The controversy about Documenta 15 consumed the German public sphere throughout 2022 and continued into 2023. Hardly a day passed without a salacious newspaper article, television report, or social media storm about the art exhibition. Beginning six months before Documenta opened in June 2022, the fevered coverage proclaimed the discovery of the German media’s favorite topic: an antisemitism scandal. Although Documenta 15 was not shut down, as critics had demanded, to a great extent the campaign against it succeeded in crystallizing new tropes in German public discourse: “post-colonial antisemitism” and “antisemitism of all types,” meaning “Israel-related antisemitism” and “hatred of Israel.” The mention of “hatred” was designed to link antisemitism (hatred of Jews) to anti-Zionism (alleged hatred of the State of Israel). The purpose of this semantic stretching is twofold. The first is to insinuate that antisemitism is inherent in the Palestine solidarity widespread in the Global South. In this way, protest against the Israeli occupation is rendered as “hatred” rather than as legitimate political expression. The second is to decry and crush the supposed infiltration of Global South perspectives into Germany via the art and museum scenes and post- colonial academics

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