On 20 September 2026 Berlin elects a new Abgeordnetenhaus. Both DIE LINKE and the AfD must be regarded in Berlin as a danger to a Jewish future. From a Jewish perspective, what is decisive is whether and how they delegitimise the free and democratic basic order, normalise antisemitism and promote a climate in Berlin in which Jewish life becomes practically less safe.
The AfD and the Linke differ clearly in style, milieu and political tone, but not in the fact that both give rise to distinct risks from a Jewish perspective. The AfD works with a statesmanlike image – order, security, “protection of Jewish life” as a demarcation against Muslims – while at the same time shifting the normative framework through ethno-nationalist thinking, historical revisionism and anti-institutional polarisation. In Berlin the Linke plays the topic of the Middle East complex above all through loud, emotionalised activism and thus creates an atmosphere in which Jews are pushed into declarations against Zionism and Israel, and in which people who do not wish to position themselves in an anti-Israeli way are attacked or pushed out of party-political and social debate.
Both parties play minorities off against one another, each in its own way. The AfD instrumentalises Jews in the culture war against Arabs and Muslims and pretends to be on the side of Jewish life without advocating universalist protection for minorities. The Linke places itself loudly on the supposed side of Arabs and Muslims and in doing so works with a rhetoric in which “Zionists”, “imperialists” or “warmongers” are marked out as enemy images and in which Jews likewise end up becoming the object of identitarian camp politics, while Arabs and Muslims are accorded no political perspective beyond a function as an anti-Israeli mass of outrage.
