European Jews Are Fleeing to the Last Place You'd Expect

Ask most people where European Jews go when they leave France or Britain or Belgium, and the answer seems obvious: Israel. But for decades, a quieter and far stranger migration has run in the opposite direction, toward Berlin, toward the country that murdered six million Jews within living memory. This episode traces how Germany's postwar reckoning, criminalized Holocaust denial, mandatory education, reparations, and a 1991 program that brought roughly 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union rebuilt a Jewish community now larger than at any point since the war. It follows the newer wave of French and other European Jews choosing Berlin for its affordability, its cosmopolitan character, and its state-backed Jewish institutions, while being honest about the antisemitism that persists there, especially since October 2023. It ends on what it means that Jewish life is being rebuilt, deliberately and visibly, in the very place that tried hardest to end it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 1:35 What Germany Did 3:24 How Germany Reckoned 6:06 The Russian Jewish Wave 7:04 European Jews Arriving Now 11:00 The Antisemitism Paradox 13:23 What It Means 15:12 Jewish Life Rebuilt TAGS jews in germany, jewish immigration to germany, jewish community berlin, european jews leaving europe, holocaust memory germany, soviet jews germany 1990s, german reparations jews, antisemitism in europe, antisemitism in germany, french jews emigration, israel vs germany jewish migration, berlin jewish history, kontingentfluchtlinge program, vergangenheitsbewaltigung, holocaust denial law germany, memorial to the murdered jews of europe, rebuilding jewish life germany, why jews move to germany