A Jewish male model is running for Germany's parliament — on the far-right ticket

• Published date: 25 September 2021
• Author: CNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The man, 34-year-old Marcel Yaron Goldhammer, promised to stoke the "embers of unity, justice and freedom" during his announcement speech in front of about 200 people in the southeastern Berlin neighborhood of Neukolln.

But he's not running for a liberal party, or one promoting multiculturalism.

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Goldhammer, a dual German-Israeli citizen and a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, is running on the ticket of AfD, or Alternative for Germany, a right-wing populist party that opposes immigration from Muslim countries and wants Germany to leave the European Union. Its critics call it radical, inherently xenophobic and antisemitic.

Goldhammer is the party's no. 6 candidate in Berlin, where it won four seats during the last elections. Germany goes to the polls again on Sunday.

"It's not a sure thing that I'll become a lawmaker, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility," he said.

Goldhammer belongs to a growing minority of Jews in Western Europe who have joined the ranks of the populist right because of its nationalist ideals and its opposition to Muslim immigration. They believe left-wing movements threaten the future of European culture, as well as that of the continent's Jewish minority.

A former supporter of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union party, or CDU, Goldhammer grew up in Germany in a "culturally Christian home," as he defined it in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. His parents worked shifts at a local factory in Kaiserslautern, a city situated about 380 miles southwest of Berlin.

But his life took an unexpected turn when he came out as gay at the age of 15.

"My mother had a hard time with it. It became hard to continue living at home," he said.

So he left for Berlin, where he completed his high school studies while living at a housing project for teenagers in similar situations. He was pursuing a career as an actor when his interest in religion brought him in contact with a Reform Jewish community.

Finally, Goldhammer says, he felt like he was home. He decided to convert, completing the two-year process in 2005. Upon visiting Israel for the first time, Goldhammer "fell in love," he told Israel Hayom, an Israeli newspaper, in an interview. "I knew I wanted to live there."

He immigrated to Israel in 2013, shortly before the 2014 Gaza War between...