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Germany’s Parliament Moves to Combat Antisemitism at Universities

Students at Berlin’s UdK University display palms stained with red to symbolize blood during a Nov. 13 pro-Hamas protest. Photo: Screenshot
Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, overwhelmingly passed a motion on Wednesday to address antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in schools and universities, seeking to combat a surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and antisemitic incidents across the country.
After the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Germany has seen a record increase in antisemitic incidents and disruptive pro-Hamas protests, including the occupation of university buildings. The Oct. 7 atrocities, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages were abducted to Gaza, started the Israel-Hamas war.
The parliamentary motion stipulates that the federal government — in collaboration with the ministers of education and the German Rectors’ Conference, an association of state and state-recognized universities — must ensure that antisemitic behavior in educational institutions results in sanctions.
“This includes the consistent enforcement of house rules, temporary exclusion from classes or studies, and even … expulsion,” the motion reads.
According to the proposal, the federal government should also increase funding for research on antisemitism and contemporary Jewish studies, while also supporting cooperation with Israeli science and opposing any boycott of the Jewish state.
The motion aims at halting the activities of groups promoting antisemitism, including the boycott, divestment, and, sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state. Last year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), classified BDS as a “suspected extremist case.”
Germany previously adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum. It is now used by hundreds of governing institutions — including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations — and presumably will be the basis for enforcing last week’s resolution.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
Last week, when presenting the resolution against campus antisemitism, parliamentary officials emphasized that Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff are “exposed to strong hostility and personal threats, increasingly violence.”
“The brutal massacre perpetrated by the terrorist organization Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, and the war in the Gaza Strip … have brought the Middle East conflict back into focus, especially in schools and universities,” officials said.
Jewish students at German universities widely expressed a growing sense of insecurity and uneasiness following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, amid a slew of incidents purportedly meant to protest the war in Gaza.
In December 2023, for example, police were forced to clear a lecture hall at the Free University of Berlin occupied by pro-Hamas activists. That incident came days after dozens of students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) staged a protest that involved them sitting around a table with their palms facing outwards painted in red ink to symbolize blood. While the gesture was apparently intended to condemn the German government’s support for Israel’s defensive military operation in Gaza, several observers noted a striking similarity with the notorious lynching of two Israeli military reservists, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in October 2000. One of their killers appeared at the window of the police station delightedly displaying his blood-stained palms to the appreciative crowd gathered outside following the murder of the two Israelis.
Germany’s education minister said in December 2023 that students who engage in antisemitic agitation could face expulsion from their universities, addressing concerns voiced by the Jewish student union.
A year later, the University of Leipzig canceled a lecture by Israeli historian Benny Morris following student protests described by the school as “understandable, but frightening in nature.” Morris, one of Israel’s leading public intellectuals, was scheduled to deliver a lecture about extremism and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in which the Jewish state secured its independence, at the university on Thursday as part of a lecture series on antisemitism. However, the university nixed the event after various groups, including Students for Palestine Leipzig, called for the lecture to be canceled, arguing Morris — who has expressed political opinions associated with both the left and the right — held “deeply racist” views against Palestinians.
To help combat an atmosphere of hostility toward Israelis and Jews, last week’s resolution calls for increased support and training for educators. It also requires students to engage more with Jewish life, including visiting a memorial site at least once during their school years.
Additionally, it demands more security for Jews at universities, regardless of whether they are students, staff, or faculty.
The Left Party (Die Linke) and the newly formed left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) were the only parties not to support the measure, with the former abstaining and the latter voting against it. Left Party member Nicole Gohlke criticized the initiative, stating that its proponents were calling for the use of the police and intelligence services instead of building bridges and creating spaces for dialogue.
In November, the parliament had already reaffirmed its stance against antisemitism with a broader resolution, one of its goals being to stop supporting organizations and projects that spread antisemitism or question Israel’s right to exist.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism amid the war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The post Germany’s Parliament Moves to Combat Antisemitism at Universities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netflix Premieres Adult Animated Comedy Series About Jewish Family

A scene from “Long Story Short.” Photo: Screenshot
Netflix premiered on Friday an adult animated comedy series from “BoJack Horseman” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg that follows a Jewish family over the course of several decades.
“Long Story Short” revolves around Naomi Schwartz (Lisa Edelstein), Elliot Cooper (Paul Reiser), and their three children – Avi (Ben Feldman), Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (Max Greenfield). The series jumps between time, and viewers follow the Schwooper siblings “from childhood to adulthood and back again, chronicling their triumphs, disappointments, joys, and compromises,” according to a synopsis provided by Netflix.
The extended cast includes Nicole Byer as Shira’s partner and Angelique Cabral. Dave Franco and Michaela Dietz are recurring guest stars. The first episode starts in 1996 and focuses on Avi bringing his girlfriend home to meet his family the same weekend as Yoshi’s bar mitzvah celebration. The episode also addresses Jewish-related topics such as the laws of kosher and the Holocaust.
“I think the show in some ways is about Jewish joy, and I think a lot of Jews will enjoy having a place for the Jews, and I think a lot of antisemites might learn a thing or two,” Bob-Waksberg told Variety on Monday at the show’s premiere at the Tudum Theater in Hollywood, California.
“Long Story Short” – which is Bob-Waksberg’s fourth animated show (“BoJack Horseman,” “Undone,” and “Tuca & Bertie”) and his third with Netflix – was renewed for a second season ahead of its season one premiere. The showrunner told The Hollywood Reporter that “Long Story Short” is “absolutely the most explicitly Jewish thing by a wide margin.”
The show is already facing antisemitic criticism.
“We’ve never not had antisemitism,” he told Variety. “The harassment is already there. I don’t think there’s a Jew in Hollywood, a public, a visible person that doesn’t get constantly harassed on Instagram all day long. An article came out this morning, it was a profile of the show, and I stupidly skimmed the first few comments and they were all … just nothing I want to repeat. But it’s just a buzzkill.”
“People are going to want to talk about the greater global geopolitical issues that are happening around this show, but this show is not about that,” he added.
“Long Story Short” is also from “Samurai Jack” creator Genndy Tartakovsky and “Rick and Morty” writer Matt Roller. Bob-Waksberg is an executive producer alongside Noel Bright and Steven A. Cohen. Corey Campodonico and Alex Bulkley are co-executive producers.
Watch the trailer for “Long Story Short” below.
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Iran, European Powers Agree to Resume Nuclear, Sanctions Talks Next Week

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and his French, British, and German counterparts agreed on Friday to resume talks next week on nuclear and sanctions issues, Iranian state media reported.
The three major European powers have threatened to re-activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a “snapback” mechanism if Tehran does not return to negotiations on a deal to curb its disputed uranium enrichment program.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed talks next week and warned Iran that sanctions would snap back into effect unless it reached a verifiable and durable deal to defuse concerns about its nuclear ambitions. He reiterated that time was very short and Iran needed to engage substantively.
Iranian state media said Araqchi and the British, French, and German foreign ministers agreed during a phone call for deputy foreign ministers to continue the talks on Tuesday.
During the call, Araqchi “emphasized the legal and moral incompetence of these countries to resort to the [snapback] mechanism, and warned of the consequences of such an action,” Iranian media reported.
The European trio, along with the US, contend that Iran is using the nuclear energy program to potentially develop weapons capability in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran says it seeks only civilian nuclear power.
The Islamic Republic suspended nuclear negotiations with the United States, which were aimed at curbing its accelerating enrichment program, after the US and Israel bombed its nuclear sites during a 12-day war in June.
Since then, inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, have been unable to access Iran‘s nuclear installations, despite IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stating that inspections remain essential.
Iran and the three European powers last convened in Geneva on June 20, while the war was still raging, and there were few signs of progress.
Iran‘s state broadcaster said an Iranian delegation was due to travel to Vienna on Friday to meet with IAEA officials. It gave no further details.
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German Government Calls Recognition of Palestinian State ‘Counterproductive’

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a joint press conference with Finnish Prime Minister in Turku, Finland, on May 27, 2025. Photo: Lehtikuva/Roni Rekomaa via REUTERS
A German government spokesman said on Friday that Berlin has no current plans to recognize a Palestinian state because that would undermine any efforts to reach a negotiated two-state solution with Israel.
“A negotiated two-state solution remains our goal, even if it seems a long way off today … The recognition of Palestine is more likely to come at the end of such a process, and such decisions would now be rather counterproductive,” the spokesperson said during a press conference.
Countries including Australia, United Kingdom, France, and Canada have recently said they would recognize a Palestinian state under different conditions.
Israel has responded that such recognition would be a “reward” for terrorism following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. During the ensuing war in Gaza, Hamas has embedded its weapons and military operation centers among civilian sites, a strategy that critics have decried as employing the use of “human shields” against Israel.