When Ron Dekel goes to university, he says that the reflexive clutching of his chest has become part of his everyday life. Dekel, who is active on the board of the Association of Jewish Students in Bavaria, wants to be sure – sure that the chain with the Star of David is not hanging over his clothes, but underneath. He would much rather be safe from hostility and threats, especially at the colleges and universities in Bavaria and especially when he wears his Star of David visibly over his sweater. But that has no longer been the case since Hamas’ attack on Israel almost a year ago, criticize him and the President of the Israelite Community for Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch. Both pointed to open anti-Semitism at Bavaria’s universities on Tuesday before a meeting with the CSU parliamentary group.
The attacks last October were “the beginning of a new era full of worry, fear and uncertainty, also in Bavaria,” said Knobloch. A milieu has developed at universities that no longer differentiates and discusses, but instead “crudely wants to divide the world into good and evil.” The rejection of the state of Israel has lost all sense of proportion among some students and can only be explained by hatred of Jews, said Knobloch, referring in this context to the protest camp in front of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, where left-wing students in particular have been denouncing Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack for around five months. Ron Dekel, whose ancestors survived the Holocaust, says he was called a “Nazi” in this camp.
CSU parliamentary group leader Klaus Holetschek, his deputy Winfried Bausback and Karl Freller, who is the parliamentary group’s spokesman for issues relating to the Israelite religious communities, sided with the Jewish students before the meeting with their guests. Their safety and the freedom to learn, teach and engage in discourse at universities must be defended at all costs. The CSU is therefore calling for nationwide rules for the expulsion of anti-Semites and extremists. The other democratic parliamentary groups have agreed with this.