German Jewish leaders met in Hamburg in discussions aimed at dispersing fraught anti-Semitic tensions and declaring the country “a fascist-free zone”.
The “One People, One Community” gathering saw 240 Jews from across Germany meet to discuss communal issues relating to both Orthodox and liberal movements.
Community leaders, rabbis and Jewish community volunteers grouped together to “help build a completely new Jewish community, fresher, more modern, and more positive”, offering a different narrative to that of anti-Jewish bias in wider German society, claimed Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
Last month, a group of suspected neo-Nazis attacked a booth distributing pro-Israel material during an otherwise peaceful “I like Israel” event in the West-German city of Siegen.
Ironically, the peaceful meeting came only a day after violence broke out at a neo-Nazi rally in Hamburg, when 4,000 counter protesters tried to block a 700-strong neo-Nazi contingent from demonstrating. 26 demonstrators were arrested (six neo-Nazis and 20 protestors), following the ensuing violence, as 38 of the 4,000 police officers present were reportedly injured.
Graumann appealed to Germany’s federal courts to outlaw the extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), which claims 7,000 official members, although has a far wider unofficial following. The party, described as “the most significant neo-Nazi party to emerge after 1945” in Germany is currently represented in two of Germany’s 16 state parliaments.
The federal government previously tried to have the extremist party banned in 2001, but following the revelation that many high profile members were in fact undercover agents and informants for the German secret services, and the government’s subsequent unwillingness to reveal their identities and activities, the case was dismissed.

EJP