who is also the director and writer on the series. Sparks Go helped co-produce the series.
“The tragic events on Oct. 7 had a profound impact on all of us,” said Fernando Szew, president of FOX Entertainment Studios. “From the very beginning, we approached this series with the utmost care, sensitivity, and urgency to ensure that the stories were told with authenticity and respect and paying homage to the victims and the heroic survivors. Oded and the incredible cast, crew and teams at Sparks Go, ZOA, and yes TV have truly created compelling storytelling that we are proud to showcase.”
The cast includes Swell Ariel Or, Noa Kedar, Naomi Levov, Hisham Suliman, Wael Hamdoun, Yuval Semo, Avi Azulay, Naveh Tzur, Yael Abecassis, Moran Rosenblatt, Michael Aloni, Neta Roth, Sean Softi, Lior Ashkenazi, and Uri Perelman. The series features writing by Liron Ben-Shlush, Davidoff, Amir Hasfari, Keren Weissman, Orit Dabush, and Yona Rozenkier. Jim Berk and Sheldon Rabinowitz with Moriah Media are also executive producers on the series.
“For me, film and television have always been more than entertainment, they are a way to bear witness,” said Finkelman. “These are stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary moments. In a time when truth is fragile, the most powerful thing we can do is to appeal to humanity itself. My hope is that these stories will open hearts and spark meaningful conversation.”
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Merz Says Criticism of Israel in Germany Has Become Pretext for Hatred of Jews
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends celebrations of the newly completed renovation of Reichenbach Strasse synagogue in Munich, Germany, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Angelika Warmuth
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that criticism of Israel was increasingly being used in Germany as a pretext for stoking hatred against Jews.
Speaking at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Central Council of Jews, Merz said that antisemitism had “become louder, more open, more brazen, more violent almost every day” since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war.
“‘Criticism of Israel‘ and the crudest perpetrator-victim reversal is increasingly a pretext under which the poison of antisemitism is spread,” he said.
Germany is Israel‘s second biggest weapons supplier after the US, and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, in part because of historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
Last month, however, Germany suspended exports of weaponry that could be used in the Gaza Strip because of Israel‘s plan to expand its operations there – the first time united Germany had acknowledged denying military support to its long-time ally.
The decision followed mounting pressure from the public and his junior coalition partner over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In his speech in Berlin on Wednesday, Merz mentioned his about-turn, saying that criticism of the Israeli government “must be possible,” but added: “Our country suffers damage to its own soul when this criticism becomes a pretext for hatred of Jews, or if it even leads to the demand that Germany should turn its back on Israel.”