The new face of anti-Semitism

Rosenthaler Platz. Photo by Erwan Martin on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

On Friday evening, a young Jewish man had just left a bar on Rosenthaler Platz in central Berlin when someone approached him and started to heckle him about his views on Israel.

The aggressor then punched him twice in quick succession, knocking him over. When his victim was on the floor, he kicked him in the head and fled.

Five days later, the Jewish student is still in hospital waiting on an operation for the skull fractures he suffered.

This brutal assault tells us a lot about the state of anti-Semitism in Germany today. In particular, its aftermath shows how, in some quarters, it is once again acceptable to twist the story to pin the blame on the Jew.

Jewish student Lahav Shapira knew his attacker - they had come face to face on opposite sides of protests over Gaza at Berlin’s Free University

Shapira, 30, has helped organise marches in solidarity with Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.

His attacker, a 23 year old from the Mid…