Widespread Anti-Semitism Hangs Over EU

Almost 90 percent of European Jews feel that anti-Semitism is increasing in their home countries, according to a report released on Monday by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

The FRA conducted a large scale survey, involving over 16,000 Jews in 12 EU member states, including the U.K. Over 96 percent of the EU’s Jewish community live in the states surveyed.

The Director of the FRA, Michael O’Flaherty described the levels of anti-Semitism as “shocking,” saying they “plague the EU.” He asserted, “Member States must take note and step up their efforts to prevent and combat anti-Semitism. Jewish people have a right to live freely, without hate and without fear for their safety.”

FRA’s report ‘Experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism – Second survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in the EU’ outlines the survey findings. They point to rising levels of anti-Semitism. About 90 percent of respondents feel that anti-Semitism is growing in their country. Around 90 percent also feel it is particularly problematic online, while about 70 percent cite public spaces, the media and politics as common sources of anti-Semitism.

Around 30 percent of the respondents said that they had personally experienced anti-Semitism, with those who are visibly Jewish being more affected. Over a third avoid taking part in Jewish events or visiting Jewish sites because they fear for their safety and feel insecure. Some 38 percent of respondents have also even considered emigrating. Anti-Semitism has become normalized to such an extent that nearly 80 percent of those polled said they would not report even serious incidents to the police or another organization, generally because they felt it would not have any effect. Seventy percent said that they believed their national government’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism were “ineffective.”

A similar survey was conducted in 2012. In six of the seven countries for which data are available for both surveys, the proportion of respondents who considered anti-Semitism to be a big problem in their country rose, with the U.K., Germany and Sweden showing the biggest increase. Overall, France remained the country where the most people (95 percent) considered anti-Semitism to be a very severe problem. Only in Hungary did people think that the situation had improved somewhat, with 77 percent now considering anti-Semitism a very severe problem, down from 89 percent previously.

The FRA said that these results “underline the need for Member States to take urgent and immediate action.” Despite the negative view expressed in the survey as to effectiveness of such measures, the FRA says that government bodies must “work closely together with a broad range of stakeholders, particularly Jewish communities and civil society organisations, to roll out more effective measures to prevent and fight antisemitism.”

Suggested measures include keeping Jewish communities and sites safe, regularly monitoring hate crime towards Jews and strengthening Holocaust education and awareness raising activities as a means of showing where even casual low level anti-Semitism can lead.

Whilst many EU states have strong laws against racism and anti-Semitism, the FRA reiterated that all Member States should fully and correctly transpose EU laws to protect victims and to counter racism into their national law. This would help ensure victims get the support they deserve and perpetrators are sentenced with effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties. This would, in turn, encourage victims and witnesses to speak out and report incidents.