A large group of residents in Germany, including hundreds of Christians, formed a human chain around a synagogue in Munich to protect the Jewish community from a mass antisemitic demonstration taking place outside during Shabbat prayers.
The anti-Israel march, consisting of 750 individuals, openly called for the killing of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, denied Israel’s right to exist, and referred to the Jewish hostages suffering in Gaza as “war criminals.”
Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, who serves as president of the Jewish Community of Munich, decried the decision by authorities to allow the demonstration. Knobloch, alongside a number of city officials, pointed to the timing of the event, which corresponded with Sabbath services, calling it a “deliberate attempt at intimidation.”
Bernhard Liess, the city council chairman of the Evangelical District, responded to the antisemitic march, writing: “Why a pro-Palestinian demonstration with loud anti-Israel slogans must pass by the Munich Jakob Synagogue precisely on Friday evening at the start of the Shabbat services remains a nuisance and incomprehensible… If fellow Jewish citizens can only enter their synagogue under police protection, then this is an unsustainable condition.”
“The fight against antisemitism is not just a political matter but an expression of our faith,” he further wrote. “Antisemitism and Christian faith are absolutely incompatible!”
Like much of the world, antisemitism has sharply risen in Germany following the massacre of 1,200 Israelis by Gazans on October 7th, 2023, and the ensuing war between Israel and Iran’s terror proxies. While cloaked in anti-Zionism, these protests have consistently glorified Hamas’ barbaric acts of terrorism and called for violence against Jews. In 2024, Germany recorded 8,627 cases of violence against Jews, nearly doubling the unusually high total witnessed the year prior.
Tiauna Lodewyk, a representative of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, recently highlighted the common ground shared between the “Free Palestine” narrative and Nazi antisemitism.
“Anti-Israel rhetoric has become the modern-day platform for antisemitism โ the deep-seated, conspiratorial hatred of the Jewish people. Because it is thinly veiled beneath slogans of political progress, modern antisemitism has been allowed to fester and thrive around the globe,” she wrote. “Holocaust memorials have been vandalized with swastikas and ‘Free Palestine’ โ homes of Holocaust survivors have endured the same. Physical assault, synagogue vandalism, and harassment of Jewish students on university campuses have become regular occurrences in the name of ‘freeing Palestine.'”
“If anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, why does it so often target Jews? Where does a slogan such as ‘Free Gaza’ and the use of Nazi swastikas find common ground? Fundamentally, it is the same root of hatred fueling both movements and producing the same results,” Lodewyk underscored. “As a Christian believer in Jesus Christ, this reality does not surprise me. At its root, antisemitism poignantly reveals the battle โ ideological, but also spiritual โ that exists surrounding Israel and the Jewish people.”
“God chose the Jewish people and set them apart to be a light for all nations. The Lord Himself promised the Jewish people the land of Israel forever, where His name is set and where the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will return to reign from Jerusalem. Scripture makes it clear that Israel is the apple of Godโs eye (Zechariah 2:8), and He is zealous for this land (Deuteronomy 11:12,ย Psalm 105:8-11),” she emphasized, adding that Christians should feel “obligated and committed to stand against the spiritual root of antisemitism in all its forms.”
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