400 Accounts Of Anti-Semitic Crimes In Germany Seen Halfway Through 2018
Participants wearing a kippah during a “wear a kippah” gathering to protest against anti-Semitism in front of the Jewish Community House on April 25, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — The number of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany during the first half of 2018 increased 10 percent over the same period last year.
There were 401 anti-Semitic crimes in Germany from January through June, according to government data reported Wednesday by Politico. The vast majority, 87 percent, came from the far-right. One-fifth were committed in Berlin.
The figures included 12 violent crimes.
In July, a Jewish man was assaulted in a Berlin park by a group of young adults and teens after they noticed he was wearing a Star of David. Days earlier, a Syrian man, 19, was found guilty of an April attack against an Israeli man who was wearing a kippah on a Berlin street. Later that month, a Jewish professor visiting Germany was assaulted in a Bonn park — first by a Palestinian and then by police who slammed him to the ground and punched him repeatedly in the face, mistaking him for the attacker.
Amid those incidents, the German government increased state benefits for the Central Council of Jews in Germany for the first time since 2011, noting “the rise in anti-Semitism in our society.” Days later, 40 Jewish organizations in Germany signed an open letter calling on the government to confront anti-Semitism.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
