To the unknown assailants on Berlin streets: punches will not erase us
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AN ISRAELI FRIEND who lives in Berlin was on his way home late one night after a party. He’d had a great time and was drunk and happy. There were few people on the street, but he paid little attention to the three men he noticed walking close to him. Suddenly he felt a searing pain around his eye and found himself falling to the ground.
He touched his face, felt the blood and after a few seconds realised he had been punched. He looked up to see the men running away. When I heard his story, I wondered, was it because he looked gay? Was it because he looked different? The men wouldn’t have known he was a Jew. He’s Ashkenazi but looks more like an Arab than any of my Mizrachi friends.
I decided it was a gay hate crime. My friend replied that I was blaming him, the victim; that I was saying if he’d dressed differently, he wouldn’t have been attacked.
He didn’t say much about who he thought the men might have been but the next time we met, my wife asked him and he answered, almost in a whisper, “I think they were Arabs.” He had been hesitant to say that because racism is a major issue in Germany. The far right AfD Party claims Muslim immigrants are violent and should not be allowed to live in Germany.
I understood my friend’s reluctance. When it comes to Arabs, the Germans are quick to call out anti-Semitism. There have been national protests in support of Jews. The media’s reaction to the attack by an Arab on a man wearing a kippa is a good example (The German tabloid newspaperBildhas been one of the most vocal supporters of the protests, even publishing a cut-out kippah for readers to download and print.) And now, after the attack on the Halle synagogue, the same newspaper is now calling for a solidarity act against the German right.
My Jewish community cannot be separated from the Arab community – both are the Asiatic other. The Halle terrorist wore a helmet with a camera, and we could hear him saying that he was after Jews and Kanackan [Turks]. He tried to break into the synagogue before shooting a man at a nearby Turkish kebab restaurant. The far right is after Turks and Muslim immigrants (the AfD), as well as Jews, gays and feminist women.
My friend, whose eye healed but not perfectly, did not report the assault to police. These days he is reluctant to walk outside at night and is more aware of the people around him.
Another friend moved from that same district, Neukölln, years ago. We both like the Arab culture on the Neukölln sidewalks, so I recently asked him if he missed the bars, clubs, etc. He then told me the real reason he moved.
“I was living in Neukölln and decided to lengthen my hair by adding long, colourful African braids. You know, I look like an Arab. I walked down the street and suddenly the local Arab people started cursing me in Arabic. It was frightening.
“They were abusing me because they knew I was gay, and they couldn't stand that I looked like them. They didn’t know I was a Mizrahi, an Arab Jew. They yelled ‘Ya iban Sarmuta’ (son of a whore) and I knew they could turn violent.”
My friend didn’t report the incident to police. In neither case did the attackers know my friends were Jewish. As Israeli Jews, I think we feel more vulnerable. We are a minority here and any small crime against us is scarier.
My friend didn’t report the incident to police. In neither case did the attackers know my friends were Jewish. As Israeli Jews, I think we feel more vulnerable. We are a minority here and any small crime against us is scarier. We are a minority that lives among other minorities, within the German majority society. And these crimes make us feel like we have no protection, in a society that almost annihilated its Jews.
The police, German society and the local media don’t know about crimes happening in my neighbourhood. And yet this violence is close to reaching my doorstep.
I once went to a gay club in Jaffa. I went with David, a good friend from Haifa. We both wrote columns for a newspaper and did a lot of crazy things together. At the club we danced together. He made a pass at me, and I was curious about the queer culture, which for me was unknown. After we left the club, we jumped on his motorcycle and started the drive home.
People in the car next to us had seen us leaving the club and began cursing us. There was violence in the air and we were scared. I don't know what would have happened if we had been on foot and passed these harassers on the street. It gave me a feeling of what it’s like to be a victim of a homophobic hate crime. In Israel, the word “Homo” is a common curse. Teenagers, soldiers and adults use it all the time.
I want to write a letter to these assailants in the dark, whose identity I will never know. I would say to them that it is impossible to erase the OTHER from the street. There is no justification for your violence, which stops any possibility of conversation; which creates a wound and trauma and endangers the community by creating a stereotype. Get out of the dark and come talk to us, no punches and curses.
The colums was first published on the Jewish Independent
Secondary keywords
Israeli Jews in Berlin
hate crime Berlin
antisemitism in Berlin
homophobia in Berlin
Arab-Jewish identity
Mizrahi Jews in Germany
Neukölln
Jewish life in Berlin
Israeli writer Berlin
minorities in Germany