When Germany targets Jewish artists as antisemitic

In November 2023, an exhibition by Candice Breitz was canceled by the Saarland Museum's Modern Gallery. The organizers wanted to avoid associating with the South African artist, claiming she had signed a letter by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,  labeled by Germany's government as "antisemitic", and that she had not condemned the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas.

Breitz has repeated many times since then that both allegations are false, most recently at a panel discussion on the impact of Germany's particular stance on BDS, held September 8 at Berlin's International Literature Festival (ilb). Although she supports the democratic right to boycott, she said, she is not a BDS supporter and has never signed any of the movement's letters.

And as the artist wrote on Instagram even before the museum's decision was made: "It is possible to fully condemn Hamas (as I do, unequivocally), while nevertheless supporting the broader Palestinian struggle for freedom from oppression, discrimination and occupation."

One more thing made Breitz's case particularly emblematic: she is Jewish.

"I may carry the dubious distinction of being the first Jewish artist to be de-platformed and defunded by Germany, but I am not the first Jew to be impacted," she said as the controversy erupted. "A wide spectrum of activists, artists and other cultural workers are being tarred and feathered in great haste and with McCarthyist zeal."

Invitations withdrawn amid quick accusations

Ever since the German parliament passed its 2019 resolution condemning the BDS movement as antisemitic, different cultural institutions in the country have been uninviting planned guests or  cancelling awards, preemptively attempting to avoid controversy and accusations of antisemitism.

The phenomenon became even more pronounced after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in late 2023, following the Hamas attacks that claimed the lives of some 1,200 Israelis and the taking of more than 200 hostages. 

This included cases where people publicly criticized Israel's actions in Gaza without including a direct condemnation of Hamas, and ended up being accused of antisemitism. Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham and his Palestinian co-director, Basel Adra, experienced this firsthand at the Berlinale in February, following their award acceptance speech that was critical of the Israeli government.

Abraham, who faced death threats in Israel following the accusations, criticized German officials for devaluing the term "antisemitism."

"Germany is weaponizing a term that was designed to protect Jews, not only to silence Palestinians, but also to silence Jews and Israelis who are critical of the occupation," he said.

Similar warnings have been coming from Diaspora Alliance, a Jewish-led international organization dedicated to challenging the instrumentalization of antisemitism and to fighting what they identify as genuine antisemitism.

Jewish individuals or groups targeted in 25% of incidents

Diaspora Alliance is currently compiling a list of Germany's cases of censorship or deplatforming related to claims of antisemitism.

Their data, which should be made available online in 2025, not only shows that Palestinians and the broader community of Muslims and/or Arabs have been the most directly affected by Germany's particular stance, but also that a highly disproportionate number of Jews have been affected.

Among the 84 cases of deplatforming or event cancellations documented by Diaspora Alliance in 2023, Jewish individuals or groups including Jews were targeted in 25% of the incidents.

This statistic was confirmed to DW by Emily Dische-Becker, director of the German branch of the organization. As a caveat, she pointed out that being a Jewish-led organization, they are presumably more directly informed of cases affecting Jewish people.

Jews make up less than 1% of the population in Germany.

What is Germany's definition of antisemitism?

Germany's BDS resolution of 2019 is based on the working definition of antisemitism set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which is often criticized for labeling what others would see as legitimate criticism of Israel as "antisemitic."

IHRA's definition includes "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" and "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

Even the lead author of the IHRA definition, US attorney Kenneth Stern, is opposed to using it as the basis of any legal tool. His position is backed by a wide range of scholars on antisemitism, as listed by Diaspora Alliance, who rather recommend an alternative definition, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which has been available since 2021.

Still, the German parliament is currently drafting another resolution based on the IHRA definition, titled "Never again is now: Protecting, preserving, and strengthening Jewish life in Germany." Due to its Nazi past  — among other reasons — Germany sees it as its historic responsibility to support Israel.

More than 150 Jewish figures criticize draft resolution

At the end of August, an open letter signed by prominent Jewish artists and intellectuals was published in the German daily, taz. Since its initial publication, it has collected more than 150 signatories. In it, they express their deep concerns about the draft resolution, which "claims to protect Jewish life in Germany. It promises instead to endanger it."

The letter points out that one of problems of the draft is that it "is fixated on artists, students and migrants as the country's most dangerous perpetrators of antisemitism, suggesting that the most urgent threat to Jews comes from people associated with leftist politics and those who come from outside of Germany.

"This is a malicious distortion of reality, one that relies on the false conflation of antisemitism and any critique of the Israeli government. As Jews, we particularly reject the resolution's suggestion that antisemitism has been imported by migrants into Germany, the birthplace of Nazism."

'Good Jews' and 'bad Jews'?

Stefan Laurin, editor of the Ruhrbarone, a blog whose reporting on claims of antisemitism has triggered media controversies leading to various cancellations — and which is known for having posted an inflammatory meme promoting the annihilation of Gaza — was also a guest at the ilb's panel discussion.

As Candice Breitz pointed out during the discussion, Laurin's reaction piece to the letter signed by more than 150 intellectuals and artists avoided mentioning that the signatories were Jewish. He rather vaguely referred to them as being part of "the antisemitic part of the cultural scene."

During the discussion, Laurin attempted to justify his work by quoting the chief editor of the German-Jewish weekly Jüdische Allgemeine, Philipp Peyman Engel, who said in an interview with German daily Die Welt, that Muslims and radical leftists were a more important antisemitic threat than the far right. 

Many Jews do not agree with him, including the signatories of the letter, who view things the other way around. "We do not fear our Muslim neighbors, nor do we fear our fellow artists, writers and academics. We fear the growing right-wing as evidenced by mass gatherings of neo-Nazis emboldened by a national climate of xenophobic fear. We fear Alternative for Germany(AfD), the country's second-most popular political party, whose leaders knowingly traffic in Nazi rhetoric. This threat is barely mentioned in the resolution."

"Jews are as politically diverse as all other people," said Breitz in reaction to Laurin favoring Peyman Engel's opinion over the one publicly expressed by more than 150 other Jews. She criticizes his selective approach as part of a troubling dynamic in Germany, where a distinction between "good Jews" and "bad Jews" is created to suppress dissenting voices.

This categorization was also strongly condemned by British-Israeli professor Eyal Weizman in a conversation published in the November 2023 issue of Granta magazine: "Once again, Germany defines who is a Jew, right?" he said.

"The irony that the German state would actually classify who is a Jew, what's a legitimate Jewish position, and how Jews should react is just beneath contempt."

Edited by: Brenda Haas and Felix Tamsut