Antisemitism Monitor | Week of August 14, 2023

Public school students in Melbourne, Victoria, are experiencing an alarming amount of antisemitic comments, graffiti, slurs and violence. From slurs like “dirty Jew” to extreme bullying of Jewish students to memes honoring or lauding Hitler and the Nazis, the incidents in schools throughout the city have risen in severity and frequency. In at least three different Melbourne public schools, parents are choosing to pull their children out of school altogether after the administrations failed to take the antisemitic incidents seriously. One parent remarked, “in 35 years of experiencing schools in three different countries, this is the worst case of antisemitism I’ve come across.” The bullying remarks aimed at Melbourne’s Jewish students call for a return to concentration camps and total extermination, and they often include praise for Hitler. One of the schools involved in these antisemitic incidents was recently sued by five former Jewish students, all of whom left the school due to extreme antisemitic bullying.

British bassist and lyricist Roger Waters, former member of the rock band Pink Floyd, has belonged to the Bertelsmann Music Group for years. Recently, a collection of Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International and the American Jewish Committee, asked the Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) to drop the rock star entirely due to recent controversies surrounding the musician’s on- and off-stage choices throughout his 2023 European tour. At concerts in Berlin on May 17 and 18, Waters came onstage wearing an outfit reminiscent of a Nazi SS uniform—including a leather trench coat and a bright red armband. When asked about his clothing choice, Waters proclaimed, “it’s called satire!” Despite Waters’ attempts at defending himself, the German police opened an investigation into this trend in Waters’ appearances. In Germany, the punishment for people who celebrate or support the Nazi regime is three years in jail. A concert in Frankfurt scheduled for the end of May was initially canceled by the city council, but Waters took that decision to court and was ultimately allowed to perform. As of now, the Bertelsmann Music Group has only said that it will not “expand the scope of the contractual relationship.”

Journalist Fabian Wolff, Germany’s very own George Santos, has been lying about his identity for years, claiming that he has Jewish heritage. In mid-July, Wolff revealed that he does not have Jewish heritage. Wolff’s motivation for this farce seems to have been political—Zeev Avrahami of ynet wrote that his “Jewish identity was his ticket to the liberal left” in Germany. At the same time, Wolff has also loudly criticized Israel’s recent political changes and “bash[ed] fellow Jews” for not doing the same, wrote Avrahami. In May 2021, Wolff wrote a well-regarded essay for Zeit.de about what it means to be Jewish in Germany. Since his identity was revealed, Zeit.de updated the essay with a disclaimer, saying “we regret having published this article.”