‘Against All Antisemitism’: A solidarity vigil outside a synagogue in Berlin, Germany, following the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel. Photo: Reuters/Liesa Johannssen

The head of Germany’s Jewish community has called for students who engage in antisemitic violence to be excluded from their universities.

“Anyone who strikes a Jew because they are Jewish has no business being at a German university,” Josef Schuster — president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany — said on Tuesday, in comments reported by the Zeit news outlet.

Schuster was speaking in the wake of a brutal attack on an Israeli student in Berlin over the weekend.

Lahav Shapira, 30, was attacked by his assailant as he left a bar where he had been drinking with his girlfriend. He was rushed to hospital where he underwent surgery for non-life threatening injuries.

Shapira — whose grandfather Amitzur, the head coach of the 1972 Israeli Olympic track and field team in Munich, was among the 11 squad members murdered by Palestinian terrorists — is a student at the Free University in Berlin, where he has emerged as a vocal advocate for Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas pogrom in which over 1,200 were killed and more than 200 seized as hostages. According to his brother, Shapira was recognized by his assailant in the bar, who carried out the attack once the Israeli had left the premises.

Schuster called on the Free University in Berlin, where Shapira is a student, to take urgent measures against antisemitism on campus.

“FU Berlin is responsible for ensuring that there is no room for extremism and antisemitism in its ranks,” he said. “The appeasement tactics and the excuses of the university management must finally come to an end. If the fight against antisemitism is taken seriously, antisemitic crimes must lead to exclusion.”

A letter from the JSUD, Germany’s Jewish student union, to Free University president Günter Ziegler following the attack on Shapira echoed Schuster’s concerns.

Citing several incidents of antisemitic agitation on campus framed around condemnation of Israel, the letter warned that there were students “who not only threaten violence, but also use it. Stop putting things into perspective or denying them. Finally take action against the antisemites!”

Antisemitic incidents in Germany have rocketed since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas pogrom in Israel, cementing an already worrying situation. In recent years, Germany has clocked up approximately 2,000 incidents targeting Jews annually — an average of more than five per day.