(Berlin) The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, In an interview with the German newspaper Heilbronner Stimme has voiced grave concerns over the growing anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. She states that public life for Jewish people is under threat and that they can only publically move around under police protection and under the most serious security precautions." She pointed out the fact that Hanukah celebrations in Berlin and Munich, as well as the large menorahs installed in both cities, were, by necessity, accompanied by massive, around-the-clock police protection. A large menorah installed in the city of Heilbronn, for instance, was attacked and damaged by vandals. This she encapsulated by saying:
"Anti-Semitism, has grown on the right and the left, in the Muslim community and also in the heart of German society… Anti-Semitism is widespread online and on social media but also in the analog world. Jewish students, for instance, suffer greatly from this phenomenon—'Jew' has once again become an insult in German schoolyards."