Iran-linked threat put Munich Jewish leader under police protection

A Munich man spent months under armed police protection after investigators feared an attack against him, in a case that highlights the growing threat to Jewish people in Germany. Robby Reiber, former chairman of the Jewish sports club Makkabi Munich, told BR he had done nothing except be Jewish.

Reiber said police called him in 2024 to tell him he would receive personal protection. The threat against him was part of a wider rise in antisemitic hostility since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, BR reported.

Hamas and other armed groups killed about 1,200 people in the attack and took 251 hostages to the Gaza Strip, according to the article. Synagogues, Jewish schools and kindergartens in Bavaria and elsewhere in Germany had already been under police protection, but authorities expanded security measures after the attack. They monitor threats from right-wing and left-wing extremists as well as Islamists.

The Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism recorded 8,725 incidents in Germany in 2025. Bavaria’s Interior Ministry told BR that the country faced a persistently high abstract threat, and that protective measures were regularly reviewed and strengthened when necessary.

Bavaria’s new Justice Minister, Josef Schmid, said Germany was experiencing its worst wave of antisemitism since the end of the Second World War. He said Jewish people were repeatedly subjected to physical violence and should not have to live in fear in Germany.

In Reiber’s case, investigators traced a possible threat through Iran, France and Germany. According to information obtained by BR, a man identified as Abdelkarim S., who is being investigated by French authorities, allegedly surveilled Jewish institutions and individuals in Munich and Berlin. German security agencies suspect links to a network connected to Iran.

Agence France-Presse and the French online outlet Mediapart have reported that Abdelkarim S. was allegedly involved in plans for attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in France and Germany. He is in pretrial detention and denies the allegations. He is presumed innocent unless convicted.

Guido Steinberg, an Islamic studies expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the recruitment of criminals followed a pattern seen before. It reduces the risk to those giving orders and makes direct links harder to prove, he said. Steinberg said Iran wanted to respond to Israeli attacks on Iranian and Iran-linked figures. Because senior Israeli targets can be difficult to reach, he said, Jewish institutions and prominent Jewish people around the world were increasingly at risk.

Investigators in Germany have also examined possible links between the bombing of the Israeli restaurant Eclipse in Munich and a series of pro-Iranian activities across Europe. The Federal Public Prosecutor General has also said there were alleged attack plans targeting Volker Beck, head of the German-Israeli Society, and other targets in Berlin.

Gady Gronich, chief executive of the European Conference of Rabbis, which is based in Munich, said caution had become part of daily life since October 7, 2023. He now checks his car before getting in, although he considers Bavaria comparatively safe compared with other parts of Germany and Europe. The conference’s security budget has risen sharply, he said, while noting that personal protection cannot be provided to everyone. Gronich also blamed social media for spreading hatred against Jewish people.