Taking Stock: Antisemitism in Europe Three Months Later
The reignition of the conflict in the Middle East a few months ago rapidly spilled over into Europe, and with its well-known past, it did not take long for political discourse to rediscover the problem of antisemitism. Like most forms of discrimination, incidents of antisemitism never go away, but unlike many, they tend to rise during crises. Whether antisemitism is “a deeply ingrained racism in European society”, as is claimed by the director of EU Agency for Fundamental Rights Michael O’Flaherty, is a question requiring historical analysis, but the rise of this form of discrimination since the 7th October is unmistakable. Prior to the outbreak of violence, antisemitism in Europe had been declining, showing particular progress in Eastern Europe, where the sentiment had generally been higher than in Western European countries. However, far from disappearing completely, antisemitic views seem to have shifted instead towards the extremes, spreading from their traditional place on the far-right to increasingly include those on the far-left. This is partially the result of conflating key terms associated with Jewish people - ‘Jew’, ‘Zionist’, Israeli’. Furthermore, according to the EU strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life (2021), 68% of Europeans consider themselves uninformed about Jewish history, culture, and customs. In the same year, 50% of antisemitic incidents worldwide took place in Europe, resulting in a persistent sense of insecurity among European Jews (85% considered antisemitism a serious problem in 2021). This is despite the fact that antisemitic incidents remain under-reported according to the latest data (2022). While conclusions on the state of antisemitism today are tentative, pending further developments and assessments, taking stock of the situation two months after Hamas’ attack is necessary nonetheless. This report explores the rising numbers of antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia, and the government responses in each country. It thus covers a range of situations in democratic and non-democratic, EU and non-EU regulated territories.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has been featuring heavily in reports of antisemitic incidents since the attack. Alongside condemning the attack, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged over £3 million to the protection of Jewish schools and synagogues, after it became apparent that antisemitic sentiments in the UK would not subside. This seems like a prudent response given that there were 1019 antisemitic incidents recorded less than a month after the attack, according to Community Security Trust, a charity dedicated to protecting Jews in the UK from antisemitism. This is in comparison to 160 incidents in the same period in 2022. Despite registering a rise in antisemitism throughout the years, the UK government has not updated its response policy towards antisemitism since 2016. At the same time, it adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism, which states that antisemitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”. The UK government furthermore added caveats aimed at protecting freedom of speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Israeli government broadly. This definition remains a recommendation, but one that does not appear to sit well with the conflation of the terms associated with Jewish people, although this issue is also mentioned in the document. On the other hand, adequate protection of the Jewish community remains a problem, in the UK, and throughout Europe, and Jewish communities often invest heavily into their security because many do not feel confident relying on national authorities. The uncertainty has increased markedly since the attack in Israel, as many pro-Palestinian marches take place across the country, often in Jewish-majority areas. As UK’s antisemitism adviser, Lord John Mann pointed out, the issue is also one of education - at all levels, including higher education. Antisemitism thus requires multifaceted solutions, and in the wake of such a rapid rise in incidents over the last two months, they are needed fast.
Germany
Despite its difficult past with antisemitism, incidents in Germany have similarly been on the rise, reaching 320% higher than previous years a month after the attack on Israel. Targets included synagogues, Jewish centres, schools and kindergartens. In addition, there have been rising antisemitic sentiments expressed in the population, standing at three times higher than in 2021. This has proved particularly difficult for Germany during the commemoration of Kristallnacht (9-10th November), a pivotal point in Nazi policy towards Jews which saw tens of thousands of lives and livelihoods destroyed. The Jewish community has been increasingly vocal about the discrimination they experience, maintaining that Germany has not quite come to terms with its past. Others have reacted with fear, adding to a general trend of emigration of European Jews in the past decade. Parts of the mechanism for a government response have been in place for years, with the position of Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fights against Antisemitism established in 2018. The commissioner is in charge of coordinating policy between government departments, academia, and civil society, including both Jewish and non-Jewish voices. On top of that, there is the German National Strategy against Antisemitism and for Jewish Life, which was last updated in November 2022, and which includes provisions for online hate speech, mirroring its EU counterpart. Despite a more rigorous educational approach to Jewish history, the new National Strategy highlights the need to scale up efforts towards more meticulous education and remembrance, especially as the numbers Holocaust survivors and witnesses dwindle. Much like the UK, however, policies on paper are only effective if put into practice, which can be done by continuous thorough enforcement of existing laws and remembrance of the past.
Russia
Unlike its democratic counterparts in the EU, Russia has attempted to keep any reports of antisemitism under the radar. Its biggest incident at the end of October, a hunt on Israeli passengers at the Makhachkala airport in the country’s Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus, has been put under investigation, but many other incidents in the same region are going largely unnoticed, or outright ignored. The Jewish community is relatively small, despite the fact that Russia was once home to at least half of the European Jewish population. The shift is believed to have started with the Kishinev pogroms of the early 20th century, which is also sometimes cited as a strong motivation for the subsequent movement for Jews to return to Israel as their true homeland. Recently, fears for safety of the Jewish community have once again increased substantially, as have fears of speaking out about the situation. Russian disinformation has been pointed to as a partial culprit behind Europe’s rise in antisemitism in the past two months, but it is becoming clear that Russia itself may not be able to escape the fallout of the same online trends. The question is whether it might not want to. The Russian government has adopted what is seen as a pro-Palestinian stance, previously refusing to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organisation. On the day of the airport incident, Russian President Putin welcomed a Hamas delegation in Moscow, aiming to discuss the release of Russian hostages, which Hamas stated would get preferential treatment. In addition to thus separating itself from the position of most western countries, this position is likely useful for Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine. In a further attempt to leverage antisemitism for geopolitical gain, Russia blamed Ukraine for its “direct and key role” in provoking the unrest. Far from a human rights issue, antisemitism in Russia is thus seen as a political, and international tool to be leveraged for sometimes completely unrelated purposes. Its spark after the attack on Israel may have deeper roots, but these are difficult to expose with such political instrumentalization taking place.
Conclusion
Antisemitism is considered one of the oldest forms of discrimination, and it seems like despite general progress, it is far from gone. Indeed, it tends to resurface in one form or another around most times of crisis. The attack on Israel by Hamas fighters in early October, connected directly as it is to the Jewish state, reignited the same sentiments as the COVID-19 pandemic had previously. A survey of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia shows that antisemitism is indeed on the rise across Europe. Furthermore, despite its historical prevalence and a number of legislative initiatives in place, most efforts have done little to instil a sense of greater security in the Jewish community in all three countries. On the contrary, they continue to rely on private security in democratic countries, while in some cases being politically instrumentalized as scapegoats for Russia’s geopolitical situation. These developments demonstrate above all that antisemitism continues to be a problem that equally constantly requires a solution.
