“Almost every single Jew in Europe today feels threatened,” Chair of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin told journalists on Thursday, October 19th. He was referring to a steep rise in antisemitic incidents across Western Europe. The rabbi cited a recent report by the Antisemitism Cyber Monitoring System, which says there has been an unprecedented 1,200% escalation in online calls for violence against Israel, Zionists, and Jews in the aftermath of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Recent news reports from nations with the largest number of Jews—around 450,000 in France, 290,000 in the UK, and 120,000 in Germany—also paint a bleak picture of rising antisemitism, especially within the ever-growing Muslim migrant communities.
In France, there have been 327 antisemitic acts since October 7th, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. The government has banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations and tightened security around Jewish schools, synagogues, and other sites. Nevertheless, The Jewish Chronicle reported how a family with a “Jewish-sounding name” in Grenoble found its home robbed, vandalised, and covered with antisemitic graffiti.
“As a student in the university, I am often confronted with accusations on the way Israel allegedly treats the Palestinians,” a 21-year-old student at the Sorbonne told The Jerusalem Post. “The new generation is far more radical than previous ones. There is hostility towards Jewish students,” says Yonathan Arfi, head of the French Jewish umbrella organisation CRIF.
The situation is just as dire in the United Kingdom, where the Community Security Trust (CST), an organisation that represents British Jews, has recorded at least 457 antisemitic incidents since the Hamas terror attack on Israel. This is an increase of 731% compared to the same period last year, and it is the highest total ever reported across a twelve-day period. A majority of the incidents involved abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, graffiti on non-Jewish property, hate mail, and online abuse. There have also been fifteen cases of assault and twenty-five instances of damage to Jewish-owned property. One example cited a driver who was asked to move his van that was blocking a car in a Jewish neighbourhood in London. The driver responded, “I’m here cleaning up after you filthy Jewish pigs.”
CST has advised members of the Jewish community to keep their gates and doors closed at all times, be alert for suspicious people and activities, including parked cars and unattended items, avoid congregating outside communal buildings and events, and disperse quickly after leaving.
As previously reported in The European Conservative, the German government has also stepped up security measures for the Jewish community. During the early hours of Wednesday, October 18th, two unknown assailants attempted to firebomb a synagogue in Berlin. According to the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (Rias), 202 antisemitic acts have been committed in Germany since the war in the Middle East broke out, a 240% increase compared to the same period last year. Citing an example from Dortmund, Rias wrote of a pub where a banner was placed above the entrance with the slogan: “Israel ist unser Unglück” (Israel is our misfortune). This was a reference to “Die Juden sind unser Unglück!” (The Jews are our misfortune!), a motto found in the Nazi publication Der Stürmer. In the city of Bremen graffiti was sprayed on a wall, which read: “A bullet for every Zionist.”
“It’s a reality for Jewish people in this country to grow up with security and police being near our institutions. But I think this is the first time in a very long time that Jewish people have felt unsafe to even go to a synagogue, to go [pray],” a university student in Düsseldorf told The Guardian.
