Sunday, May 5, 2024

Antisemitism surging, report finds, prompting fear for future of ‘Jewish life’ in West

In 2023, France registered the highest increase in recorded antisemitic incidents of any country with reliable statistics, according to data released in a new report that warned that current trends could threaten the very “ability to lead Jewish lives in the West.”

Published Sunday by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League, the report showed a near-quadrupling of incidents in France, from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 last year. It also highlighted antisemitism on US campuses, which the head of the ADL called the “most alarming” aspect of the surge of Jew-hatred in the United States.

Of last year’s antisemitic incidents in France, the tally showed that 74% happened after October 7, when invading Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted another 253, triggering a still-ongoing military campaign by Israel in Gaza and daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon.

In the United States, the tally more than doubled, from 3,697 incidents in 2022 to 7,523 last year, with 52% of the 2023 total occurring after October 7. In Canada, the increase was from 65 to 132; in the United Kingdom from 1,662 to 4,103; in Germany from 2,639 to 3,614, and in Italy from 241 to 454.

On an incident-per-capita basis, French Jews, who according to the report number about 440,000, were three times likelier to experience an antisemitic attack than Jews in the US, whose population the report estimates at 6 million. READ MORE