Politics

This summer, K. invites you to rediscover, in each of its weekly issues, a feature comprising five previously published articles from the magazine. This week, we have put together a…

How are American Jews experiencing the current political situation, in which their attachment to Israel, the democratic norms of their own country, and the security they believed they enjoyed in the face of antisemitism are all being called into question? For Sébastien Lévi, they are caught between Trump’s hammer and the anti-Zionist anvil – a divide foreshadowing the political reconfigurations and struggles to come.

Following the disturbing election results in eastern Germany, which saw the triumph of authoritarian, xenophobic, and antisemitic parties, Antonia Sternberger examines the roots of far-right ideas in the former GDR and their influence on Jewish life. Her investigation highlights a particular inability to learn from historical experience—whether Nazi crimes or Soviet dictatorship—which forces Jews in eastern Germany to navigate, with a remarkable amount of courage, an environment that oscillates between ignorance and outright hostility.

After examining the political, media, and judicial indifference surrounding Herman Brusselmans’ call for the murder of Jews published in Humo, this second part of Rafaël Amselem’s investigation focuses on the ambiguous role of Unia, the Belgian institution responsible for combating discrimination. Between legalistic interpretation, refusal to act, and confusion in the face of anti-Zionism, the case reveals the profound limitations of the Belgian legal and political framework in dealing with contemporary antisemitism.

Have you heard of Herman Brusselmans? He is the author of the following lines, which appeared in August 2024 in a popular Belgian magazine: “I see an image of a little Palestinian boy crying and screaming, calling for his mother who is buried under the rubble. I become so furious that I want to stab every Jew I meet in the throat with a sharp knife.” Less than a year later, the case brought forward by a Jewish organization ended in acquittal. In a two-part investigation, Rafaël Amselem explains why—and how. A journey to Belgium, where these words are (almost) no longer shocking.

The conflict between Israel and the mullahs’ Iran — which, at the time of writing, appears to be coming to an end — has highlighted the significance of war itself for Israel. By depriving the Islamic Republic of Iran of the means to achieve its exterminatory goals, Israel is redefining the concrete conditions for its security. This raises with even greater urgency the question of whether to continue the endless and deadly war in Gaza. But the confrontation that has just ended also calls into question Europe’s inaction in the face of the criminal threats made for decades against the State of Israel and the Jews, which is merely the other side of its indifference to the fate of the Iranian people.

As Israel’s operation to decapitate the Tehran regime and target its nuclear program continues, triggering a response across the entire territory of the Jewish state, Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom question the political significance of this major turning point in the Middle East conflict. Compared to the distortion of Zionism represented by the current conduct of the war in Gaza, the war against Iran takes on a whole new meaning, both for Israelis and for the entire Jewish world.

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The antisemitism that hangs in the air today, to the point of making it unbreathable, is primarily a matter of signs that we learn to recognize. Signs that must be deciphered, but which, for those with memory, appear shrouded in the ominous halo of the obvious. The testimony that Boris Schumatsky gives us in this text reminds us that this world saturated with disturbing signs has the power to suffocate us. It therefore raises the question – what is the meaning of the fight we are waging against it?