Elisha Wiesel: Risk Power to Protect Jews

As three parties move toward forming Berlin’s next government, Elie Wiesel’s son says protecting Jewish life must come before political survival.

I asked Elisha Wiesel what political leaders should be prepared to sacrifice to protect Jewish life.

“They should be willing to sacrifice their governing coalitions.”

The answer, sent through his representative on October 26, comes at an awkward moment for Die Linke, the Greens and the Social Democrats. They want to govern Berlin together. They have also agreed to affirm Israel’s right to exist and take action against antisemitism. The question is what happens when enforcing those promises threatens the coalition itself.

Wiesel, the son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, takes issue with how the parties propose to handle violations.

“When the leadership of the Berlin Left Party agrees to a document affirming Israel’s right to exist, but leaves disciplinary action to the very parliamentary groups where hostility resides, they have traded real moral clarity for coalition stability,” he wrote.

The October 8 agreement provides for a three-member expert panel to assess alleged antisemitic incidents at the request of any prospective coalition partner’s parliamentary managing director. Based on that assessment, the parliamentary group concerned decides what action to take under its own rules, potentially including expulsion from the group.

The dispute surrounding newly elected Linke lawmaker Vanessa Emde illustrates the problem. Emde signed her parliamentary group’s declaration recognizing Israel’s right to exist but has stood by her view that people, not states, possess a right to exist. Critics see its application to Israel as a challenge to the Jewish state’s legitimacy. Her parliamentary leadership has distanced itself from her. The dispute is due to be discussed again on October 27.

In remarks to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on October 26, Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he did not find Die Linke’s professed rejection of antisemitism credible.

Gideon Joffe, chairman of the Jewish Community of Berlin, raised a different objection. In a position paper reported by Der Tagesspiegel, he opposed expelling Emde, warning that the party could sacrifice one member while avoiding a wider examination of its positions on Israel, including its genocide allegations. Die Linke rejects his accusations.

I have seen why these arguments matter beyond politics.

In June, I arrived on Uhlandstrasse in Charlottenburg as police questioned people after an alleged antisemitic attack. Rabbi Aviezer Kantor had been walking home with his 5-year-old son and a 14-year-old yeshiva guest. According to police, a man allegedly followed them, shouted antisemitic abuse, spat at the group and struck Kantor in the face.

The suspect disputed parts of the account. Kantor later told me his glasses had fallen and that bystanders had tried to help. What troubled him most was that the children were there. He had twice asked the man to leave them alone. I reported his account after speaking with him following Shabbat.

On October 24, a 60-year-old man was attacked in Schöneberg after a stranger asked whether he was Jewish, according to Berlin police. After the man answered yes, the stranger allegedly made antisemitic remarks, splashed beer on him and threw a full can that missed. When the man tried to leave, the stranger allegedly punched him to the ground and continued hitting him. The victim suffered facial bruising and a laceration. The State Security division is investigating.

RIAS Berlin documented 2,197 antisemitic incidents in 2025, down from 2,521 in 2024 but well above the 848 recorded in 2022. These are documented incidents, not criminal convictions.

Wiesel describes the small decisions Jewish people make before stepping outside: whether to show a Star of David, speak Hebrew on the phone or look around before talking to a child.

“But freedom means the freedom to be absent-minded about who you are,” he wrote.

A Jewish resident should be able to leave home without first deciding what to conceal. That should be an ordinary expectation in Berlin.

The current government deserves scrutiny, too. In written answers to my questions published October 1, Governing Mayor Kai Wegner cited increased protection for Jewish institutions, restrictions on Hamas symbols in schools and expanded police powers. He called Die Linke a security risk. But when I asked what had measurably improved Jewish safety, he provided no evidence of outcomes. He also did not supply the binding commitments and benchmarks I had requested for the next government.

That does not mean his measures achieved nothing. It means he did not show what they achieved.

Wiesel also rejects making Jewish participation in public life conditional on renouncing Zionism.

“The formula ‘Jews are welcome, but Zionists are not’ is not a nuanced political distinction. It is a modern loyalty oath,” he wrote.

For him, attachment to Israel includes family, religious memory and the right of Jews to determine their own future. His father’s survival of Auschwitz and Buchenwald informs that understanding.

A Jewish Berliner should not have to disavow an attachment to Israel to be welcome at a university, a cultural institution or among political colleagues. Supporting Israel’s existence and its right to defend its people does not make someone answerable for every decision of an Israeli government. Nor does disagreement over those decisions justify treating a Jewish neighbor as a suspect.

“A Jewish future in Europe cannot be built behind bulletproof glass,” Wiesel wrote.

He recognizes the immediate need for protection. But guards outside a school cannot be the whole answer to whether Jewish families can live freely. Parents need confidence that their children will be accepted beyond the school gates, too.

When I asked what he wanted the next generation to inherit, his answer reached beyond the threats.

“I want them to inherit our joy, not just our scars.”

He remembers his father’s home filled with books, music, theological arguments and laughter. Jewish life, in his account, should leave children room for all of that. Their identity should not be organized around anticipating other people’s hostility.

Die Linke is scheduled to decide on October 31 whether to enter formal coalition negotiations. Before that, the SPD and Greens should answer a question as clearly as Wiesel answered mine:

What would make you walk away?

Jewish Berliners should know what the parties would do if one of their own violated the agreement and taking action threatened their majority.