BRUSSELS -
The pandemic has had a profound impact on Jewish communities throughout Europe, giving new life to the already existing anti-Semitism
, a phenomenon that continues to be followed with great concern by the Union but without a database capable of giving a updated and homogeneous photograph of what is happening.
This is what emerges from the latest report on anti-Semitism in the EU produced by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
In the latter period, according to the Agency, new anti-Semitic myths and conspiracy theories have emerged, especially on the web, which blame Jews for the spread of Covid.
Although the lockdowns may have led to a physiological containment of anti-Semitic
incidents
in public spaces, the proliferation of online anti-Semitic conspiracies
- the Agency report points out - shows that the number of recorded incidents is not indicative of the situation. In fact, the polls carried out show that attacks against Jews are highly underestimated and that hatred on the web, including anti-Semitism, has firmly taken root in European societies.
The document collected official and unofficial data on the episodes of anti-Semitism detected in various states of the Union.
These include Germany, which in 2020 recorded the highest number of politically motivated crimes with an anti-Semitic motive in Europe (2,351). The figure, according to the report, is the highest recorded in the 2010-2020 period. A higher number of cases than in other states, warns the European agency, may however mean that Germany has a more effective system for detecting anti-Semitic cases, not necessarily that the country is the one most affected by this scourge.
The same goes for
Italy, which with 101 episodes identified by the Observatory for security against acts of discrimination (Oscad) on the basis of investigations conducted by the State Police or the Carabinieri, ranks fourth
after Germany , The Netherlands (517) and France (339). Of the cases reported by the SCAD, 86 fall within the crime of inciting violence. In some countries such as Greece and Hungary (unofficial data), the number of anti-Semitic incidents on the contrary has decreased, but the problem, the Agency notes, remains the same throughout Europe: most cases are not yet reported.
Not only should victims and witnesses be encouraged to report anti-Semitic incidents, but authorities should have systems in place to allow for the recording and comparison of such incidents.
Political actors at both EU and Member State level, Fra concludes, must share this commitment if anti-Semitism is to be effectively countered.