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Former Jewish leader clashes with demonstrators at Munich anti-vax protest on Kristallnacht
(JTA) — A prominent member of Munich’s Jewish community filed antisemitic harassment charges against two right-wing demonstrators attending a protest of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Marian Offman, former deputy chair of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, clashed verbally with the demonstrators at the anti-government rally in the Bavarian state capital. Offman challenged the protesters for comparing pandemic restrictions to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and police eventually intervened.
He filed the charges Nov. 9, while the unnamed demonstrators, including a representative of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, of AfD, also filed charges against Offman. Offman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had cursed them out after challenging them on antisemitic posters and statements.
Police at the scene led Mr. Offman away “like a criminal,” he said in a telephone interview from Munich.
The incident occurred on the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against Jews and their property that foreshadowed genocide. Some 350 adherents of the German Querdenker (“contrarian”) movement had chosen the anniversary to protest against government pandemic restrictions and against the imprisonment of pandemic deniers and proponents of conspiracy theories.
The use of Holocaust imagery to protest coronavirus protocols and other public health measures became frequent in Germany during the pandemic, testing the country’s strict laws against trivializing or minimizing the Holocaust. In June 2020, Munich made it illegal to trivialize the Holocaust at such demonstrations, after several cases in which people wore yellow stars printed with the word “unvaccinated,” or held posters comparing themselves with Anne Frank.
Offman, 74, who served as a member of the Munich city council until 2020, had been attending a counter demonstration of about 300 people on Max-Joseph-Platz, a large square in the city center, when he saw an anti-vax demonstrator “holding a poster with a Jewish star on it, which is forbidden,” he told JTA.
“I said to the police, ‘That is forbidden,’ and they took the poster,” said Offman, who then saw a woman holding a similar sign. “I asked her if she thought it is ok to have a demonstration like this of all days on the ninth of November,” the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
She countered, inaccurately, that it was also the anniversary of a failed attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler by George Elser, which took place on Nov. 8, 1939. “I said I was sorry that they had not killed Hitler, and if I had had the chance, I would have done it, given the fact that part of my family was wiped out by the Nazis. Then she asked me: ‘Where is your humanity?’ I was so surprised, but I said nothing. Then she said, ‘People like you can get away with anything, you are above the law.’ It was blatant antisemitism.”
A man — later identified as a politician from the AfD — then asked Offman if he would separate people according to whether they wore masks and had been vaccinated. Offman said that, as a property manager, he attended meetings in which vaccine protocols were enforced by mutual consent.
“The man said, ‘Oh, so you are also selecting people,’” referring to the Nazis’ selections of people for extermination at death camps.
Marian Offman is seen at a dedication ceremony for plaques commemorating Holocaust victims in Munich, July 26, 2018. (David Speier/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Offman said this infuriated him: “On one hand they say they are being treated like Jews, and on the other side they trivialize the Holocaust,” he said. “I got very angry, called him an asshole, and said ‘I’ll take you to court because of this.’”
Offman also objected when police escorted him from the scene, taking him by both arms. “I said, ‘Please stop it, I will go with you.’ But they treated me like a criminal.”
Police spokesperson Sven Müller told JTA that all three individuals “were brought to a processing station of the criminal police at the edge of the demonstration, where the charges were registered; after 20-30 minutes all were then released.”
Offman was also dissatisfied after a follow-up meeting held Monday with Munich’s police chief and deputy police chief, the antisemitism officer of the Bavarian judiciary and Offman’s attorney.
“They agreed that what the police had done was not good. But when I asked them if they would like to tell this to the press, they said ‘No we will not,’” Offman said.
In a statement after the incident, police spokesperson Andreas Franken blamed “a group of young police officers” from various units who did not know who Offman was. “I can understand that a citizen of the Jewish faith feels emotionally burdened in such a situation with the context of the meeting and the special date,” Franken said.
Offman said he did not plan to file charges against the police officers, who were “just following orders” when they hustled him off. He described the incident as painful, both physically and psychologically, heightening his feeling that he did not want to live in Germany anymore. But he told JTA it was too late for him to start a new life elsewhere. Instead, he will continue to attend counter demonstrations against the far-right, he said.
Meanwhile, according to the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the organizer of the right-wing demonstration, attorney Markus Haintz, ended the event early after speaking with an unnamed “gentleman of Jewish origin” who apparently convinced him that the rally should not have been held on the Kristallnacht anniversary.
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The post Former Jewish leader clashes with demonstrators at Munich anti-vax protest on Kristallnacht appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Jewish Advocacy Groups Sue California Over K-12 Antisemitism
Students from Encinal High School and St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda, California, participating in anti-Israel demonstration on Jan 26. 2024: Photo: Michael Ho Wai Lee / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A coalition of leading Jewish advocacy organizations is suing the state of California for allegedly failing to address “systemic” antisemitic discrimination in K-12 public schools.
Led by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs, the legal action stems from consecutive years of antisemitic abused perpetrated against Jewish students, parents, and teachers by anti-Zionists at every level of the school system. Court documents shared with The Algemeiner earlier this week revealed new, harrowing accusations of Jews being called “k—kes,” Jewish students being threatened with gang assaults, and K-12 students chanting “F—k the Jews” during anti-Israel demonstrations promoted by faculty.
In one highly disturbing incident described in the legal complaint, fifth graders from the Oakland Unified School District were filmed by the teacher saying “Another major thing that I’ve learned is that the Jews, the people who took over, basically just stole the Palestinians’ land” and “one thing that’s really surprising to me, and that appeals to me is that the US is helping the Jews.” In another incident, the Oakland Education Association confected a curriculum in which the intifada — two prolonged periods of terrorism in which Palestinians murdered Israeli civilians — was taught to third graders as a nursery rhyme.
“The California education system is teaching the state’s children that Jewish Americans and Israelis are racists, white supremacists, oppressors, and baby-killers who should be shunned,” Brandeis Center chairman and former US assistant secretary of education for civil rights Kenneth Marcus said in a statement on Thursday. “The result is not surprising: Jewish children and children perceived as Jewish are bullied and excluded by their peers and harassed by their teachers, who silence, mock, and even segregate them if they speak out. School officials have done little or nothing at all to help these children.”
Litigation related to antisemitic incidents in California K-12 schools surged following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, which triggered a barrage of antisemitic hate crimes throughout the US and the world. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment, according to complaints
In the Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials were accused of ignoring complaints about discrimination and tacitly approving hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School, for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.
In September 2023, the Brandeis Center, along with the ADL and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), sued the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California for concealing from the public its adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes. Then last February, the school district paused implementation of the program to settle the lawsuit. One month later, the Brandeis Center, StandWithUs, and the ADL filed a civil rights complaint accusing the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County, California, of doing nothing after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was assaulted, having been beaten with stick, on school grounds and teased with jokes about Adolf Hitler.
“Jews consistently are being targeted with hostility because of who they are, including in California and particularly in K-12 public schools. This lawsuit seeks to remedy that,” StandWithUs chief executive officer Roz Rothstein said in Thursday’s press release. “It is imperative that California K-12 schools not be co-opted by those seeking to indoctrinate students into antisemitic hate. However, Jewish students and parents indicate that this is precisely what is happening in California. Shockingly, those tasked with enforcing non-discrimination laws in our schools have failed to intervene effectively to put a stop to this growing problem.”
She added, “This lawsuit was necessitated by that systemic failure and seeks to ensure, going forward, that California’s Jewish students are protected and have access to an education free from discrimination.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Olympic Gold Medalist Jack Hughes Honored by New Jersey Devils as NHL Season Resumes
Jan 23, 2026; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes (86) handles the puck against the Vancouver Canucks in the first period at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Photo: Bob Frid-Imagn Images via Reuters
Jewish Olympic hockey player Jack Hughes was honored by his team the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night before their loss to the Buffalo Sabres in Newark.
Ahead of the game, the Devils showed on the Jumbotron a video of Hughes, 24, scoring the overtime goal that secured the United States its 2-1 victory and gold medal over Canada on Sunday in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. Hughes lost a few teeth during the game when he took a high stick to the mouth from Canada’s Sam Bennett during the third period. The win marked the first time a US men’s hockey team had won gold at the Olympics since a 1980 victory against the former Soviet Union.
“I’m so proud and so happy that the men’s and women’s USA hockey teams brought gold medals back to America,” Hughes told the crowd in a pre-game speech on Wednesday given from the ice, while he held back tears. “And I’m so proud to represent the New Jersey Devils organization and to represent the great state of New Jersey. From the bottom of my heart, all of my [Team] USA teammates, we want to thank you for all the love and support. We feel it. Thank you.”
The Devils center — whose mother is Jewish while his father is Catholic — arrived in New Jersey late Tuesday night after US President Donald Trump recognized him and his Olympic teammates in the State of the Union address. Hughes played Wednesday night as Buffalo won for the seventh time in 10 games, 2-1, on goals from US Olympian Tage Thompson and Peyton Krebs. The NHL restarted its season on Wednesday after taking a break due to the Olympic Games in Milan.
On Thursday, before the New Jersey Devils took on the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena, Hughes received a standing ovation as the Penguins honored athletes who represented their countries at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Earlier in the week, the popular Hobby’s Delicatessen & Restaurant located blocks away from Newark’s Prudential Center, which is home to the New Jersey Devils, named a sandwich after Hughes. The owners said “Jack’s Golden Goal Sandwich,” which features roast beef and “golden sauteed onions” on a soft roll, is “so tender, you don’t need teeth.”
Trump announced during Tuesday night’s State of the Union that Connor Hellebuyck, the goaltender for the US men’s Olympic hockey team that won gold, will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hellebuyck made 41 saves in the Olympic game against Canada on Sunday and also assisted on the overtime goal by Hughes that led to the team’s gold medal win.
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Zachary Levi Hosts New Fox Nation Docu-Drama Series About King David
A scene from “David: King of Israel.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Actor Zachary Levi hosts a Fox Nation original series that premiered on Thursday about the life and legacy of the Bible’s King David.
The four-part docu-drama “David: King of Israel” begins with the episode “The Shepherd,” which tells the story of David as a young shepherd in Bethlehem who kills a lion and a bear to protect his flock.
Episode two, “King of Israel,” premieres on March 5 and explores the aftermath of David’s fight with the giant Goliath, which is described in the Book of Samuel. The third episode will premiere on March 12, and the finale airs March 19. The series features reenactments about King David’s life and expert commentary intertwined with Levi’s narration.
Born in 907 BCE, David was chosen by God and anointed by the Prophet Samuel to one day be Israel’s new king. He reigned as the king of Israel for 40 years and is one of the most important figures in Jewish history. Christians also regard him as the ancestor of Jesus.
“Highlighting faith, redemption, and extraordinary purpose, we’re honored to bring this story to Fox Nation with Zachary at the helm,” said Fox Nation President Lauren Petterson about the four-part series.
“Aside from the account of Christ, the story of David is the most powerful in all of scripture,” added Levi. “In fact, one might argue that it’s even more powerful in some ways, given that David was fully human, and therefore flawed, like us, making his journey more relatable to our own. It’s a story I’ve wanted to be a part of telling ever since I was a child, so it was such a blessing being a part of this production.”
Levi, the “Shazam!” star, who is not Jewish, told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday he grew up in a Christian home and “reading my Bible and David was the story that always stood out to me as the most epic, the most amazing.”
“It can be difficult to relate to Jesus. David is us. David is a person who is called a man after God’s own heart,” he added. The actor, who has a SAG Award for his role in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” also said the four-part series is “like Lord of the Rings in the Bible.”
“You got giants and witches and all kinds of, you know, it’s cool and there’s massive battles, nation upon nation and good versus evil and all the spiritual elements of everything,” said Levi. “It’s a really fascinating story, even if you’re not within the Judeo-Christian lineage.”