It is the symptom of a moral oath of disclosure. The political left in Germany, which is so committed to the fight against discrimination, has a deep-seated problem with the oldest of all misanthropies, anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semtism commissioner Andreas Büttner leaves the Left

The evidence for this is overwhelming and current. In March 2026, Andreas Büttner threwthe Brandenburg anti-Semitism commissioner, threw in the towel and resigned from the Left Party. His reason: a climate of intimidation, Hamas triangles on his private property and a party that dropped him for his clear stance against hatred of Israel.

Almost at the same time, the Lower Saxony regional association passed a resolution that flatly rejected the “Zionism that actually exists today” as a “colonial project”. Anyone who speaks of “slips” here ignores the historical continuity – from the support for the Islamist-controlled Gaza flotilla in 2010 to the embarrassed silence of prominent leftists who refused to applaud Israeli President Peres in the Bundestag.

8,627 anti-Semitic incidents nationwide

This ideological breeding ground is directly reflected in the statistics. The current report from the RIAS (Federal Association of Anti-Semitism Research and Information Centers) documents a historic high for 2024: 8,627 anti-Semitic incidents nationwide – an increase of 77 percent compared to the previous year.

In Berlin, the number of incidents has almost doubled to 2,521 reports. Similar data from police crime statistics prove the problem: Compared to 2015, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased by 456 percent. Particularly alarming: While right-wing extremist anti-Semitism remains a constant, the numbers in the area of ​​“anti-Israel activism” and left-wing extremist anti-Semitism are exploding.

The consequences are huge: Jewish life in public spaces is becoming invisible: Anyone who speaks Hebrew or wears a Star of David risks physical violence today in Berlin-Neukölln or on university campuses. The boundary between “criticism of Israel” and open hatred of Jews has long since degenerated into a mere camouflage. Jewish students are approached at universities and retreat into internal migration.

Anti-Semitism: Even for Karl Marx, the Jew was a “trader”

Historically, left-wing anti-Semitism has a long tradition. Even among early socialists like Proudhon or Bakunin, “the Jew” was seen as the epitome of parasitic capital. Karl Marx’s writing “On the Jewish Question” provided the theoretical template for anti-Semitism by equating Judaism with the “Schacher” and the monetary system.

Today we are experiencing a dangerous renaissance of these ways of thinking, even under the guise of postcolonialism, which is popular in many humanities and social sciences faculties.

One looks at France and sees in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party La France Insoumise (“Indomitable France”) a new political alliance: an “Islamo-Gauchisme” in which left-wing intellectuals join forces with radical Islamists to demonize Israel as the “last colonial evil.” And Michel Houellebecq predicted exactly this scenario in his 2015 novel Submission: a political alliance between the radical left and political Islam. Long ridiculed as a provocation, this is now almost a reality.

Left Party: 65,000 new members since the beginning of 2025

The Left Party, which seemed clinically dead in 2024, is currently experiencing a paradoxical rebirth. Around 65,000 new members have flocked to the party since the beginning of 2025. But this growth changes the DNA of this party: It is a young, more female, often university-based and migrant base, for which the “fight against Zionism” has become the central identity feature. When members of parliament demonstratively wear the Palestinian scarf and the genocidal slogan “From the river to the sea” is transfigured into an emancipatory slogan, the party has finally lost its moral compass. And politicians like Gregor Gysi who fight against it are of course a red flag.

This “academic hatred” is particularly clear at universities. According to the RIAS study, anti-Semitic incidents at universities have tripled in 2024. The case of Berlin TU President Geraldine Rauch, who attracted attention by supporting anti-Semitic posts on social media, is just the tip of the iceberg.

At the Free University of Berlin, events with Jewish speakers recently had to take place under police protection after there had been massive disruptions and threats. Protests escalated at Humboldt University, with anti-Israel slogans being chanted. And in May 2024, the police also intervened in Hamburg after an event on the subject of anti-Semitism after a woman was injured.

Anti-Semitism is labeled as resistance

The problem is a completely undifferentiated group-based hostility. The otherwise so sensitively cultivated tolerance for every conceivable minority immediately turns into hatred as soon as the keywords “capitalism” or “Israel” are mentioned. Anti-Semitism has become acceptable again in left-wing circles because it is labeled as “resistance”. The media is largely holding back, fearful of playing into the hands of the wrong people.

There is a dialogue in the classic film “Ship of Fools” from 1965, Heinz Rühmann’s only English-language film, that perfectly captures this absurdity. The Jewish passenger Löwenthal, played by Rühmann, is attacked by an anti-Semite: “Löwenthal, the Jews are our misfortune! You won’t want to deny this fact.” Löwenthal answers dryly: “Of course not. The Jews and the cyclists.” Puzzled, the other asks: “Why the cyclists?” Löwenthal replies: “Why the Jews?”