Anti-Semitism Increasing:Three-quarters of Jewish people in Europe hide their identity

Three-quarters of Jewish people in Europe hide their identity

James Rothwell

Three-quarters of Europe’s Jewish community hide their identities as they fear being harassed or attacked by anti-Semites.

Jews in EU member states are in the grip of a “rising tide of anti-Semitism”, an EU rights agency that conducted the survey said, as it blamed increased tensions over the war in Gaza.

Across Europe, 76 per cent said in the survey they hid their Jewish identity “at least occasionally” while 34 per cent said they took care to avoid Jewish events or places as they did not feel “safe” there.

Sirpa Rautio, the director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), warned that the “spillover effect of the conflict in the Middle East is eroding hard-fought-for progress”.

She added that “Jews are more frightened than ever before” and that growing anti-Semitism was also at risk of disrupting the EU’s first-ever strategy for addressing the issue.

The agency’s study, which compiled data from 12 Jewish organisations, found that 96 per cent of European Jews had encountered anti-Semitism in 2023.

The vast majority of the survey’s data had been collected prior to the October 7 Hamas massacre, which lit the touchpaper for the ongoing conflict in which at least 30,000 Palestinians and more than a thousand Israelis have been killed.

Of particular concern was France, where 74 per cent of respondents said they felt the ongoing Gaza war affected their sense of security.

Eighty per cent of respondents said they felt that anti-Semitism had worsened in recent years and that negative stereotypes or conspiracy theories about Jews were a growing concern, such as claims they were “holding power and control over finance, media, politics or [the] economy”.

Others encountered Europeans who denied Israel’s right to exist, while four per cent said they had been the victims of physical anti-Semitic attacks in 2023, a twofold increase from a previous 2018 study by the same agency. A further 60 per cent said they were unhappy with the way their national government was dealing with anti-Semitism.

“FRA’s consultation with national and European Jewish umbrella organisations in early 2024 shows a dramatic surge [in anti-Semitic attacks],” Ms Rautio said.

The survey covered 13 EU member states which account for 96 per cent of the EU’s Jewish population: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden.