Yesterday German police arrested three men affiliated with Hamas who were planning an attack on Jewish targets. The news makes especially poignant this reflection by Rebecca Blady and Jeremy Borovitz, two Berlin rabbis who in 2021 moved to Neuköln, generally considered “a ‘no-go zone’ for the city’s tens of thousands of Jews.” Since October 7, they have been even more cautious than usual about public activity, yet have not lost sight of their goal “to make Jewish pride, Jewish confidence, and Jewish visibility a matter of course in Europe.”

Perhaps it was the fear that enabled us to return to our purpose. Although the initial warning to hide invoked memories from the city in its darkest days, we came to see that what we were facing was very different. Ultimately, we realized that although we could no longer be naive, we refused to be afraid of who we are.

While Shmini Atseret feels both like yesterday and a year ago, Hanukkah is now here and one cannot truly fulfill the mitzvah of Hanukkah in hiding. According to the rabbis, an important purpose of the Hanukkah lights is pirsumei Nisa, publicizing the miracle. So this year, on the fifth night of Hanukkah, we’ll still light our massive hanukkiah at the city hall of Neukölln, above the neighborhood’s main square. Despite it all, the Jews are still here, lighting Shabbat candles in Kfar Aza, putting on t’filin in the center of college campuses, and lighting Hanukkah candles in Neukölln.

Do we feel safe? Not as safe as we did on October 6th. But we aren’t going back into hiding.

For a very different perspective, I also recommend this 2019 article on Jewish prospects in Germany.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.