At reopening of Munich synagogue, German Chancellor Merz vows to crack down on antisemitism in all its forms

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking at a synagogue in Munich on Monday, pledged that Germany will confront the continuing rise of antisemitism, stressing that the country will not tolerate the hatred in any form or under any guise.

“We are declaring war on every form of old and new antisemitism in Germany,” Merz stated at the reopening of the Reichenbach Synagogue. “We will not tolerate antisemitism even when it is disguised under the pretense of freedom, of art, of culture, or of science.”

Speaking “on behalf of the entire Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merz vowed that Berlin would utilize “every legislative measure that is possible for us and that is necessary.”

The Reichenbach Synagogue, originally opened in 1931, was severely damaged by the Nazi Party in 1938. Although it was reopened in 1947, the building was later abandoned and fell into decay after Munich’s Jewish community shifted its center of life to the Ohel Jakob Synagogue in 2006.

The German leader addressed the dramatic rise in antisemitism after the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre, which led to the war in Gaza.

“Since October 7, we have been experiencing, you have been experiencing, a new wave of antisemitism, in both old and new forms, sometimes blatant and sometimes thinly veiled, in words and in deeds, on social media, at universities, in public spaces,” Merz told the synagogue attendees

“I want to tell you how deeply this shames me as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, but also as a German, as a child of the post-war generation, a child who grew up with ‘never again’ as a mandate, a duty, a promise.”

“An act so monstrous, so radically evil, that it – to use the words of the great German-Jewish thinker Hannah Arendt – simply should never have been allowed to happen among us humans,” Merz added.

Following the ceremony, Merz vowed to defend the Jewish citizens of Germany.

“We owe our Jewish fellow citizens the promise to breathe life into ‘Never Again’ as our collective historical duty,” the German leader wrote on 𝕏.

“I hope that the reopened Reichenbachstrasse Synagogue in Munich becomes a place of home for Jewish life,” he added.

Jew-hatred in Germany has surged over the past year, with a record 8,627 antisemitic incidents reported in 2024 – a whopping 77% increase from 2023, according to RIAS, the national watchdog group that monitors antisemitism within Germany. The cases included 186 physical attacks and eight incidents of severe assault.

As in much of Europe, the threat of violence in Germany is prompting many Jews to conceal their identity. A February report by the German daily newspaper Bild found that growing numbers of Jews are choosing to hide outward signs of their faith in public amid the rising antisemitism.

Ilan Kiesling, spokesman for the Jewish community in Berlin, explained the new security reality for local Jews since Oct. 7, 2023, saying, “This threat to Jewish life seems to have reached a new dimension, not only in Berlin, which has led to great uncertainty among our community members.”

Last month, German federal prosecutors announced that they had charged a Russian citizen for plotting a terror attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin.