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A German academic said it quietly at a faculty gathering in Frankfurt last week. The conversation had turned to Alternative for Germany (AfD) and to what might happen if the party entered government. Someone mentioned leaving the country. Someone else nodded. Then came the sentence that ended the conversation: “Jews have Israel. We have nowhere to go.”
The comparison was imperfect. It was also revealing. It did not mean Germany is returning to the 1930s, or that the AfD can be equated with the Nazis. It pointed to something more immediate: a loss of confidence, in Germany and across parts of Europe, that liberal democracy is as secure as many people once believed. For Jews, that fear has a history.
For decades, many Europeans assumed the political lessons of the 20th century had been absorbed. Nationalism, democratic breakdown, and exclusionary politics were treated as dangers Europe had overcome. Germany carried special weight in that story. After the Holocaust, it rebuilt its public life around constitutional limits, democratic institutions, and the duty of remembrance.
To many Jews and Israelis, postwar Germany showed that a society could change morally as well as materially. It offered Europe its strongest evidence that liberal democracy could restrain nationalism and hatred. That confidence is now weakening.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces some of the weakest approval ratings recorded for a postwar German leader. His coalition looks divided and tired. Meanwhile, the AfD is rising. A recent INSA poll put the party at 28 percent, ahead of all other........