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Anti-Semitism Commissioner Klein: “The number of hate postings has long since exploded”
Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa
Jews in Germany should be better protected from prejudice, hostility, hatred and violence.
As part of a new “National Strategy Against Anti-Semitism and for Jewish Life”, the Federal Government intends to take systematic action against anti-Semitism at all levels of government and society.
At the same time, she wants to make the enrichment through Jewish life more visible in everyday life.
The anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein has now presented the strategy.
Specifically, this includes taking a close look at what is missing in the fight against anti-Semitism and collecting the relevant data.
Central to Klein's concept is education and enlightenment, both about Jewish history and the Holocaust and about Israel.
But it is also about the police and judiciary taking targeted action against hostilities and criminal offenses so that Jews can live in safety.
All levels of government and society should work together to implement it – including sports clubs and youth clubs – and give greater consideration to the perspectives of those affected.
The current times of crisis in particular are a test of social cohesion, said Klein.
»Because in these times of uncertainty, people are increasingly inclined towards supposedly simple answers – answers that polarise, exclude and divide.
Anti-Semitism is one of those supposedly easy answers.«
Police statistics and data from registration offices have shown an increase in anti-Semitic incidents and crimes for years, Klein added.
"The number of hate postings on the Internet has long since exploded, and acts of violence in the analogue world are also at a high level in the third quarter of this year." According to the federal government, 306 criminal offenses with an anti-Semitic background were recorded in the third quarter, including eleven acts of violence.
asa/dpa