Anti-Semitic acts continue to increase in France, according to a new report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). The annual document reports that violence and threats against French Jews increased dramatically in 2006 over a year earlier, with a 45% rise in physical attacks (112) and a 24% increase in alll registered anti-Semitic acts (371). (Jerusalem Post [2], Feb. 27) Anti-Semitic attacks also reached record levels in the UK last year, according to a study Britain's Community Security Trust. "These are the worst figures we have had in the 23 years since we have been monitoring it," said the Trust's Mark Gardner. (Reuters [3], Feb. 1) 2006 saw a rise in anti-Semitism around the world, according to the Jewish Agency's Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism. According to the figures, 2006 saw a 66% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Austria, a 60% rise in Germany, and a 20% rise in Russia. As an explicitly Zionist organization, the Jewish Agency may have an interest in overstating the problem, but the statistics were based on law enforcement records. The report especially noted two murders—that of Ilan Halimi [4], beaten to death in France last January, and Pamela Wechter [5], shot dead in the Jewish Federation Building in Seattle in July. Images of a bullet-ridden Oslo synagogue, and worshippers at a Moscow synagogue coming under attack were included in the report. (YNet [6], Jan. 28) All the reports noted that anti-Semitic violence peaked during the Lebanon crisis [5].
See our last posts on France [7], the UK [8], and the anti-Semitism [9] that everyone seems to either want to deny [10] or exploit [11]. The surreal case of a Jew being denied the right to run for the presidency of Bosnia [12] may not be indicative of anti-Semitism per se, but certainly points to the absurdities of ethnic nationalism, ultimately a closely related phenomenon.
