The most senior Jewish leader in Germany has warned that rising antisemitism has made normal Jewish life in the country effectively impossible, with communities forced to live

behind concrete barriers and armed guards.

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described the current situation as “unbearable”, saying political leaders were focusing on security theatre rather than confronting antisemitism at its source.

Speaking in the aftermath of a terror attack at a Chanukah event in Sydney, Schuster, 71, said Germany had reached a “dangerous level of habituation” to Jew-hatred.

“Jewish life is only possible under massive security precautions,” he said. “That is not a solution. It is merely fighting the symptoms.”

While acknowledging that Germany continues to provide comparatively strong police protection for Jewish institutions, Schuster said it had become tacitly accepted that synagogues, schools and community centres must function like fortresses.

His goal, he said, remained a society in which Jewish life could exist “without a protective shield”.

Schuster called for a renewed “uprising of the decent” — a phrase coined by then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder after a neo-Nazi firebomb attack on a Düsseldorf synagogue in 2000. Today, he warned, those prepared to speak out appeared fewer in number, or had retreated into silence.

He added that the ceasefire in Gaza had brought no relief for Jewish communities in Germany, with antisemitic incidents and crimes remaining entrenched at an alarmingly high level.

“What we are experiencing is a normalisation of antisemitism in society,” Schuster said. “That must never be accepted.” Photo by Quinn Dombrowski from Berkeley, USA, Wikimedia commons.