‘Historic Spike’ Of Antisemitism In Germany
By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
BERLIN/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Eighty years after the end of the Holocaust, Germany is once again confronted with a “historic spike” in antisemitic incidents, according to government watchdog figures.
Last year, 8,627 antisemitic cases–the highest annual figure ever documented–marked an 80 percent increase over the 2023 total, said Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
RIAS, which tracked such incidents nationally since 2018 and in Berlin since 2015, said the 2024 tally amounts to roughly 24 incidents per day, or one every hour.
Of the 2024 incidents, eight were classified as involving “extreme violence,” including two Islamist terrorist attacks.
One occurred in August in Solingen, where a supporter of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, killed three people and injured eight others in “revenge” for Palestinians and referencing the Israel-Hamas war.
In September, on the anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, a suspected Islamist targeted the Israeli Consulate and the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of Nazism. Two people sustained minor injuries, and police fatally shot the attacker.
It came as a shock for relatives and others remembering the 1972 Munich Olympics attack in which militants infiltrated the Olympics Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine other Israeli team members hostage. The militants later killed the other nine remaining hostages during a failed rescue attempt.
Fast forward, RIAS noted 186 antisemitic assaults in 2024 that did not involve “extreme violence,” compared to 127 in 2023 and 58 in 2022.
Yet investigators said that across Western Europe and beyond, antisemitic incidents surged following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were kidnapped.
IIn response, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza later that month saying it wants to destroy Hamas and secure the release of the hostages.
The report highlighted a surge in rhetoric that downplays the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah in which some 6 million Jews died as well as others the German Nazis and their allies didn’t like.
RIAS warned that pro-Palestine activists have equated Nazi desthcamp Auschwitz in Poland, where some 1 million Jews were murdered, with Gaza.
They also adopt Hamas symbols, and glorify terrorism as resistance. In this distorted narrative, RIAS noted, “the Jews” are frequently portrayed as “the new Nazis.” The organization also reported a rise in far-right agitation against Jews.
Gady Gronich, the Munich-based CEO of the Conference of European Rabbis, told Jewish Mews Syndicate (JNS) Wednesday that the report “is not surprising but wholly expected based on the reality we see on the street.”
Jews in Berlin, where 28 percent of all the 2024 incidents were documented, generally avoid wearing kippahs unless they’re concealed under a hat or cap. Star of David pendants are often tucked under clothing, and “many parents” express concerns about sending their children to Jewish schools, Gronich told JNS.
“The situation in Germany was uncomfortable before October 7, but it was still possible to lead an open Jewish life with minimal friction,” Gronich added. “Unfortunately, that is no longer the case for a large number of Jews in Germany.”
In 2020, a demographic study estimated that Germany was home to approximately 118,000 people who identified as Jews.
“Antisemitism has spread beyond immigrant communities and the far-right, reaching other radicalized Germans, particularly young people from the far-left, through social media,” Gronich said.
He said however that authorities provide to his Conference of European Rabbis but added there was a lack of “Jewish and pro-Israel voices in Germany.
The country has seen an influx of millions of migrants including from Muslim countries where Israel is frowned upon.
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