Government report urges greater efforts to combat antisemitism in Germany

BERLIN

Greater civil societal efforts are needed to fight antisemitism in Germany, according to a report on the state of antisemitism in the country, which was released on Tuesday.

“As a society as a whole, we have to ask ourselves whether we have done enough to combat antisemitism. An honest and self-critical answer to this is probably: no. As a civil society, we have a duty to stand in solidarity with Jews,” said Nikolas Lelle of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, an anti-racism nongovernmental organization, at a press briefing in Berlin.

He warned that worsening of antisemitism in German could potentially lead to anti-Jewish pogroms.

Lelle’s remarks came in the wake of a report which highlighted significantly more antisemitic crimes in Germany.

So far, 540 antisemitic crimes have been recorded by the police in the third quarter of 2023, significantly more than in previous quarters, according to a parliamentary request from the opposition party The Left.

These figures do not yet include incidents since the outbreak of the Gaza war on Oct. 7.

According to the report, among the 540 antisemitic crimes recorded in the third quarter of 2023, a total of 14 were violent crimes and 44 were propaganda crimes. With 450 crimes, the majority of these crimes were committed in the right-wing political spectrum.

Earlier in the day, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for greater social solidarity against antisemitism in Germany ahead of the anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogroms of Nov. 9,1938.

“We have to give Jews absolute certainty that 2023 is not 1938,” Faeser told business daily Handelsblatt.

“This is more than a historical responsibility. It is our self-image of humanity and cohesion,” she added.

Faeser assured that the Jewish community could count on the state’s help. “But we also have to become even louder as a society and oppose hatred against Jews even more clearly.”

On Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on people in Germany to “protect Jews” in the face of antisemitic incidents. “Anyone who attacks Jews in Germany is attacking us all. That’s why we should all work to protect Jews in Germany, it’s about moral courage," said Scholz in an interview with the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper.