[Politics] The Israelis challenging the German left’s anti-Palestinian politics

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When Michael Sappir moved to Leipzig, Germany, in 2019, he knew he wanted to get involved in the local left-wing scene. But as a Jewish Israeli who spent years taking part in activism against the Israeli occupation back home, he was surprised to that being a leftist in Germany often meant giving fealty to the State of Israel and contributing to vicious attacks on supporters of the Palestinian .

Those attacks in the city, he says, had mostly come from associated with or inspired by “Antideutsch,” a movement which has historically been part of Germany’s radical left yet which unconditionally sides with Israel. For Sappir, the dissonance between the German left’s purported values and their skewed stance on Palestinian rights needed to be addressed.

That is why Sappir, a writer who is pursuing his degree in philosophy and has contributed to +972 Magazine, helped establish a new network of left-wing Israeli Jews in Germany called “Jewish Israeli Dissent in Leipzig – JID,” which provides a space for Jewish to show solidarity with Palestinians to challenge Germany's unquestioning support for Israel.

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I spoke to Sappir once before the violence that erupted in Israel-Palestine in May, and again a month after, about the founding of JID, the pernicious influence of Antideustch, Germany’s muzzling of Palestine activism, and organizing alongside Palestinians in Leipzig.

Israeli activist and JID founder Michael Sappir. (Courtesy of Michael Sappir)
Israeli activist and JID founder Michael Sappir. (Courtesy of Michael Sappir)
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Who started the Jewish Israeli Dissent in Leipzig activist network?

I formed the group with a few other Jewish Israelis, most of whom were politically active in Israel. It started last summer after an incident with the local project of a feminist collective, where one floor of the building [where they are headquartered] is meant for BIPOC and migrant women and the other floor is for everybody — mainly white Germans. Basically, a Syrian woman refugee was accused of antisemitism because she was critical of Israel. There was a big drama, which included threatening behavior against her. It ended with a lot of the migrant women leaving.

The pro-Israel side got its way and scared away the people who wanted to speak up about this. There was a decision in the house not to talk about Israel and antisemitism. Some of us heard about this and were horrified.

So, in July 2020, we decided to organize an evening called “Ask us Anything.” It was organized especially for Germans to hear the perspective of the Israeli left. We then decided that we needed something to be ongoing, including a website and a name that we could put out responses to things happening in the city.

How many members are in your network? Can anyone join?

We are currently six members. The network is open to anyone who grew up in Israel and agrees with our principles. In Israeli terms, it means a left perspective that is comfortable with looking critically at Israeli history. If new members want to join, they can't say that everything was good up until 1967 [the beginning of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights]. We are very critical about what happened before that.

Choosing the name "JID" sounds like a re-claiming of the word "Yid," a historically offensive nickname for Jews in East Europe and Russia.

We had a lot of discussion about this. Yes, it was an intentional reclaiming, but we realize that actually a few different interpretations have come up with the term. There is the Eastern European word "yid" — which in some countries is a neutral way of saying "Jew" and in other countries is an antisemitic slur — which we did not have in mind. In English-speaking countries where Yiddish speakers arrived, they called themselves “yid,” but that would also [later] become a pejorative term for Jews. In Germany itself, Yiddish speakers referred to themselves as “yid,” yet German today have never heard that term before speakers. We decided that we are okay with reclaiming it.

What are the main goals of the organization?

We are trying to open up space for voices like ours and people like us, and especially for Palestinians, because we see that there is very little space to talk about these issues from a critical perspective. It is also a matter of empowering ourselves and others, because the left in Leipzig is [associated with] the Antideutsch movement. It can be very isolating. When I came here, I wanted very much to be involved [with the left] but couldn't because there were too many Israeli flags.

What is Antideutsch?

Antideutsch is a movement that comes out of the German radical left that is focused on unconditional support for Israel. In Leipzig they are kind of fanatics. Some of them aren't even involved in the left anymore. Most of them are seen as part of Antifa. And just as Antifa opposes Nazis, Antideutsch-Antifa tries to use the same tactics against anyone who they see as questioning Israel.

Protester holds an Israeli flag at an Antidutsche demonstration in Germany. (Fatelessfear/Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Protester holds an Israeli flag at an Antidutsche demonstration in Germany. (Fatelessfear/Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Antideutsch-dominated antifascist groups oppose Palestinian solidarity in the same way they would oppose neo-Nazis: they document everything they do, sometimes threatening them individually, trying to block demonstrations, mobilizing leftists for counter-demonstrations. They spend a lot of time making accusations against solidarity online and “explaining” [often with hasbara talking points] why this or that person or group is a dangerous antisemite.

Are they affiliated with any party?

There are Antideutsch tendencies in all parts of the left — it is not limited to any party or movement. Actually, very few people today consider themselves Antideutsch: some call themselves “ideologiekritsch” [critical of ideology], and there are even more who are influenced by their ideas but not explicitly part of their movement.

How do non-Zionist Israelis and Palestinians in Leipzig deal with them?

In Leipzig, Palestinians and people in solidarity with them have had a hard time even protesting in public. Antideutsch groups have managed to bully them into silence. But now there is a feeling that they are losing their strength, and the demonstrations during the recent escalations in Israel-Palestine really made this clear — the Palestinian demo was twice as big and much more energetic than the pro-Israel counter-demonstration. In JID, we are trying to be part of this change by making our critical Israeli perspective public, and by making it clear that these “pro-Israel” people do not speak for us, and we do not accept what they say about our home country.

How have things in Leipzig changed since the escalation in Gaza?

We very quickly started to become active in May. First, we made a solidarity statement (in German and in English) about the situation. We immediately noticed that it was being sent around in activist circles and on social media in Leipzig. People discussed it — not only positively, we also got a lot of negative reactions from Antideutsch located. But what was important was that it was being talked about.