Anti-Semitism Surges in Europe

FRA Report on Discrimination and Hate Online Against JewsEarlier today, as we begin the weekend marking the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency issued a stunning report detailing the extent of anti-Semitism in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.  This is the best data that we have seen on contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe.  And the worst news.

The European Union’s headline news are sobering.  Two thirds of European Jews believe anti-Semitism to be a major problem in their respective countries, and 76% say the situation has deteriorated in the last five years.  One in five European Jews has been subjected to an anti-Semitic physical attack, harassment, or verbal insult over the prior year.

While we have long known that European Jews faced a bleak situation, the conditions turn out to be worse than we had thought.  It turns out that European agencies have not previously had reliable figures on anti-Jewish incidents for a simple reason.  A whopping three quarters of European Jewish victims of anti-Semitic harassment did not report the most serious incident to the police or any other organization.  This is also true of two thirds of those who faced anti-Semitic violence or threats of violence.

Many European Jews are now understandably uneasy.  One sexagenarian Hungarian told the agency that, “Unfortunately, the fight against anti-Semitism is more and more hopeless.”  An English woman in her later fifties told the agency, “I feel worried about anti-Semitism now in a way that I did not 30 years ago. Something that should have disappeared from social acceptability is instead becoming stronger.”

The impact on the European Jewish community is undeniable.  Nearly one in five say that they sometimes or often avoid attending Jewish events because they would unsafe there, or en route there, as a Jew.  Worse, some European Jews perceive that their safety risks increase if they choose to live openly as a Jew.  As one German man told the agency, “As long as you keep kippa, festivities etc. private, there seems to be no problem. However, as soon as we, like Christians or Muslims, also want to attach importance to our religion and to openly live our religion, the situation changes dramatically.”

There has got to be a better solution than to hide one’s Jewish identity or shrink from the Jewish community.  To be sure, many European Jews will leave their countries, either for Israel or the United States.  Nearly three in ten European Jews have considered doing just that.  But they should not have to do so.

Interestingly, nearly half of European Jews turn out to be unaware of the legislation that protects Jewish people from discrimination.  This suggests that some good can be done simply by raising awareness of existing protections. 

But the new report also reveals that European efforts to combat anti-Semitism to date have been a fairly monumental failure.  The Fundamental Rights Agency should be commended for gathering useful, comparable data for European countries.  But the question now is what its member nations they going to do about these disturbing findings.

To begin with, the Fundamental Rights Agency needs to apply its own EUMC Working Definition of Anti-Semitism in a more consistent manner.  Next, member nations need to provide more effective police protection to address the most serious threats to European Jews.  Finally, national leaders in all European Union countries must speak more forcefully against all forms of anti-Jewish hatred, including those that emanate from other minority communities.  The story that emerges from the European Union’s own data is simply unacceptable.”