Sarah is Jewish. When she talks about her emigration to Israel, she talks about “immigrating”. “Because anti-Semitism is noticeable in Germany, it depressed me.” To this day, she does not regret her decision to go to Israel.
Those who dream of emigrating often dream tenderly. About sorting out a life at home, packing and leaving, preparing and planning in a new country.
The joy of emigrating is only possible if you can leave your homeland with joy. Everything else is an escape. Sarah Fantl no longer felt safe in Germany.
Sarah is Jewish, German Jew. And the only way out was Israel. Sarah does not speak of emigration but of immigration. And anyone who speaks to her understands why Israel is a country of immigration for her.
“How can it be that the synagogues and schools in Germany still have to be guarded by the police,” she says. It can be seen in Berlin, on Oranienburger Strasse, in front of the synagogue. Policemen protecting people with machine guns. Because of their belief.
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No contradiction is possible. Jewish life in Germany takes place under police protection, so why should you stay here in this country. Why should you stay Jewish?
In her early thirties, the journalist decides to emigrate to Israel. “Because anti-Semitism is noticeable in Germany, it depressed me.” But for Sarah, emigrating was not just a secular decision, it was also a religious one. And above all a brave one.
In Israel she has no family, no social contacts. She is alone in a country that is even less secure from a German perspective. Even more dangerous, a country at war with its neighbors.
“On the first day I came to Tel Aviv with two suitcases and didn’t know where to go.” Sarah simply approached people on the street to help her find her rented apartment. “And they just helped,” says Sarah.
Sarah came to Israel not only as a Jew, but also as a person seeking an identity. In the troubled thirties of her life, Israel, should the Jewish faith, be her support.
Sarah makes the aliya, the immigration for Jews to Israel. And Sarah begins to research her own family history. Large parts of the family were murdered by Germans during the Shoah, and the grandfather passed on his Jewishness to Sarah’s father. But not religiosity.
“After I converted to Orthodoxy, my father said that I was more religious than the whole family,” and Sarah says this with pride. Sarah is eligible for Israeli citizenship through her family history.
But she doesn’t just want the passport, she wants to be part of the culture. She learns Hebrew, celebrates the festivals and describes herself as religious. “But not with a wig and stuff like that,” she says. For them, being orthodox does not necessarily mean being strictly religious, but mainly preserving the traditions.
Thilo Mischke was born in Berlin in 1981. He works as a journalist, author and TV presenter. He has received numerous awards for his journalistic work, for example he won a Bavarian television prize in 2020 and was named “Journalist of the Year” in the “National Reportage” category.
Sarah would not regret her decision, and not just because the weather in Israel is better than in Germany. “I found my husband here and I’m now a mother of two children,” she says. And that changed a few things.
Sarah understood that Israel is the only safe country for her, the safe haven for Jews around the world. “I’m here because I want my children to do well too,” she says. And that, although the rockets fly in this country too?
“You would get used to that,” says Sarah. Of course, not everything is perfect in Israel either. But that needs to change. Keep building this country, that’s what Sarah wants. “Not just for me,” she explains. “But for my children.” So that they can have a home, a place where they are safe.
