Does the headquarters of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service have a daycare? The BND’s fort-like home is probably the most secure building in Europe, and for good reason. Who could possibly require better on-site security than the spymasters of Berlin? Except, of course, for a group of Jewish preschoolers in Potsdam.
The Algemeiner reports on an unnerving debate currently being covered in Potsdam’s German-language newspaper. Apparently, in 2020, members of the local Jewish community approached the city about their desire to establish a new daycare facility, but the project has stalled in the wake of October 7. “People are afraid of the growing antisemitism,” Evgueni Kutikow, chairman of the Jewish Community of Potsdam, told Märkische Allgemeine. “One mother called me crazy when I asked her if she would enroll her child in a Jewish daycare center.”
And here is where a popular misconception enters the conversation. There are two major concerns for Jewish institutions in Europe (pay attention, America). The first is that, as the Potsdam Jewish community’s leader told the local paper, good security is a double-edged sword which solves one problem but may create another in its place. “Kutikow explained that the daycare center would require specific security measures, but he expressed concern that doing so might draw greater attention to the facility and make it a more visible target.”
This is one of the tragedies of anti-Semitism: Because it is a virus rather than an ideology (unlike anti-Zionism, which is an ideology that forms the basis of most anti-Semites’ political project currently), it metastasizes. The presence of anti-Semitism attracts more anti-Semitism.
By the same token, the idea animating much of the world’s reaction to October 7 is the perception of Jewish vulnerability. Turning a daycare into Fort Knox plays on those blood-in-the-water instincts of the Jew-haters by conceding that such measures are necessary.
But, some are tempted to interject, so what? If the appropriate level of security is available, then what’s the problem?
This is where the misconception comes in. Jewish institutions across Western Europe, especially in places like France and Germany, have beefed up security. So in many cases, the Jewish children are safe—inside the building.
“But if we take three steps outside,” the Potsdam Jewish leader said, “we are completely on our own.”
When the German office tasked with tallying and categorizing incidents of anti-Semitism completed its report on 2024, it found a rise in Jew-hatred that was not particularly unexpected but nonetheless striking: “In 2024, RIAS reporting offices documented a total of 8 incidents of extreme violence, 186 assaults, 443 cases of targeted property damage, 300 threats” and, for good measure, about 7,500 “cases of abusive behavior.” One example of “extreme violence” was an ISIS terror attack that killed three.
One type of abusive behavior tracked by RIAS: anti-Semitic gatherings, of which there were over 1,800 in 2024: “In 2024, there was an average of 35 antisemitic gatherings per week, compared to 16 in 2023.” Such gatherings—think of the ubiquitous pro-Hamas marches and rallies in major Western cities since the war began—act as a way to “mobilize” anti-Semites, RIAS notes.
Let’s boil it down: There are daily calls for violence and near-daily violent anti-Semitism in Germany. These incidents aren’t taking place inside fortified daycares. The presence of secure buildings in Germany did nothing to slow down the country’s incidence of anti-Semitic violence: People have to get to and from those buildings.
In this way, the argument over securing physical locations, while important, remains incomplete. A wave of anti-Semitism hit Jews in Germany in broad daylight. The only way to avoid it would be for Jews to have simply stayed home. That’s one reason for the suggestion in the Potsdam case that the benefits of securing the daycare center might be offset by the downside of calling attention to the presence of Jewish children: The building will be a gathering place of Jews coming to drop off and pick up their children.
Jews work at offices, eat at restaurants, visit parks, etc.
RIAS noted that German authorities seemed relatively unbothered by this: “There is a danger of politicians responding to the outlined increase in antisemitic incidents in explicitly political contexts in 2024 by growing more accustomed to antisemitic incidents and normalizing them. Thus, it took over a year for the Bundestag to pass a resolution on antisemitism, which not all democratic factions and groups supported. Even the murder of German hostages by Hamas causes only tentative discussions. The outcry from civil society in response to ever-increasing antisemitic violence remains muted.”
And so one can begin to understand the magnitude of Western Europe’s failure to address its anti-Semitism, these days often disguised as “anti-Zionism.” And one can also understand, then, why six years of plans to build a Jewish daycare in Potsdam have gone practically nowhere.
