The Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, has been followed by a persistent wave of ugly antisemitic and pro-Hamas demonstrations in cities across Europe. The European and Western societies had little to offer in terms of resistance to the resurfacing Jew-hatred in their midst.
Apart from a few bright and brave exceptions, these anti-Jewish hate fests have largely gone unchallenged. Sadly, nowhere in Europe is it riskier to stand up for Israel and the Jewish people than in Germany, so much so that a lone woman confronting these angry mobs has rightly earned the title of Germany’s ‘bravest’ demonstrator.
Where most men fail to defy these antisemitic mobs, Karoline Preisler, a 53-year-old mother of four, stood up to them — with nothing more than a hand-made placard and boundless courage.
The German newspaper Bild calls Preisler “Germany’s bravest demonstrator.”
“She is the woman who stands alone against the mob,” Germany’s most-read newspaper wrote in May 2024. “Preisler is in the middle of a hostile crowd. The Islamists and left-wing movements are marching here hands in hand [in Berlin].”
“The signs are often snatched away from [her] hands,” the Bild notes. Preisler is accosted, slandered, and often has signs grabbed away from her hands. A handful of cops is all that separates her from frenzied mobs, mainly comprising of young migrant men.
Preisler, an expert in German constitutional law, is affiliated with the country’s pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). The fact that she grew up in Communist East Germany may explain why she detests totalitarian ideologies of Islamism and Leftism — the driving forces behind this old-new Antisemitism in Europe.
“One year since the Hamas massacre, FDP politician Karoline Preisler continues to fight against Antisemitism and for the release of hostages. She is insulted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators for this,” German weekly Der Spiegel noted October 2024.”
Profiling Preisler, the German weekly Jüdische Allgemeine wrote in May 2024:
The lawyer, who in her youth took part in the peaceful revolution of 1989 in the GDR [East Germany], has been a member of the FDP for eleven years. Preisler’s book “Enduring Democracy!: On debating in the outrage society” was published in 2021. Preisler is a mother of four.Despite the rejection she faces at demonstrations organized by Islamist, right-wing or left-wing groups, the 52-year-old seeks dialogue with the participants.These days, Karoline Preisler regularly goes where she is not welcome: to anti-Israel protests and demonstrations against the war in Gaza, which are all too often not “pro-Palestinian” but anti-Israel and antisemitic. She walks alone, with only a placard in her hand — drawing attention to the fate of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas or the Israeli women who were been raped.
I can personally testify to the threat and risk a courageous woman like Preisler faces in today’s Germany for publicly standing up for Israel or the tiny Jewish minority. In 2019, I was verbally attacked in the German city of Bonn for wearing a Kippah in solidarity with Jews at a rally against Antisemitism. Days after the October 7 massacre, I faced off with hundreds of angry pro-Hamas demonstrators in Bonn. We were vastly outnumbered and separated by a thin cordon of anti-riot police.
Raw video of Preisler braving pro-Hamas demonstrators:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY