German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a rally against anti-Semitism entitled ‘Stand Up! Jew Hatred – Never Again!’ in Berlin on September 14, 2014. Image by JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

(JTA) — The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in Germany in 2017 remained about the same as the previous year.

Published Monday in the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel, the report — based on police statistics delivered to Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau of the Left Party — indicated there were 1,453 incidents reported in 2017 — about the same as in 2016, which had a total of 1,468. Right-wing-oriented perpetrators committed about 95 percent of the crimes, the report said.

Most of the incidents were so-called “propaganda” crimes involving verbal or written incitement to hate. There were 32 violent crimes and 160 cases of property damage in 2017.

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Pau told Tagesspiegel that she suspected the real numbers were higher, since many incidents go unreported. The lawmaker has submitted official queries on anti-Semitic crimes nationwide for several years.

Concern about anti-Semitism is high in Germany, with some Jewish community leaders and politicians warning that anti-Jewish and extreme anti-Zionist attitudes among more than a million new refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are a ticking time bomb.

In January, the German Bundestag voted to establish a commissioner to deal with anti-Semitism in the country, motivated in part by such concerns. Pau’s Left Party had abstained from the vote, saying the proposal overemphasized immigrants as a source of the problem.

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