The conversation between the school friends escalates. One: skipped class yesterday. The other: went along on the trip to the synagogue. The first one can’t understand that at all. He blames Jews for all the evil that is happening in Palestine and in the world. The friend contradicts that there are so many similarities between the religions, but the accusations fly back and forth louder and louder. Then suddenly one of the two laughs. The role play is over. “We could go on like this for hours,” says Asmen Ilhan, just a fictional truant with anger in his eyes, now a fighter against anti-Semitism and stereotypes again. “You have to pick up the young people,” he says, with everyday situations.
Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (FW) would also like to do this – and show which ways Bavarian schools go to fight anti-Semitism at an early stage, so to speak. For this he got support from the Munich Ministry this Thursday, the psychologist Ahmad Mansour and his team from Mind Prevention. This supports young people with the help of role-playing games, among other things, to question themselves and others. “People aren’t born anti-Semites,” says Mansour. And Piazolo clarifies what should be self-evident: “Anti-Semitism has no place with us.”
In view of the situation, one could certainly have doubts about that. Anyone who publicly professes the Jewish faith must expect hostility, with graffiti on synagogues and house walls, verbal and even physical attacks. According to Piazolo, the police counted a good 500 cases in 2021 alone. The number of unreported cases is likely to be greater. The measures presented on Thursday focus on young people with a refugee or migration background. “But that doesn’t mean that anti-Semitism is a migrant or Muslim problem,” says Mansour. Whether from the right or the left, from bourgeois circles or the camp of corona deniers, anti-Semitism knows many faces.
From this point of view, the effect of the cooperation between Mind Prevention and the Bavarian Ministry of Education, which started in 2017, can only be limited despite all efforts. A good 1000 pupils, mostly from integration classes or middle school, from 30 Bavarian partner schools come into contact with the program called “ReThink” every year. A manageable number in itself, but which, as the responsible persons assure, is not necessarily a disadvantage, keyword: target group-oriented addressing. In “ReThink”, trainers such as Asmen Ilhan play everyday life in a simplified way. The role-playing games can sometimes reflect a quarrel between friends, sometimes an argument with the father who wants to impose his values on the son. In this way, the young people should start thinking and discussing. The students are often reluctant at first, says Ilhan. “But we try to bring in humor.” Many then quickly realized that they could be more informal than usual during the workshop; that they now have a chance to tell their point of view.
“ReThink” is flanked by “ReAct” and “ReMember”. The latter deals with the Shoah, the former is aimed at teachers. According to Mansour, they are often overwhelmed when they are confronted with anti-Semitism in class. The lights go out briefly in the ministry room, and a video from May 2021 starts playing on a screen. “After that we got a lot of emails from teachers who were looking for help,” says Mansour. You can see cheering people with Israel flags, in the background black clouds of smoke are rolling towards the sky from the Temple Mount. The short Internet clip gives the impression that Jews are happy about a Muslim pilgrimage site on fire. But that’s wrong, Mansour explains: celebration and fire have nothing to do with each other. So classic fake news that suggests a simple answer to complex issues.
Minister Piazolo admits that not all Bavarian schoolchildren can be reached with the role-playing program. However, there are other measures, such as school visits by contemporary witnesses and school trips to documentation centers. The cooperation with Mind Prevention is also to be expanded, the organization wants to gradually expand its Bavarian structures. Managing director Beatrice Mansour says it is important to guide young people towards maturity. This requires the head as well as the emotions – see the thoroughly charged role-playing games.