German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday joined a broad coalition of participants at Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate for a massive rally in support of Israel and decrying antisemitism.

Organizers said some 20,000 participants were in attendance, however, police put the number closer to 10,000.

The rally featured representatives from the German-Israeli Society, most major political parties, the Council of the Protestant Church of Germany, the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the Federation of German Industries, the German Trade Union Federation, as well as a speech by Israel's ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor.

Relatives of Israelis taken hostage by the Islamist group Hamas — which controls the Gaza Strip and is labeled a terrorist organization by Israel, Germany, the European Union and the United States — were also on the list of speakers.

The Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, was dedicated to the roughly 1,400 Israeli civilians killed in Hamas' brutal October 7 attack on Israel's border region to the Gaza Strip. 

"It is unbearable that Jews are living in fear again today… in our country of all places," said Steinmeier as the rally got underway. "Every single attack on Jews, on Jewish institutions, is a disgrace for Germany. Every single attack fills me with shame and anger."

Pledges of solidarity not enough says German-Jewish community leader

Daniel Botmann, of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said voicing solidarity was not sufficient. "We demand more than declarations of intent, we demand more than expressions of solidarity. We demand action."

Botmann called the fear of Jewish parents for their children's safety intolerable and demanded harsh consequences for those breaching Germany's antisemitism laws: "Those who shout antisemitic slogans and don't have German citizenship must be expelled and, if necessary, deported." Germans doing so, he said, must face severe punishment.

Volker Beck, the president of the German-Israeli Society, who on Friday said German society had an obligation to "defend Israel's existence," noted that all major political parties with the exception of the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) would take part in the rally.

Beck said only the "democratic parties of the German Bundestag" had been invited. AfD members have regularly denied the Holocaust, used Nazi language in political speeches and called it shameful that Germany should still feel historical responsibility for crimes committed by the Nazi regime.

Rally comes amid pro-Palestinian rallies and a further uptick in antisemitic crimes

Beck, who called Hamas' slaughter of civilians on October 7, "a turning point in the history of conflict in the Middle East," said, "We are shocked that these days Jews in Germany are the target of hate, of attacks, of violence and threats."

Germany has long struggled with rising antisemitism and the days following Hamas' attack and Israel's subsequent counterattacks on Gaza have seen pro-Palestinian groups clash with police, Jewish residences and institutions graffitied with the Star of David and a synagogue attacked with Molotov cocktails.

Earlier on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was, "deeply outraged by the way in which antisemitic hatred and inhuman agitation have been breaking out since that fateful October 7 — on the internet, in social media around the world, and shamefully, also here in Germany."

Scholz made the statement as he spoke at the dedication of a new synagogue in the eastern German city of Dessau. "Here in Germany," he said, our vow: "'Never again' must be unbreakable."

Sunday's rally comes on the heels of several mass rallies in Germany and abroad staged in support of Palestinians trapped in Gaza. Though many remained peaceful, they have also been the scene of antisemitic and anti-Israeli actions and chants.

Such rallies have been banned in the German capital until at least October 30.

Addressing criticism within Germany over Israel's massive ongoing counterattacks in Gaza, Ambassador Prosor said: "We must now eliminate the entire infrastructure of terror in Gaza — and when we do that, I really don't want to hear any more 'yes, but'. This time we have to go all the way." 

js/rc (AP, dpa)

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