Germany’s CDU party unveils new antisemitism initiative amid wave of attacks on Jews

According to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS), 8,725 antisemitic incidents were recorded nationwide in 2025.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the German state of Hamburg has unveiled a sweeping new initiative to confront rising antisemitism, as Jews and Israelis across the country face a growing wave of targeted attacks, harassment, and violence that has intensified fears over their safety and ability to live openly.

CDU officials in Hamburg, a city-state in Germany’s north, introduced a 12-point plan against antisemitism on Friday in cooperation with former antisemitism commissioner Stefan Hensel, seeking to strengthen efforts to combat rising anti-Jewish hatred and an increasingly hostile climate.

Hensel—who resigned from his post at the end of 2025—has repeatedly criticized Hamburg’s state government over what he described as insufficient political support and shortcomings in implementing the city-state’s strategy to combat antisemitism.

Months after the position was left vacant, historian Anna von Villiez was appointed in June as Hamburg’s new Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Prevention and Combating of Antisemitism.

With the new initiative, the CDU is calling for Hamburg’s currently voluntary antisemitism commissioner role to be made a full-time position with expanded staffing and funding, as well as access to information and case files in proceedings involving suspected antisemitic motives.

Among other measures, the action plan places a strong focus on schools and universities, calling for antisemitism to be made a mandatory part of teacher training and professional development, while ensuring that every student in Hamburg encounters Jewish life firsthand at least once during their school years through visits to synagogues and other Jewish institutions.

CDU officials also propose a university code of conduct that would allow sanctions ranging from warnings to expulsion in the most serious cases, while requiring all state-run and state-recognized universities to appoint dedicated antisemitism officers.

The newly introduced plan also seeks to advance the long-discussed idea of a city partnership between Hamburg and an Israeli municipality, creating a formal relationship designed to promote exchanges between schools, universities, associations, and civil society organizations.

The 12-point plan further calls for an annual report on antisemitic incidents, an expansion of the Hamburg-Israel youth exchange program, and continued progress on rebuilding the Bornplatz Synagogue—Hamburg’s former main synagogue, which was destroyed during the Nazi era and has since become a major project of remembrance and reconciliation in the city.

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last three years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS), 8,725 antisemitic incidents were recorded nationwide in 2025, marking a slight increase from the previous year and setting a new record.

While last year’s total reflects only a modest rise of 98 incidents compared with 2024, this latest figure represents a roughly 248 percent surge from 2022, before the Oct. 7 atrocities, when 2,480 incidents were documented.

With an average of roughly 24 incidents per day, the report recorded 178 physical assaults and 257 threats, alongside widespread harassment, property damage, and intimidation targeting Jewish individuals and institutions.

In one of the latest incidents, German police on Thursday arrested a man of reportedly Afghan origin on suspicion of attempting to set fire to the Bergische Synagoge in Wuppertal, a city in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, just days before Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar when worshipers atone for their sins.

According to local media reports, the suspect allegedly threw several bags containing flammable liquid at the synagogue entrance, set them alight, and then fled the scene.

Fortunately, the flames were extinguished within minutes, preventing any injuries and leaving the building with only minor damage.

The Bergische Synagoge was also attacked in 2014, when three Palestinian men hurled six Molotov cocktails at the building, sparking a fire that was quickly extinguished.

At the time, a German court sentenced the three men to suspended prison terms and community service but found insufficient evidence to establish that the attack was antisemitically motivated.

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, strongly condemned the latest attack, warning that assaults deliberately timed around Jewish holidays are intended to spread fear and increasingly force Jewish life out of the public sphere.

“What deeply concerns me is the composure with which the perpetrator carried out this attack in broad daylight in Wuppertal. There was no apparent sense that he was doing something wrong, nor any sign of shame,” Schuster told the German newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine.

“This act shows just how far the normalization of antisemitism has progressed.”