Last week, a mob rampaged through the streets of Amsterdam, ambushing and assaulting Jews. Anyone who appeared to be a supporter of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv was targeted by groups mostly consisting of young men from the city’s Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities. Just before the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, victims pleaded with their assailants “not Jewish, not Jewish.”
This shameful episode is only the latest example of antisemitism on Europe’s streets. It is the disgraceful consequence of an irresponsible migration policy that is equally receptive to Islamists and Holocaust deniers. Violent incidents have become more common since October 7, 2023, and the already shrinking population of European Jews is set to decline further as many Jews in the Netherlands, in France, and my country, Germany, consider emigrating.
The decline, in Germany and Europe more generally, is greeted with a shrug. Such complacency is shameful. Particularly in Germany. The country can never make up for its historical guilt, but it could help ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Not only should Germany be working to persuade Jews to stay—we should throw open our doors to Jews who want to move here. Allow me to explain.
In his book Why the Germans? Why the Jews?, German historian Götz Aly exposes how antisemitism is deeply rooted in a destructive envy. He describes how, for centuries, people were not only envious of the outward successes of the Jews but also of something profound and ancient—a culture, a religion, a history that has continued to exist across millennia.
“The envious person,” Aly surmises, “is always seeking a scapegoat.” The unsettling question he poses is “Can you be envious of someone you despise?” Jews were vilified as being “rootless,” although they possessed exactly what the Germans had been looking for: a clear identity and story.
Envy, again, is a major root cause of the global spread of Islamist antisemitism. What we know from Germany’s painful history is that when antisemitic envy, and the envy of achievement, become the dominant zeitgeist, they stand in the way of knowledge, wealth, and progress. Instead, they produce delusion, poverty, and regression. What inevitably transpires is the opposite of meritocracy: “ineptocracy,” or the rule of the least capable.
Envy as a decelerator of success and excellence is by no means a German phenomenon. But it is widespread in Germany, and alive with almost masochistic vigor. And anyone who cares about the future of this country and Europe should be concerned about defeating it.
Germany could change the status quo—and surprise the world—with a move at once altruistic and in its own self-interest: passing a law that gives preferential naturalization to Jewish immigrants. This concrete gesture would lend much-needed credibility to all of the sermonizing by German politicians in response to the rise in antisemitism that has followed October 7: sermonizing about how Jewish life is a part of German culture, and how antisemitism has no place in Germany. It would narrow the considerable gap that exists between words and deeds.
But Germany would also be doing itself a favor.
As the world becomes increasingly antisemitic, Germany could attract the greatest talents in business, science, the arts, and technology. This would send out a signal against antisemitism globally and also be an extremely effective program to boost the well-being and prosperity of Germans. Were Mecklenburg-West Pomerania—a federal state in the East as large as Israel—to become a preferred immigration area for Jewish migrants, I would wager that in 10 years it would have some of the best universities, the greatest density of start-ups, the lowest unemployment, and the highest per capita income in the country. In short, it would become the “flourishing landscape” that Helmut Kohl dreamed of for East Germany.
At present, there is no talk of a surge of Jewish immigrants. Altogether, the numbers are stable—but more and more people are considering leaving Germany. And it’s not hard to understand why. They are increasingly shaken and scared off by the country’s tolerance for Islamist intolerance. Faced with failed immigration policies, Jews feel increasingly insecure and unwanted in Germany. Not only Islam, but Islamism, has invaded the country—and with it, violent antisemitism. Anti-Israel demonstrators burn Israeli flags and cry “death to the Jews” on German streets, and people wearing a kippah or a Star of David have been attacked in public. Pogrom-like events, such as the one in Amsterdam, seem more and more likely. Recently, a survivor of the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel said publicly: “In Germany, it’s October 6.”
We are at risk of this being the shameful final chapter in the story of German-Jewish history. To avoid that from happening, we need more than pieties.
There are precedents from history and other countries for the program I am proposing. Israel has the Law of Return, which enables all Jews worldwide to enter the country and gain citizenship immediately. The U.S. has not only its O-1 visa for extraordinary ability and achievement but also the Lautenberg Amendment from 1989, which facilitates the immigration of Jews and other religious minorities from the former Soviet Union. And even Germany has a similar provision. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Jews in the successor states were increasingly subject to antisemitism, making many of them emigrate. Germany also became a popular destination after developing a special program in 1991 for Jewish immigrants. Initially, the inflow of Jewish immigrants into Germany was regulated via the so-called “Quota Refugee Law,” which remained in force until 2004, before being replaced by a new immigration law in 2005.
Some may ask: Why should Jews get this kind of special treatment?
There are three obvious reasons:
Germany’s history, the genocide of six million Jews, and the most recent explosion of antisemitism confer on Germany special responsibilities. Germany cannot undo history, but it can help to prevent history from repeating itself.
The number of radical Islamists continues to grow in Germany. A certain counteracting balance would demonstrate that which is supposedly defined in our own constitution: tolerance and diversity. Islam has long since been a de facto part of Germany. But so has Judaism.
Such a program would also help us state clearly that we are moving away from our current policy of essentially unrestricted immigration, in favor of an immigration policy that serves Germany’s best interests.
Put simply, the general criteria could be as follows: Anyone who faces an acute existential threat, or who can contribute to Germany in a meaningful way, can come to Germany. This is not callous, but rather the most effective way to prevent structural xenophobia. In the case of Jewish immigrants, the evidence from around the world makes it clear that Germany would benefit from Jewish immigration.
After his liberation from the concentration camp Theresienstadt in 1945, Rabbi Leo Baeck wrote: “An epoch in history has ended for us Jews in Germany. . . . We believed that the German and Jewish spirit could meet on German soil and, through their marriage, could become a blessing. This was an illusion—the epoch of the Jews in Germany is over once and for all.”
It would be one of the greatest achievements in history to prove this great man wrong. Because the Germany of the German-Jewish symbiosis—the cultural and economic heyday between 1871 and 1933—was the best Germany that ever existed.
The triumph, once again, of antisemitism in this country would mean our collective suicide. Because those who hate and fight Jews always end up hating and fighting themselves. Germany must avoid that fate, and avoid becoming a no-go zone for Jews. Rather, it should become home to Jewish flourishing. Courageous German policymakers should prove Baeck wrong in the twenty-first century. We must make Germany more Jewish again.
The one problem we might then have to worry about: What if no one comes?
Mathias Döpfner is chairman and CEO of the media and technology company Axel Springer, based in Berlin. Read his previous essay for The Free Press, “The Things I Never Thought Possible—Until October 7.”
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