German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Wednesday that anti-Semitism was certainly one of the shooter’s motives, in his attack on a Synagogue in eastern Germany on Yom Kippur. A statement of the obvious? Possibly, except that after having killed one person outside the Halle synagogue, the assailant got into his car and drove to a nearby kebab shop where he killed a second person.
So, anti-Semitism and a strong aversion to kebab?
Deutsche Welle Editor-in-Chief Ines Pohl, noted on Thursday that “eighty years after the beginning of World War II, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered, Jews must once again fear for their lives in Germany if they wish to profess their faith openly when they visit the synagogue.”
“What does this say about Germany?” Pohl asked, “And what does it mean that the 27-year-old [shooter, Stephen B] found an audience for his acts by filming them with a helmet camera and streaming them onto the internet on a video game platform?”
The shooter used several different weapons, including homemade bombs and a homemade rifle, which had repeated technical failures during the attack—saving many lives. In his livestream coverage of the attack, the assailant apologized to his viewers repeatedly for his failure to kill more victims.
“This crime proves that even the most minor hints of anti-Semitism must be taken seriously and investigated. This includes the burning of an Israeli flag as much as the insulting of people showing their faith by wearing a yarmulke,” Pohl stressed, arguing that “Anti-Semitism should not be trivialized. There’s no such thing as being a little anti-Semitic. Anywhere. And especially not in Germany.”
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said: “It is scandalous that police were not protecting the synagogue in Halle on a holiday like Yom Kippur.”
Synagogues in many German cities receive police protection.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman tweeted: “Our solidarity is with Germany’s Jews on this Yom Kippur. Our thanks go out to security forces still deployed.”
Well, everywhere except where this guy attacked a synagogue and killed two innocent bystanders.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted: “That on Yom Kippur a synagogue was shot at touches all our hearts. We must all act against anti-Semitism in our country.”
185 Olim arrived from Germany in 2018. On the other hand, an estimated 20,000 Israelis have settled in Germany. The website leaveisrael.com acknowledges the rise of neo-Nazi forces in Germany, but predicts that there’s no chance for any of those groups to ever come to power.