Berlin, Germany – Their words were loud and clear. “Sh** Jews, sh** Jews,” dozens chanted, as they stood in front of a synagogue in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen. It was mid-May and a few days earlier, Israeli security forces had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, leading to a new round of fighting between Hamas and the Israeli military. A video of the impromptu Gelsenkirchen protest on May 12 circulated widely on German social media, causing significant concern about the anti-Semitism on display. What made it even worse, many said, was that this was not the only such incident. Elsewhere stones had been thrown at synagogues, Israeli flags burned and Holocaust memorials vandalised.