A rabbi has been assaulted by a man yelling “Dirty Jew, I am going to kill you!”

The assailant was also said to have taken the rabbi’s hat off his head and thrown it to the ground.

Following this, the suspect stripped down to his underwear and “made explicit gestures outside a synagogue”.

The incident took place in Clapton Common and a suspect was said to have been arrested by Hackney Police.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD 2394 26/04/21.

A few days ago, a man yelled “Heil Hitler” as he drove past a Jewish pedestrian in Clapton Common.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

The assailant who died in the recent ramming attack on the US Capitol, in which a police officer died, was a devoted follower of the Nation of Islam movement and its leader, the antisemitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan.

The suspect, who smashed his car into a barrier at the Capitol complex, was identified as 25-year-old Noah Green from Indiana. Video showed him emerging from the vehicle with a knife and lunging at officers who fired at him. One officer was killed in the assault, another was wounded. Mr Green died in hospital.

Before the assault, Mr Green had posted speeches and articles by Mr Farrakhan and a former Nation of Islam leader on his Facebook page, including a speech by Mr Farrakhan called “The Divine Destruction of America.”

Mr Green also posted on social media about the “end times” and called on his friends to join him in studying Nation of Islam teachings. In another post, he wrote: “These past few years have been tough, and these past few months have been tougher.” After listing his misfortunes, including “unauthorised operations in the hospital” and “mind control”, he wrote: “My faith is one of the only things that has been able to carry me through these times and my faith is centred on the belief of the Honourable Minister Louis Farrakhan.”

The Southern Poverty Law Centre defines the Nation of Islam as a hate group for the “deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders, including…Louis Farrakhan.”

The attack forced the Capitol into lockdown.

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden offered “heartfelt condolences” to the family of the murdered police officer, while Vice-President Kamala Harris said that the dead officer “made the ultimate sacrifice protecting the Capitol.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called him “a martyr for our democracy” and ordered flags to be lowered to half-mast.

Authorities said that the attack did not appear to be related to terrorism, that it did not appear to be connected to the January riot at the Capitol and that there was no ongoing threat.

A police officer who serves with the Capitol Police was recently suspended after a copy of the virulently antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion was found on a table at a security post.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

More than 40 Jews murdered in Morocco in riots in 1948 “deserve to be remembered,” say their descendants, who are calling on the Israeli government to recognise those killed as Victims of Terror, with a view to establishing a monument and teaching “today’s generation” about the riots.

Riots began a few weeks after Israel declared independence in 1948. The riots took place in the neighbouring towns of Oujda and Jerada in north-east Morocco. The 41 dead included women and young children and the community rabbi. Jewish shops and businesses were looted, homes were destroyed and dozens of Jews were wounded.

Hundreds of their descendants have now signed a petition calling for the Defence Ministry to recognise the 1948 riots as a terrorist event, as this would allow for the establishment of a monument in the Jerusalem area, where a majority of them live.

Abraham Cohen, a descendant of a family that lost seventeen members in the violence, said that the move would “correct a historic injustice that cries out to heaven.”

The people who were murdered “deserve to be remembered,” he said. “We aren’t asking for special budgets or pensions. We only ask that someone care enough about their commemoration,” said Mr Cohen. He also suggested that the attacks should be included in the school curriculum “so that today’s generation will learn about the riots.”

He added that “for generations” they had “longed to hold a ceremony on the anniversary of the murders at a monument that is established in Jerusalem.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Turkish officials have agreed in principle to repatriate a French prisoner allegedly suffering antisemitic abuse in prison.

Campaigners in France say that Fabien Azoulay, 43, who is four years into a sixteen-year jail sentence for drug offences, has reportedly been subjected to abuse, harassment and mistreatment in prison in the city of Giresun because he is Jewish and “because of his sexual orientation.” The charges relate to the drug GBL, which prosecutors claim he intended to distribute. An appeals court rejected his claim that the substance was for personal use. Developed for medical use, GBL is implicated as a date-rape drug but is also popular in the gay club scene.

While Turkey’s Ambassador to France said that Turkey had “no objection in principle” to a prison transfer, the Turkish Embassy in Paris issued a statement saying that Mr Azoulay was not Jewish. “Claims that this individual is Jewish are unfounded, as his lawyers can also confirm,” noted the statement.

Carole-Olivia Montenot, a lawyer for Mr Azoulay, said that he was “being intimidated” and that his fellow prisoners “summon him to convert to Islam” and to pray five times a day. She said he was also harassed “because of his sexual orientation.”

A petition in France calling on the French government to accelerate the repatriation process received more than 80,000 signatures within three days.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Change.org

Antisemitic graffiti promoting Holocaust denial and Nazi symbols has been found in Tottenham Hale.

Shocking antisemitic sentiments were found scrawled along Daneland Walk in Tottenham Hale promoting Holocaust denial. Written against a property billboard, one section of graffiti read: “COVIDHOAX + HOLOHOAX = JEW WORLD ORDER”

‘Holohoax’ is a word used by Holocaust-deniers to portray the extermination of six million Jews as a fraud that has been carried out by the Jewish people for financial gain, while anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

In a similar message, “COVID IS A LIE HOLOCAUST IS A LIE F*** THE JEWS” was found nearby with graffiti of a swastika beside it.

“F*** THE JEWS HITLER WAS RIGHT” was also spotted along the walk.

The handwriting used in these messages appeared to be similar to the antisemitic graffiti scrawled on a nearby Tottenham Hale billboard, on which we reported earlier. The billboard is situated on Ashley Road in Tottenham Hale, close to the large Jewish community in Stamford Hill and also near Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium. The football club has recently been the target of antisemitic abuse, including over the abortive European Super League proposal.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This series of incidents of antisemitic graffiti are abhorrent and have no place on British streets, let alone so near a Jewish community. The graffiti must be removed and the perpetrators must be found. All citizens have a right to walk our streets without being confronted with racist graffiti and incitement.”

We are grateful to a member of the public who brought these images to our attention.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Talia Cohen

“F***” the Jews” has been found graffitied onto a billboard in North London.

The billboard is situated on Ashley Road in Tottenham Hale, close to the large Jewish community in Stamford Hill and also near Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium. The football club has recently been the target of antisemitic abuse, including over the abortive European Super League proposal.

The graffiti was reported earlier this week by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD 3737 20/04/21.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Lawyers for the sister of murdered retired doctor and schoolteacher Sarah Halimi have announced that they will be bringing a lawsuit under Israeli law to convict her antisemitic murderer, Kobili Traoré, after France’s highest court ruled he cannot be held responsible for his actions because he was high on cannabis.

Dr Halimi’s sister, Esther Lekover, is an Israeli citizen and the lawyers stated that they intend to make use of an Israeli law that allows them to take action over the murder even though it was committed outside of Israel.

French lawyers Gilles-William Goldnadel and Francis Szpiner said in a statement in French that they: “deplore being forced to make use of this procedure, but cannot accept a denial of justice which tramples reason and justice, reaching far beyond the Jewish community of France.”

In 2017, Dr Halimi, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher found Mr Traoré in her Paris apartment. He had reportedly subjected her to years of abuse. Mr Traoré savagely beat Dr Halimi, shouting “Allahu akhbar” and then hurled her from her window to her death, shouting “I killed the Shaitan [demon]”.

For months, French authorities refused to admit the antisemitic nature of his crime. Dr Halimi’s murderer, a violent drug dealer, claimed that he had felt “possessed” because he was high on cannabis and should not be held responsible.

France’s highest court has now ruled in his favour, meaning that in France today, it is possible to be sentenced to a year in prison for throwing a dog from a window, but if you hurl a Jew to their death whilst on drugs, you walk free.

In addition to the lawsuit being filed in Israel, Dr Halimi’s family is considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a change in the law.

For years, France has gradually betrayed its Jews by allowing antisemitism to run rampant, putting French Jews in fear. This Sunday 25th April, to coincide with demonstrations in France, we will rally outside the Embassy of France in London to stand in solidarity with French Jews. By agreement with the authorities, due to COVID-19 restrictions, only those who have registered to attend will be permitted entry to the enclosure. Capacity is limited, so please only register if you are certain you can attend.

A driver reportedly shouted “Heil Hitler” while driving past a Jewish pedestrian in Stamford Hill earlier this week.

The victim was left “traumatised” and Hackney police are currently investigating.

The incident took place at Clapton Common last week and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD 3331 15/04/21

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

The growing community of Charedi Jews in Canvey has been targeted with antisemitic abuse after announcing plans to build a new synagogue.

Local Canvey Island leaders have raised concerns regarding the effect that the planned synagogue may have on the surrounding area, such as noise pollution and traffic, with others also worried that the synagogue’s architecture may not fit in with the other buildings on Canvey Island.

However, while most of the concerns raised were presented as genuine and civil, some Facebook users on the ‘Canvey Island action group’ used the opportunity to spew vile antisemitic vitriol.

One of the comments read: “I’ve objected. P***ed off my 13 yr old has to walk in the road, around their [Charedi Jews] f ing vans dropping 100’s of kids off”…if they allow this more will move here.”

Another wrote: “All they do is take and no give, what is happening here ?????”

Referring to the Jewish community of Stamford Hill, one user said: “Stamford Hill slung them all out, because they took over everything just like they are doing on the island. Unfortunately they don’t think about people around them, it’s their way or no way.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues its robust engagement with social media companies over the content that they enable to be published, and we continue to make representations to the Government in this connection.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long called for tougher regulations on social media sites and that social networks proactively search for and remove hate speech from their platforms.

Police are investigating antisemitic graffiti found in a Long Island playground, under the direct orders of New York’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo.

Antisemitic language and symbols were found on 4th April in Setauket Elementary School in East Setauket, reportedly carved into the playground’s slides. The graffiti has since been removed.

Gov. Cuomo ordered the Suffolk County Police Hate Crimes Unit to investigate and stated: “I am appalled at media reports on the discovery of antisemitic graffiti on Setauket Elementary School’s playground equipment on Long Island.

“This hateful graffiti is diametrically opposed to the values of tolerance and understanding that are pillars of the society we’ve built in New York State, and the fact that it was found in a place of learning for young children makes it even more disturbing.” 

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

France’s Court of Cassation has ruled that Sarah Halimi’s killer could not be held to stand trial due to being high on cannabis whilst committing the murder.

In 2017, Ms Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, after he tortured her before pushing her out of a window to her death.

Mr Traoré was said to have yelled “Allah Akbar,” “I killed the shaitan,” which is an Arabic word for ‘devil’ or ‘demon’, along with antisemitic vitriol.

In December 2019, France’s lower court ruled that Mr Traoré could not be held to stand trial as he was under the influence of cannabis at the time, which was said to have affected his judgment.

This decision provoked thousands of French Jews and their supporters to rally in Paris last year in order to protest the decision by the French Court of Appeal that Mr Traoré was “not criminally responsible” for his actions. Ms Halimi was routinely insulted in their building, Mr Traoré conceded that seeing a Jewish menorah and prayer book in the 65-year-old lady’s flat intensified his mental state and even the court acknowledged that the attack was antisemitic.

The lower court’s ruling was upheld by France’s Court of Cassation late last week. This most recent ruling from the Court of Cassation has sparked outrage across Jewish communities, with many, including France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, calling for reforms in French law.

In an interview with Le Figaro magazine, President Macron said: “Deciding to take drugs and then ‘becoming mad’ should not in my eyes remove your criminal responsibility. On this topic, I would like the Minister of Justice to submit a change to the law as soon as possible.

“It is not for me to comment on a court decision, but I would like to tell the family, relatives of the victim and all fellow citizens of the Jewish faith who were awaiting this trial of my warm support and the determination of the Republic to protect them.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “After the Holocaust, in which France did so little to protect its Jewish citizens, the nation swore to defend the Jews who remained against their tormentors. This latest decision, with France’s highest court determining that torturing and throwing an elderly Jewish woman out of a window cannot be ascribed to antisemitic motivations if the attacker is high, is a betrayal of that pledge.

“The fact that this cruel antisemitic murder has been punished less than a similar crime committed against a dog would be, tells you how the French authorities view Jews and how unserious they are about protecting them.

“In view of this attitude, it is little wonder that so many Jews have fled France in recent years and that fewer than half of British Jews believe that the Jewish community has a long-term future in Europe.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Ten Jewish gravestones in Belfast City Cemetery were desecrated in an antisemitic hate crime.

The desecration is believed to have taken place last week on 15th April.

Sinn Fein councillor Steven Corr, along with other Sinn Fein members, were active participants in the clean-up crew. He posted photos of the scene on Facebook, writing: “We work continuously after attacks on all graves belonging to all denominations, all religions, adults and children and these unbelievable attacks on the headstones of dead people needs to stop. Let them Rest in Peace.”

Inspector Róisín Brown of the Police Service of Northern Ireland stated: “I am appalled at these criminal acts. City Cemetery, like any graveyard, is a place where members of the community come to pay their respects. The damage to these graves shows a total lack of respect for others and will have a significant impact on individuals and families within the Jewish Community.

“We are investigating this incident as a hate crime, but we need help from the local community in West Belfast to hold those responsible to account for their actions.

“If you saw anyone acting suspiciously in the City Cemetery yesterday evening, or if you have information that would help our investigation, I am asking you to please contact us on the non-emergency number 101 quoting reference 713 16/04/21.”

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Vandalism of Jewish graves is a cowardly act, but all too common in Britain and abroad. We can honour the dead by ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice, and we support the efforts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in doing so.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Cllr Steven Corr

A graduate of Cambridge University “called for the extermination of all Jewish people,” Manchester Crown Court has heard.

Oliver Bel, 24, of Salford, was also said to have been in possession of a bomb-making manual. He denies the terror charges, claiming that his interest in the book was only “academic.”

However, in 2016 Mr Bel was reportedly in contact with members of National Action, a far-right neo-Nazi terrorist organisation. National Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in December 2016 following a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others. Under section 11 of the Terrorism Act 2000, membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation is a criminal offence.

The court heard that Mr Bel expressed views in “preserving racial superiority.” The court was also told that Mr Bel “harboured and possibly still does harbour extreme right-wing views.”

Prosecutor Joe Allman told the court that in addition to declaring himself a National Socialist, Mr Bel “had held Jews responsible for ‘the communist revolution and pretty much every other progressive movement since then.’”

Mr Bel had also allegedly made several heinous claims, apparently calling for the extermination of the Jews as well as claiming that only 200,000 Jews died in the Holocaust, not 6 million.

Mr Bel was said to have had a track record of troubling online posts. Jurors heard that Mr Bel posted on Facebook: “I just want to go on a killing spree,” and posting just a day later, “Hate them Jews, kill them all then kill all n******.”

The court was told that it was only after Mr Bel made several antisemitic comments, which extended to defending Adolf Hitler, on the Young Free Speech society Facebook page that the Counter Terrorism Unit began to pay attention to him.

It was said that an officer from the Prevent Programme, a division of the Counter Terrorism Unit, spoke to Mr Bel in person. However, Mr Bel continued to espouse “angry and racist views online,” prosecutors said.

In a raid of Mr Bel’s house, anti-terror police found Nazi memorabilia and books about Hitler, with Mr Bel reportedly adding: “I have got more extremist material than that, I have got the Anarchist Cookbook,” which is a guide to making bombs and illegal drugs at home, written during the 1970s.

Jurors also heard that when the police were examining Mr Bel’s phone, which Mr Bel apparently attempted to hide from them, they found conversations between him and Alex Davies, founder of National Action.

In addition to controversial images, they also reportedly found an article written about Mr Bel for the anti-fascist website, Hope Not Hate. The article was said to have included Mr Bel’s online posts, in which he was said to have written: “Jews are parasites, well known for nepotism and financial corruption, with a background of communist revolution and pretty much every progressive movement from there… Extermination is the best option for them.”

The trial continues.

Last year, members of the proscribed National Action group were sentenced to prison, having engaged, amongst other activities, in far-right stickering and recruitment campaigns.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

Image credit: Hope Not Hate

Congregants attending a virtual Easter service at Grace Baptist Church in San Jose, California were zoombombed with hateful antisemitic hate speech on the last day of Passover.

Zoombombing is when people join a Zoom video call with the intention of derailing it. This usually involves spewing antisemitic, racist, or otherwise hateful rhetoric.

One culprit can be heard saying: “F*** the f*****g Jews, man. Send Jews to the concentration camp and gas all the f*****g stinky Jews.”

The perpetrators also spouted several homophobic and racist slurs.

The church’s Senior Pastor, Reverend George Oliver, believed that the church was a target for racists owing to its particularly progressive nature.

Reverend Oliver said: “They had a purpose. This church hires a gay, black pastor…they come and spew profanity about black people and LGBTQ persons. And on the last day of Passover, talk about gassing Jews? So, I don’t think this is some kind of coincidence.”

He added: “It was vile and repugnant. Not only was it Easter, which is the highest of holidays for the Christians, it was the last day of Passover. It was also the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.”

A spokesman for Zoom reportedly said: “We have been deeply upset to hear about these types of incidents, and Zoom strongly condemns such behaviour. We have recently updated a number of default settings and added features to help hosts more easily access in-meeting security controls, including controlling screen sharing, removing and reporting participants, and locking meetings, among other actions. We have also been educating users on security best practices for setting up their meetings, including recommending that users avoid sharing private meeting links and passwords publicly on websites, social media, or other public forums, and encouraging anyone hosting large-scale or public events to utilize Zoom’s webinar solution.

“We are committed to maintaining an equal, respectful and inclusive online environment for all our users. We take meeting disruptions extremely seriously and where appropriate, we work closely with law enforcement authorities. We encourage users to report any incidents of this kind to Zoom and law enforcement authorities so the appropriate action can be taken against offenders.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously reported on the phenomenon of ‘Zoom bombing’ and has urged communal institutions to take precautions to safeguard against antisemitic disruption of online events.

Police have identified one of the suspects whom they believe plastered antisemitic graffiti on the side of the Chabad Centre for Jewish Life and Learning in Victoria, Canada.  

Two suspects were caught on surveillance vandalising the Chabad Centre on Glasgow Street, and the incident was reported on 6th April. A few days later, one of the suspects came forward.

Police are still investigating, and the graffiti has since been removed.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A former senior official from the GMB union allegedly referred to victims of antisemitism as “rich b****** Jews” in an appalling speech, sources claim.

The speech was said to have taken place at the GMB Southern Region Christmas Party in November 2019 at the Holiday Inn in Guilford, Surrey.

The former official reportedly stated that he hoped that Jeremy Corbyn would not lose the General Election due to “false” antisemitism allegations against the Labour Party. He then was said to have professed that the issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party was perpetuated by “rich b****** Jews”.

Several complaints were made regarding the official’s remarks and GMB’s acting General Secretary, Warren Kenny, is believed to have reported the matter to ACAS, a non-departmental government organisation responsible for resolving workplace disputes, for a review of the incident.

A GMB spokesperson said: “GMB takes any allegation of antisemitism – or any form of racism – incredibly seriously. We have a zero tolerance policy and any report made is investigated thoroughly by the union. As a union that includes the Union of Jewish Garment Workers we stand shoulder to shoulder with Jewish communities in tackling the scourge of antisemitism across the globe.”

The leader of a neo-Nazi group that made terror threats against American Jewish journalists and antisemitism activists has pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy and hate crimes.

Cameron Shea, 25, from Redmond in the State of Washington is allegedly the leader of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division (German for “Atomic weapon”). According to the American Department of Justice, he and three co-defendants were charged with conspiring to identify journalists and antisemitism advocates in order to threaten them.

After the group made posters featuring Nazi symbols and threats, Mr Shea allegedly ordered the members to put them up at the homes of journalists in cities around the US, including Tampa, Seattle and Phoenix. Mr Shea allegedly also posted some himself, including one to a member of the ADL that read: “Our patience has its limits…you have been visited by your local Nazis”.

Atomwaffen Division has been linked to several killings, including the shooting of two men in Tampa, Florida in 2017, and a student in California in 2018.

Two of Mr Shea’s co-defendants pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges and were sentenced in December. The fourth, Kaleb Cole pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The US Attorney’s Office says that Mr Shea faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. More than a dozen people linked to Atomwaffen Division and an off-shoot, Feuerkrieg (meaning “firepower”), have been charged with federal crimes since the groups were formed in 2016.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Two macabre antisemitic mock hangings in which dolls were strung up and daubed with red paint representing blood took place in Sweden and Denmark over Passover.

The first incident, at a synagogue in Norrköping, is being investigated by Swedish police who have classified the message found at the scene as incitement.

An apparent copy of the Swedish incident took place outside a Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark, which also featured dolls, red paint and antisemitic messages. At both scenes, the messages described Passover as “a Jewish celebration of death” in an allusion to the tenth plague. Police in Denmark are investigating the incident.

There were calls for the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) to be treated as a prime suspect after the NRM published a picture of the Norrköping “hanging” on its website, allegedly the evening before its discovery. The NRM is banned in Finland.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: NRM

Jewish residents in Paris chased and apprehended a man whom they suspected of trying to stab three Jews. The man was then handed over to the police.

The incident took place on the evening of 31st March near a synagogue in Sarcelles, a suburb in northern Paris with a large Sephardic Jewish community.

Witnesses say that the man, a 35-year-old from Pakistan, approached three Jewish men, all wearing kippot and therefore visibly Jewish, from behind while carrying a large knife. 

Residents caused a commotion in order to alert the Jewish men who all escaped unharmed. The man was then chased and apprehended.

This is only the most recent antisemitic incident which has taken place in France.

On 29th December, a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg was desecrated with swastikas and antisemitic slogans.

On 17th December, four men were arrested after they attacked a Jewish family for listening to Hebrew songs in their car. The attack took place in Aubervilliers, less than a 45-minute drive away from the Sarcelles incident.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Research from Tel Aviv University has shown that online antisemitism has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conversely, physical antisemitism has decreased, with reported, violent incidents dropping from 456 to 371.

The trends are due to a variety of reasons, according to the research, including the increased amount of time people spent on their computers in isolation and the spread of Covid-sceptic, antisemitic conspiracies theories which blamed Jews for not only the effects of the virus but its inception.

Theories also accused Jews and the Jewish state of intentionally spreading the virus in order to profit from the vaccine.

Comparisons between lockdown restrictions and Nazi Germany are also rife, with several anti-lockdown groups using symbols and imagery from the Holocaust. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Along with the increased usage of Zoom came countless incidents of antisemitic Zoom bombing. Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously reported on the phenomenon of ‘Zoom bombing’ and has urged communal institutions to take precautions to safeguard against antisemitic disruption of online events.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A far-left Canadian student group, which has previously referred to Vancouver’s Temple Sholom as a “Zionist Synagogue,” is allegedly engaged in a campaign of harassment against the Toronto Jewish community.

During Passover, graffiti attacking the International Definition of Antisemitism and allegedly signed by the Revolutionary Student Movement (RSM) was found at a Toronto train station. Over the following weekend, a number of other sites were defaced, including a bank in a Jewish neighbourhood which was spray-painted with “Freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat! Death to Zionism!” alongside the Communist hammer and sickle symbol.

Ahmad Sa’adat, who is in prison in Israel, is General-Secretary of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP, which opposed the existence of Israel entirely, has also targeted Jewish schoolchildren and was responsible for other massacres of civilians.

The RSM proclaims that it is guided by Marxist, Leninist, Maoist and “Gonzalo” principles (the latter being an allusion to the leader of Peru’s murderous revolutionary “Shining Path” terror group). RSM has also openly endorsed antisemitic vandalism. Last year, pictures sent by “supporters” who had spray-painted “Free Palestine” outside Vancouver’s Temple Sholom, were hailed by the Vancouver branch of the group which described Temple Sholom as “a Zionist Synagogue.”

The community is working with law enforcement, with one communal leader saying that he is “confident that this terrorist-admiring cell will eventually be brought to justice.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Antisemitic graffiti has been discovered in Pittsburgh’s South Side. 

The graffiti was scrawled on the side of a concession stand at Quarry Field, home to the South Side Bears, a Pittsburgh youth American football team.

Kevin Alton, President of the South Side Bears, condemned the vandalism, stating: “The South Side is not for hate.”

An investigation has been launched by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said that the city would cover the costs of the clean-up and would commission a mural artist to restore the original mural. 

Mayor Peduto said: “We’ll put together the funds in order to be able to improve this entire area, and we’ll send a message to anybody who wants to talk in hate that we’ll come back stronger.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Pittsburgh Bureau of Police

A Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark was vandalised during the Jewish festival of Passover.

Red paint, baby dolls and antisemitic literature relating to the blood libel conspiracy theory were left outside the cemetery.

Flyers were also deposited directing readers to a website that associated with the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Pan-Nordic neo-Nazi organisation that is proscribed in Finland.

Henri Goldstein, Chairman of Denmark’s Jewish community, said: “Historically, a lot of antisemitism with a physical outcome has started with, among other things, vandalism against cemeteries and Jewish shops.” He added: “The vandalism at the cemetery around Passover is simply as classic antisemitism as it can be. We have seen this for centuries in Europe.”

Security in Denmark has been elevated and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. 

Danish politicians have condemned the attack. Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup declared that it was “outrageous and deeply shameful”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Antisemitic graffiti has been discovered inside a dormitory stairwell of Albion College in Michigan.

The graffiti contained several racist remarks and references to the Ku Klux Klan. 

Albion community leaders, including Robert Dunklin, President of NAACP’s Albion branch, came together to support Albion College students and condemn the vandalism. 

Mr Dunklin said: “Students have been dealing with issues like COVID-19, locked in their dorms and now they have to deal with racial graffiti. It is not acceptable in this community. And we are here to stand with this community and the community of Albion College.” Mr Dunklin added: “Whoever it is, they’re best to come forward or get out of town.” 

Albion College President Mathew Johnson confirmed that the incident had been reported to police and was under investigation. Mr Johnson also stated that the college was offering a $1,000 reward for any information regarding the incident. 

Mr Johnson said: “The racist and antisemitic actions taken on our campus over the last week are cowardly and will not be tolerated. We are outraged and angered that this incident occurred within our community. In addition to caring for and protecting the students most directly impacted, and addressing the safety concerns of the broader student body, we are currently investigating who is responsible for racist graffiti on our campus.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A 75-year-old Jewish woman opened her front door only to be confronted by a man screaming at her that Jews should leave the UK.

The incident took place on 26th March on Darenth Road in Stamford Hill and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD 6798 31/03/21.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Google

A teenager has been charged in connection with antisemitic graffiti discovered in parkland in Upstate New York.

New York State Police have charged the seventeen-year-old following an investigation. According to police, the “antisemitic Nazi” graffiti was found on 23rd March on a trail that runs through the small town of Mount Morris in New York State.

Police arrested the teenager on Sunday and charged him with fourth-degree criminal mischief which includes graffiti, and injury to property.

The graffiti has been removed.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A police officer has been found guilty of being a member of the banned neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action following his arrest last year.

Benjamin Hannam, a 22-year-old from Edmonton in North London, was suspended from duty by the Metropolitan Police after it was alleged that he belonged or professed to belong to the proscribed group between December 2016 and January 2018 and that he falsely represented himself in his application to join the Metropolitan Police in this connection.

Mr Hannam becomes the first police officer to be convicted of far-right terrorism after being found guilty at the Old Bailey today of membership in National Action, lying on his application to join the police and possessing guides to knife-fighting and bombmaking. It is understood that the ban on reporting the case was lifted after Mr Hannam admitted possessing an indecent image of a child.

It is understood that Mr Hannam, who reportedly has autism, was “desperate to impress” an older National Action organiser who gave him free stickers, but he ended his association with the organisation before he joined the Metropolitan Police.

The Head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which carried out the investigation, emphasised that there is no evidence that Mr Hannam abused his position at the police force to further his far-right views.

Mr Hannam had denied being a member of National Action before or after it was proscribed, and told the court that he had been attracted to fascism aged sixteen because of its artwork and propaganda and was under the impression that it was a youth network. He denied engaging in any stickering or propaganda campaigns and insisted that he only attended social events.

Mr Hannam’s sentencing is expected soon.

Other members of National Action were recently convicted and sentenced to prison for their role in the organisation.

National Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in December 2016 following a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others. Under section 11 of the Terrorism Act 2000, membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation is a criminal offence.

Image credit: Metropolitan Police

Police are searching for vandals who sprayed antisemitic graffiti on a home in Oxford.

The pair of suspects daubed a swastika on the front door of a house on Stubbs Avenue at 22:07 on 31st January, and Thames Valley Police have now released images and confirmed that they are pursuing the matter.

The vandals returned at 22:23 on the same evening and reportedly used a pole to break a CCTV camera on the property.

In a statement, the police said: “Criminal damage of this kind will never be tolerated and we are asking anyone who recognises these men to come forward and speak to us. Anyone with information should call police on 101 with reference 43210042799.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Thames Valley Police

The notorious antisemite Alison Chabloz has today been found guilty of sending by a public communications network an offensive, indecent message or material and given a custodial sentence. The prosecution followed action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, which has been pursuing justice against Ms Chabloz for over four years.

Ms Chabloz, 57, was convicted at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on charges under section 127 of the Communications Act relating to two interviews that she gave to far-right online outlets. She then publicised the interviews via her account on Gab, a social network associated with the far-right, claiming that “anything that’s worth controlling will have Jews there controlling it” and accusing Jews of turning their children into “psychopathic maniacs” because they are “indoctrinated from birth” with the idea that “their grandparents were gassed.”

She also stated that Jews were persecuted in Nazi Germany because they “had been behaving in a certain fashion, as we’re seeing again today”, and that Jews who do not conform to her idea of Western values should be deported.

Declaring that the Jewish community needs to be protected and noting that Ms Chabloz committed the offence while on a suspended sentence following a separate conviction (which also arose from a landmark case brought about by Campaign Against Antisemitism), District Judge Michael Snow sentenced Ms Chabloz to eighteen weeks in prison, of which she will serve nine.

Ms Chabloz is a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier who has an extensive record of using social media to publicise her hatred for Jews and to convert others to her views about Jewish people. Following a private prosecution by Campaign Against Antisemitism, which was later continued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Ms Chabloz became the first person in Britain to be convicted over Holocaust denial in a precedent-setting case. Ms Chabloz previously spent a short time in custody for breaching the conditions of her sentence, but this will be her first substantial period in prison.

Ms Chabloz is fixated on the idea that the Holocaust did not occur, and that it was fabricated by Jews and their supporters as a vehicle for fraudulently extorting money in the form of reparations. This forms the basis for her second obsession, that Jews are liars and thieves who are working to undermine Western society. Ms Chabloz is also connected to extremist right-wing movements, at whose meetings she gives speeches and performs her songs, in the UK, France and North America. 

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Alison Chabloz’s repulsive opinions about Jews can be traced back to the beer halls of 1930s Germany. Despite already having been convicted of similar offences, she continued, while serving her suspended sentence, to use the internet to attempt to radicalise others and convert them to her hateful way of thinking about Jewish people.

“Today’s verdict and sentence finally give the Jewish community justice and protection from someone who has made a vocation out of denying the Holocaust and baiting Jews. It also sends a clear message to those who might be tempted to go down the same path.

“This is not the end. Ms Chabloz now faces even more serious charges on other matters that we have brought to the attention of the police. We will not rest until all antisemites like Alison Chabloz are behind bars, where they belong.”

In separate proceedings also resulting from action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Ms Chabloz also faces charges of incitement to racial hatred.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

A teenager from Newcastle who called himself Hitler on numerous social media platforms and an online group that he created glorifying far-right violence has pleaded guilty to terrorism offences.

The sixteen-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted to four counts of inviting support for the proscribed neo-Nazi terror group, National Action, as well as three counts of encouraging terrorism and four counts of stirring racial and religious hatred.

He had reportedly posted antisemitic and anti-Muslim material and created stickers with his group’s logo, which he disseminated in his local area.

North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court, sitting as a youth court, sentenced him to a twelve-month intensive referral order. He will also be subject to terrorism notification requirements for ten years, mandating him to inform the authorities of his whereabouts and certain activities.

It is understood that the teenager has autism, and that this consideration impacted his sentencing.

Last year, members of the proscribed National Action group were sentenced to prison, having engaged, amongst other activities, in far-right stickering and recruitment campaigns.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

Calls have been issued for a public inquiry amid claims that the Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) protected alleged Nazi war criminals after WWII.

The controversy has arisen after the BBC discovered that a suspected Nazi collaborator, Stanislaw Chrzanowski, may have worked for the agency.

German authorities believe that he may have murdered tens of people during the Holocaust, while British police claimed that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him. 

Mr Chrzanowski was suspected by his stepson of having committed atrocities against Jews and others in the town of Slonim in Belarus, and investigated his past and built a dossier of evidence, including eyewitness accounts.

Although British police interviewed Mr Chrzanowski, no charges were brought. He always denied being a war criminal and died in 2017. His stepson died six months later, but after handing a BBC journalist his dossier, for which the BBC has reportedly since found further supporting evidence.

It is believed that MI6 may have recruited Mr Chrzanowski at a refugee camp in Berlin, and experts believe that the agency would have known about Mr Chrzanowski’s past. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the agency destroyed tens of thousands of files pertaining to its agents to protect them from more draconian laws that would have put them at risk of prosecution. Mr Chrzanowski’s files may have been among them.

Conservative MP Robert Halfon called the BBC’s findings “horrific and frightening” and said that he intends to call on the Parliamentary Security Committee to investigate.

A man has been found guilty of three charges of possessing information useful for terrorism after stockpiling neo-Nazi memorabilia and downloading guides to bombmaking and knife-fighting.

Nicholas Brock, 53, who reportedly has tattoos of prominent Nazis and symbols, had a flag showing an eagle and swastika on his bedroom wall and a Nazi badge in his drawer, as well as other symbolic neo-Nazi items. The material was found in a raid on his home in Maidenhead as part of an unrelated investigation in which he was never charged. Further material was found on electronic devices, as well as flyers for the National Front, a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and books about the Ku Klux Klan.

The prosecutor told Kingston Crown Court that his room was “filled to the brim with an eclectic mix of items, amongst them, items demonstrating an interest in extreme right wing and white supremacist ideology.”

The hard drive contained images of Mr Brock posing with swastikas and other items, as well as two manuals for an AK47 assault rifle and others for US army pistol training and explosives. There was also an “al Qaeda manual”. Among the documents were three that reportedly are useful for terrorists.

According to the prosecution, he had “no legitimate reason for possessing such information. He is not, for example, an academic, or a self-defence specialist. These are not everyday items or collectable memorabilia, but publications which contain detailed advice on how to create explosive devices, on how to kill and how to maim. They may of course be of use to someone planning any kind of violent attack; and they would certainly be of use to someone planning a terrorist attack.”

Sentencing is expected in May.Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image Credit: Counter Terrorism Policing South East

A man wearing a cap emblazoned with a swastika was observed at Melbourne’s train station last Friday.

The man, spotted shortly after a football match, was photographed by a 23-year-old descendant of Holocaust survivors.

The Chariman of the Anti-Defamation Commission said: “From the special spot in hell reserved for such monsters, Hitler must be smiling, knowing that his followers are continuing his destructive legacy.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Anti-Defamation Commission

Police in Rome are reportedly searching for a Deliveroo courier suspected of stabbing a fellow deliveryman in an antisemitic spat.

The incident took place outside a McDonald’s over the weekend, with the assailant reported to have ranted about the Jews as he and the other deliveryman, of Just Eat, waited. It is understood that the victim protested and the perpetrator stabbed him with a knife.

The victim was apparently left with lacerations on his face but was otherwise not seriously harmed. The assailant fled on his bicycle.

It is understood that both men are middle-aged.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Deliveroo and two delivery men in France are facing legal action  after two kosher restaurant owners in Strasbourg claimed that the delivery men had refused to deliver their food because for reasons of antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A legislator in the German state of Saxony has observed that, while antisemitic crimes are rising, prosecutions remain low.

Kerstin Köditz, of Die Linke (The Left Party), told journalists that 173 antisemitic crimes were recorded in 2020 – a fourth year-on-year increase – but only fourteen were successfully prosecuted.

Ms Köditz said: “The prosecution pressure is not even close to sufficient.”

She added: “One thing is clear: every act is one too many, no matter what area it comes from – hatred of Jews cannot be justified, there can be no tolerance whatsoever for antisemitism.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Toronto police have identified a person of interest in a case of antisemitic insults at a bakery in the city.

The incident took place on 12th March at a bakery near Avenue Road and Eglinton Avenue and amounted to a “suspected hate-motivated assault”, according to police.

The bakery is located in a vibrant Jewish community.

A police spokesperson explained that “the man stepped outside with a witness when disagreement became heated. Outside, the man continued to make offensive comments. The victim intervened and challenged the suspect. He then punched the victim in the face.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Antisemitic graffiti has been found on a synagogue in Belarus.

A swastika and SS mark were spray-painted on to the entrance of the Jewish Community of Gomel building earlier this month.

Gomel is 200 miles south-east of Minsk, and, while the city has historically hosted many Jews, there are currently only a few hundred remaining.

There are no suspects.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: European Jewish Congress

A Cornish man has been charged with five offences under the Public Order Act 1986 after reports from Campaign Against Antisemitism prompted an investigation by Devon and Cornwall Police.

Graham Hart, 68, of Penponds, Camborne, has been charged with five counts of using offending words or behaviour in a programme involving threatening, abusive or insulting visual images or sounds which was included in a programme service, intending thereby to stir up racial hatred or, having regard to all the circumstances, whereby racial hatred was likely to be stirred up.

The offences fall under sections 22(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

Mr Hart is bailed to appear at Truro Magistrates Court on 26th April.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Graham Hart has  been charged with five offences under the Public Order Act after our reports prompted an investigation by Devon and Cornwall Police. We are following the case with interest.”

A man has been arrested in connection with the vicious assault on a visibly Jewish pregnant woman in Stamford Hill.

The victim – a twenty-year-old woman who is 28-weeks pregnant – was rushed to hospital after being stalked, suffocated and viciously punched on Manor Road in Stamford Hill at 18:30 on 19th March.

The suspect, in his late fifties, was seen in footage stalking the victim before putting a pillowcase over her head to suffocate her while repeatedly and violently punching her.

The suspect is being held in custody on suspicious of grievous bodily harm (GBH).

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “At a time of heightened concern over the safety of women on our streets, this violent assault on a visibly Jewish pregnant women is a particularly grotesque demonstration of antisemitic and misogynistic hate crime. We applaud the Stamford Hill Shomrim for reporting the incident and the police for their swift action, and expect that the perpetrator of this heinous crime will be brought to justice.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

A man has been arrested after drawing a swastika and other antisemitic symbols outside a prominent New York City synagogue.

Manuel Barrera, 50, allegedly drew a swastika in the snow outside Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue before reportedly returning a few days later to draw other antisemitic symbols. He was arrested on charges of antisemitic aggravated harassment, according to police officials.

The official twitter account of the New York Police Department (NYPD) Hate Crimes Unit released a video of Mr Barrera in which he appears to be drawing a swastika in the snow beside the synagogue door. He is then seen appearing to return some days later to draw a pentagram, the number 666 and another swastika. These were drawn in chalk as the snow had melted.

Established in 1845 and relocated to Fifth Avenue in 1927, Temple Emanu-El was at one time the largest synagogue in the world.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: NYPD

Canadian police are investigating after a large number of antisemitic posters were put up in the Vancouver area of Kelowna.

The posters and decals were pasted along a busy thoroughfare and at Kelowna General Hospital. Police have not given details but described the material as “antisemitic in nature”.

In a news release, Kelowna police said that the initial complainant had removed a number of posters and municipal employees were continuing to remove them and that investigators had discovered more posters and decals “associated to the same group”. They are reviewing videos that could help “to identify those involved” as well as appealing for “dash-cam” videos and information.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A pregnant Jewish woman has reportedly been rushed to hospital after being stalked, suffocated and viciously punched.

The attack took place on Manor Road in Stamford Hill at 18:30 on 19th March and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

Shomrim and the police are urgently appealing for witnesses.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD8195 18/03/21.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “At a time of heightened concern over the safety of women on our streets, this violent assault on a visibly Jewish pregnant women is a particularly grotesque demonstration of antisemitic and misogynistic hate crime. We have put out an appeal for witnesses, and we urge anyone with information to contact the Stamford Hill Shomrim or the police so that this perpetrator can be brought to justice.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

A police officer who serves with the Capitol Police has been suspended after a copy of the virulently antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion was found on a table at a security post.

According to The Washington Post, photographs of the printed copy of the Protocols were provided by congressional aide Zach Fisch, who saw it on a table by a security post inside a Capitol administrative building.

The newspaper then provided the photos to the Capitol Police, asking for comment. The officer was suspended by the department’s acting chief who said that they took “all allegations of inappropriate behaviour seriously.” The officer will remain suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Mr Fisch said that he was “extremely rattled” by seeing the document in light of the 6th January storming of the Capitol in which rioters were seen wearing neo-Nazi clothing including one who wore a t-shirt with the slogan “Camp Auschwitz.” Some members of the Capitol Police have since been under scrutiny for their actions during the riot after video footage was seen showing rioters bypassing security with ease.

The Protocols were fabricated by Czarist Russia in 1903 and are renowned as a piece of viciously antisemitic literature. They purport to “reveal” the secret plans of Jewish leaders to achieve world domination and have been used as a pretext for anti-Jewish racism and violence since their manufacture. According to the Post, the photographs of this printed copy show tattered and stained pages held together by a bulldog-type clip and bore a date stamp indicating that it was printed in January 2019. 

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

An international arrest warrant for a terrorist who orchestrated a Jerusalem bombing that killed fifteen people has been dropped.

The International Police Organisation, commonly known as Interpol, has apparently abandoned its pursuit of Jordanian terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who orchestrated the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in which fifteen people were killed, including seven children and a pregnant woman. Another 130 people were injured. The attack is considered to have been the work of the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hamas.

In a letter published on 8th March in Arabic-language media, the law-enforcement organisation said that Ms Tamimi was no longer “subject to Interpol notice.” Ms Tamimi, who has lived in Jordan since being released from an Israeli prison as part of a prisoner exchange in 2011, also appears to have been removed from Interpol’s red-notice “most-wanted” list.

Ms Tamimi’s husband, the convicted terrorist Nizar Tamimi, triumphantly confirmed the news on his Facebook page, saying: “After a legal battle …the defence for freed prisoner Ahlam Al-Tamimi achieved the erasure of the red notice…With this legal victory, her name was removed from the wanted list of Interpol. Praise be to God.”

Mr Tamimi, who was deported from Jordan last year and now resides in Qatar, added: “Our struggle will continue until her file is completely closed.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A man has appeared in a Montreal court charged with the desecration of a synagogue in a Montreal suburb.

Patrice Belley-Gervais appeared in connection with May 2020 desecration and vandalism at the Congregation Sepharde Kol Yehudaa, a small synagogue in the Cote-St-Luc suburb with a large Jewish population.

When congregants returned to the synagogue after its lengthy closure due to COVID-19 restrictions, they found that it had been trashed with walls covered in antisemitic graffiti, religious items strewn on the floor and Torah scrolls stuffed down a toilet. At the time, one congregant described it as “carnage”, while a leading activist group called it “one of the worst such incidents in years.”

The arrest of Mr Belley-Gervais by Montreal Police follows the earlier arrest of Adam Riga (known also as Adam Rickett), 28, charged in January with defacing Montreal’s famed Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue with antisemitic graffiti, uttering threats and trying to commit arson.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

The chairman of a Turkish-Islamic association in the German city of Göttingen has resigned after antisemitic hate messages and conspiracy myths that he had allegedly posted on social media were exposed by a socialist youth organisation.

The group, Die Falken, claimed that Mustafa Keskin’s WhatsApp profile featured a meme depicting Donald Trump and Joe Biden as “old and new puppets” of investment bankers with a prominent member of the Rothschild family as the “puppet-master”.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is an example of antisemitism.

The youth group said that it had been “horrified” to discover that Mr Keskin was spreading antisemitic hate messages and conspiracy myths on WhatsApp and Facebook and stated on its website that this was not acceptable “for a community leader in Göttingen.”

Mr Keskin claimed that, as an interfaith leader, he had recently participated in a “Roundtable of Abrahamic Faiths” event with Jewish and Christian colleagues and that his postings were intended only as “criticisms of the Israeli government.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Swastikas and white supremacist slogans have been found at a campus dormitory at San Diego State University.

Earlier this year a swastika was found in a parking area at the southern California college. Police are investigating both incidents.

A statement from college officials condemned the incidents, saying: “SDSU…condemns any action meant to discriminate or harass anyone based on their social identity or religious affiliation”. The statement added: “Hate-motivated actions, such as this, and those reported earlier, have no place in our world, and offend us all.”

It is believed that the “parking lot swastika” and the most recent incident had different perpetrators. Jewish organisations, University authorities and the police are cooperating “to try to connect the dots”, according to one Jewish group.

In February 2020, the University PShabbat resident, Adela de la Torre, intervened to condemn anti-Jewish rhetoric and antisemitism after members of a group called Uhuru were prevented from bringing their group’s founder, Omali Yeshitela, to campus. Jewish groups objected saying that Mr Yeshitela had espoused Jew-hate. Uhuru members later claimed that SDSU was “controlled by Zionist masters.”

At the time, the director of SDSU’s Jewish Studies programme, Risa Levitt said a demonstration by Uhuru members included “some pretty horrific antisemitic, anti-Jewish tropes.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Two teens have been arrested on suspicion of vandalising and destroying a memorial commemorating the Holocaust.

Police say that surveillance video showed the young men first attempting to steal the five statues comprising the memorial, then knocking them down and destroying them.

The metal statues formed an outdoor memorial at the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. Each statue was filled with 2,000 stones, each bearing the name of a Jewish child murdered in the Holocaust.

The museum thanked the Tulsa community “for the overwhelming support” and for understanding the importance of “what these statues symbolised.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image Credit: Tulsa Police

Travis Patron, the founder and head of the far-right Canadian Nationalist Party (CNP), who reportedly said that Jews should be removed “once-and-for-all from our country”, has been arrested and charged with wilfully promoting hatred against Jews.

The arrest of Mr Patron, 29, in his home province of Saskatchewan, follows a 2019 social network video called “Beware the Parasitic Tribe.” In the video, Mr Patron claimed that Jewish people “infiltrate the media”, are “swindlers” and “snakes” and that they “infect the body politic like a parasite.”

What “we need to do,” he said, “is remove these people once-and-for-all from our country.”

Following the video, an official complaint was filed against Mr Patron with the police and the Saskatchewan Attorney-General by Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Mr Patron, who, according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, also has a social media history of denying the Holocaust, is scheduled to appear in court on 14th April. The maximum penalty for the offence is two years in prison.

Jewish groups welcomed the news of his arrest.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

An architect has reportedly been found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and sanctioned after she harassed neighbours with sickening antisemitic slurs over a property dispute.

Mail Online reported that Karin Reenie Elliott asked her neighbours if they would be “putting their children in charge of the gas chambers” and wrote in a message: “We are not in 1930’s Germany, we are not Jewish, we don’t wear yellow stars and you won’t crush us.” She repeatedly told the couple, who live next to her in Norwich, that they were “building concentration camps” when they began construction on a car port for their home and knocked down part of a fence.

Other messages included Miss Elliott telling her female neighbour: “No regrets then? For Krystallnacht 1917 [sic]? We will not be your victims anymore” and that “there wouldn’t be enough comfort food in Norfolk to make up for the emotional trauma caused to any woman that had to sh** your Nazi husband”.

Miss Elliot is a seasoned architect, with more than 25 years’ experience in the field and a plethora of respectable employers names on her Linkedin CV. As well as taking umbrage with the couple building a car port, she apparently sent similar messages to another set of neighbours when they rented a hot tub for a weekend. She told them: “You cannot instigate a one family Nazi regime to occupy our land and intimidate us off our property.”

At the hearing of a disciplinary panel of the Architects Registration Board, she said that she simply wanted her neighbours to know that she did not like them and regretted using “childish bad language”, but she then went on to state: “In mitigation, I would ask the members of the panel to understand what it feels like to be attacked. It’s hard not take it personally when strangers are smashing up your home”.

The panel found her guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and imposed a £2,000 penalty order to be paid within 28 days.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Karin Reenie Elliott’s reported comments, not to mention her apparent campaign of harassment of her neighbours, are abhorrent. There is absolutely no place for grotesque references to the systematic murder of six million Jews – the darkest period in history – in a local property dispute. Ms Elliott has unquestionably brought her profession into disrepute, and the Architects Registration Board is right to recognise that and sanction her. Other professional bodies should take note.”

A Muslim-owned kebab restaurant in the German city of Halle has been saved from bankruptcy by a fundraising campaign led by the Jewish community. The kebab restaurant was the site of a shooting by a neo-Nazi gunman after he failed to enter a synagogue on Yom Kippur in October 2019.

Germany’s union of Jewish students (JSUD) launched the campaign to save the Kiez-Döner restaurant, where trade has been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign raised almost £30,000, far exceeding its original target. In addition, a local Jewish businessman donated cash to fund giveaways of free kebabs to help drum up business.

The restaurant was targeted by neo-Nazi gunman Stephan Balliet after he failed to get through the security doors of the synagogue and after he shot dead a woman passerby close to the synagogue. At the kebab restaurant he murdered a twenty-year-old customer.

Restaurant co-owner, Ismet Tekin, said: “It’s really amazing what they did. They did it out of solidarity, to show that we are together, that we can get through these times if we are united.”

A member of the Halle Jewish community pointed out that both the synagogue and the Muslim-owned restaurant were targeted by Balliet because they “did not reflect his idea of what should be in Germany.”

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An online presentation in Italy for the new novel by the Italian journalist-turned-fiction-writer Gaia Servadio, was suspended after being interrupted by antisemitic and neo-nazi abuse.

The presentation for the book, entitled Giudei (“Jews”), was sponsored by the magazine Carta Vetrata. Commenting on the abuse, Ms Servadio said that similar events had occurred during “other online presentations, even in England,” where she lives. Ms Servadio, whose father was Jewish, was born in 1938 and experienced antisemitism in Padua, where she grew up.

Abuse in the Zoombombing included comments such as “Jews to the ovens” and “f***ing Jews” as well as other expletives and belching noises.

She has lived in London for more than 50 years and was the mother-in-law of Boris Johnson when her daughter, Allegra Mostyn-Owen, was the British Prime Minister’s first wife. The novel tells the story of a turbulent century through the lives of two Jewish families.  

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously reported on the phenomenon of ‘Zoom bombing’ and has urged communal institutions to take precautions to safeguard against antisemitic disruption of online events.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A knife attack on a Jewish school in the French city of Marseilles has been averted thanks to the intervention of school parents volunteering as security guards.

École Yavne (Yavne School) was locked down during the attack at 08:15 this morning, and nobody was injured, with police subsequently alerting all Jewish institutions across the southern city to increase security.

With his attack on the school foiled, the suspect reportedly targeted a kosher supermarket in the hope of stabbing Jewish victims, but he was again prevented by security.

Eventually the police arrived and apprehended the suspect.

The Chairman of the Jewish Agency warned that “the attack in Marseille today is a red flag that should alert us to the antisemitism that is happening below the radar, and is simply waiting to break free once the movement restrictions of the pandemic come to an end.”

We pay tribute to the volunteer security personnel who prevented these heinous attacks, and commend those in Britain and around the world who guard Jewish institutions and put themselves in harm’s way to protect others, sometimes making the ultimate sacrifice.

Marseilles has seen numerous violent antisemitic attacks in recent years, with the fatal stabbing of two women at a train station in 2017 and a machete attack on a Jewish man outside a synagogue in 2016.

It is also not the first attack on a Jewish school or kosher supermarket in the country. In 2012, a gunman murdered a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, while a Parisian kosher supermarket was attacked in 2015, leaving four people dead.

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The owner of an Amsterdam kosher restaurant said that he has “lost count” of the number of times his establishment has been vandalised following the latest incident, in which an antisemitic slogan was painted on his windows.

Daniel Bar-On, the owner of the HaCarmel restaurant in the Dutch capital, told local news outlets that he had “lost count” of the number of antisemitic attacks on his property.

“There are many restaurants owned by different nationalities along this street, but we are the only one subjected to these kinds of incidents,” explained Mr Bar-On.

His comments follow the recent desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Rotterdam, prompting the municipal authorities in the port city to provide more surveillance cameras and more police at Jewish institutions.

Rotterdam councillor Tanya Hoogwerf said in a media interview that “continuing hatred” towards the Jewish community in The Netherlands was “shocking”. Referring to a “series of incidents in our country”, Ms Hoogwerf added that, while politicians had been “falling over themselves to speak out” against antisemitism, “no effective measures have been taken.”

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Graffiti reading “Zionist police state” has appeared in East London for the second time this week, this time in Tower Hamlets.

The vandalism on Chambord Street comes just after the police said that they were investigating graffiti with the same message in Hackney.

Police reported the graffiti to Tower Hamlets Council and it has since been removed. No arrests have yet been made, and it is unclear if the two incidents are related.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Jewish News

Leaflets comparing the COVID-19 vaccine to the Holocaust have reportedly been left on car windscreens in Bournemouth.

In an apparent criticism of the vaccine and lockdown rules, the leaflets read: “Millions believed in the Nazis. Do you believe in your Government?” The caption is accompanied by pictures of Bill Gates, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the controversial Jewish financier and political activist, George Soros, who is a frequent protagonist in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The local resident who discovered the leaflets reportedly said: “To hijack the Holocaust and use the Nazis’ terrible crimes against humanity as an excuse to level criticism is repulsive to Jews and the general public at large.”

It is understood that police are investigating.

Comparisons of the lockdown rules to the Holocaust have become disturbingly commonplace in recent months.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Graffiti slurring Britain as a “Zionist police state” has been discovered on a wall in Hackney, East London, with a Jewish witness describing it as “shocking and insulting”.

Police are investigating but no arrests have yet been made.

A police spokesman said that the force is aware of the graffiti and has “contacted the council to get it removed as a matter of urgency”.

A witness said that he was “horrified at such a crude antisemitic trope being used”.

This is not the first time that this phrase has been sighted in the area.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Image credit: Martin Sugarman

Swastikas and a white power slogan have been discovered at a city-centre park in Vancouver.

Swastikas and the words “white power” were painted on trees in Riverview Park.

The vandalism was condemned by city officials and the Park Board who described it as “abhorrent” and said that they stood in solidarity with the Jewish community and all those “targeted by these messages” which were “intended to create shock, fear and division.”

Their statement continued: “They are offensive to all of us who stand for human rights and dignity and will not be excused or tolerated.”

Cleaning crews removed the graffiti.

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Image credit: Google

A white supremacist from New Jersey faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of at least $250,000 (£180,000) following his conviction for vandalising synagogues in an antisemitic rampage he called “Kristallnacht”.

In court, Richard Tobin, 19, pleaded guilty to conspiring to vandalise synagogues and to other acts of anti-Jewish and anti-Black racism. Mr Tobin allegedly conspired with members of The Base, a white supremacist hate group. Using online communications, he allegedly told its members in September 2019 to vandalise and destroy buildings and vehicles belonging to Jewish and Black Americans. He called the operation “Kristallnacht”, referencing the Nazi pogrom in 1938 when thousands of synagogues and businesses were destroyed, Jews were murdered Jews and their belongings torched in a prelude to the Holocaust.

Members of The Base allegedly vandalised synagogues in Wisconsin and Michigan, spray painting them with swastikas and other hate symbols. Mr Tobin’s co-conspirator, Yousef Omar Barasneh, also pleaded guilty to vandalising the Wisconsin synagogue.

Michael Driscoll, the FBI agent who brought the conspirators to justice, said: “Richard Tobin encouraged others to victimise innocent people, in furtherance of his abhorrent white supremacist beliefs.”

Mr Driscoll added: “While we all have the right to believe whatever we want, when those views lead to violence, that’s a different and dangerous story.”

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Antisemitic graffiti found at student residences at a Texas university is being investigated by college police.

According to Gwendolyn Schuler, a spokesperson for St. Edward’s University in Austin, vandals left offensive antisemitic and xenophobic messages on student rooms at an on-campus residential building on 3rd February.

Ms Schuler said that authorities had no security footage of the vandalism because it occurred in an area where there are no CCTV cameras. She also said that the University had increased the number of police and resident-assistants in the days immediately following the vandalism and that the incident was being investigated by the college police department.

Jewish student Alysia Duemler, who is studying psychology and Spanish at St. Edward’s, said that she was alarmed to hear about the vandalism, particularly as it occurred a week after International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“I would hope that people would learn the lessons of the Holocaust,” Ms Duemler said. “But apparently some people are not learning the lessons.”

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An altar honouring the senior Nazi figure, Heinrich Himmler, was found when premises near Rome used by an Italian far-right movement were cleared by police.

The altar, dedicated to Himmler and Erich Priebke – an SS officer convicted of war crimes in Italy – was found together with other objects relating to Fascist and Nazi ideology during an eviction from a centre in Maccarese, near Rome.

The centre has reportedly been illegally occupied since 2008 by Fons Perennis, a far-right organisation with links to the neo-fascist, pro-Nazi movement CasaPound which was, in its early years, a political party named in honour of the author Ezra Pound.

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A guard at a Nazi concentration camp who has lived in the United States since 1959 has been deported to Germany.

German prosecutors, however, have dropped their case against him for lack of evidence.

Friedrich Karl Berger, 95, has admitted to working as a guard at the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, but he denies witnessing any killings or abuse of prisoners. During the deportation hearing, Mr Berger admitted that he had prevented prisoners from fleeing the camp.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Mr Berger claimed that he had been forced to work in the camp, had spent only a short time there and had not carried a weapon. He also said that “after 75 years” it was “ridiculous” to force him out of his home.

German police are to question him further about his wartime activities.

The US judge who last year ordered the deportation said that camp prisoners were held in “atrocious” conditions and often worked “to the point of exhaustion and death.” The Acting Attorney-General, Monty Wilkinson, said that Mr Berger’s deportation showed the administration’s commitment to ensuring that the United States was “not a safe haven for those who have participated in Nazi crimes.”

German prosecutors have continued to pursue former Nazi camp officials. In February, a 95-year-old woman who had worked as a secretary at the Stutthof camp and a 100-year-old man who was a guard at Sachsenhausen were charged with aiding and abetting mass murder.

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Image credit: US Department of Justice

A war memorial has been daubed with swastikas and disturbing antisemitic hate messages.

The vile messages, which refer to the murder of Jews and gassing of soldiers, was found on the memorial in Rhyl, Wales.

The graffiti also continued the line, in German, that “the time has come for a Reich [empire]: we must exterminate the Jews.”

Richard Kendrick, Rhyl’s Poppy Appeal organiser for the Royal British Legion, said: “Someone has put graffiti on two of the stones and plaques. These stones are dedicated to the men and women from Rhyl who have given their lives for us over the past 125 years. I can’t understand who would do such an awful thing.”

Mr Kendrick went on to urge anyone with information to call police before adding: “Sad day when someone would do such an awful act.”

Councillor Brian Jones said: “It is a total disrespect to the people that fought for the freedom of the country.”

Image credit: Richard Kendrick

A historian in a Polish institute that researches World War II war crimes has resigned after alleged links to a far-right organisation emerged, along with pictures of him performing a Nazi-style salute.

Tomasz Greniuch, who was appointed in February as the head of the Wroclaw branch of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), resigned less than two weeks later amid outrage over his alleged links to the National Radical Camp, a far-right group, and after pictures appeared of him apparently performing a Nazi-style salute at rallies in the early 2000s.

The director of the Prime Minister’s Office, Michal Dworczyk, urged him to resign “for the sake of the institution and the image of Poland.”

Mr Greniuch’s appointment to such a sensitive role has caused controversy in Poland, where the governing Law and Justice Party has faced accusations of encouraging far-right sentiment, a charge that the Party denies.

Some politicians have called for the resignation of the head of the IPN, Jaroslaw Szarek, who went ahead with Mr Greniuch’s appointment despite concerns voiced by members of the Government and by the Polish President.

Mr Greniuch issued a public apology on Friday declaring: “I have never been a Nazi and I apologise for the irresponsible gesture I made a dozen years ago, which was a mistake.” He added. “The gesture was the result of youthful bravado,” and was not aimed at “glorifying totalitarianism”.

In a 2019 interview, he said that he had not cut himself off from his earlier views but had changed his behaviour and noted that “when you have your dream job, you try to be a professional.”

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A shopping plaza in Davie, just north of Miami, has been vandalised with antisemitic graffiti.

According to witnesses, a bank, a restaurant and other businesses were spray-painted with offensive messages.

The vandalism is being investigated by police and a $3,000 (£2,160) reward has been offered to  help find the perpetrator.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Italian police have opened an investigation into racially-aggravated threatening behaviour after 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre was the target of antisemitic abuse on social media.

Ms Segre, who in 2018 was named Senator for Life by Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, was subjected to antisemitic hate after she was pictured receiving her COVID-19 vaccination on 18th February.

Abusive comments included: “…the a**hole … not even the Germans managed to kill her…and now she’s afraid of dying.” Another was: “And now let’s hope that the vaccine does its job…and she gets the f*** out of the way.”

In her first act after becoming a Senator for Life, she proposed the establishment of a parliamentary commission on racism, antisemitism and incitement to hatred and violence.

Italian police say that a formal investigation has been opened into racially-aggravated threatening behaviour following the online abuse.

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Swastikas and antisemitic Nazi slogans, including Sieg Heil, were carved into the door of a synagogue in the Swiss town of Biel.

The desecration, which is being investigated by police, was described as “a serious antisemitic incident” by the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG/FCSI).  

Biel, also known as Bienne, is near the Swiss capital, Bern, and lies on the border between the French-speaking and German-speaking regions of the country.

In a statement, the SIG/FCSI said that it was “shocked,” and condemned “this act of violence in the strongest possible terms.” 

The SIG/FCSI and the local Jewish community are jointly filing a criminal complaint and expressed the hope that the perpetrator would be found quickly.

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Image credit: SIG/FCSI

A Jewish schoolteacher from a town just outside Milan found antisemitic abuse scrawled over her car.

The teacher – who has lived in the municipality of Rosate for more than twenty years – found “Forza Hitler!” scrawled in permanent marker on the family car.

In a Facebook post, the Mayor of Rosate, Daniele del Ben, apologised to the teacher and her family on behalf of the whole city.

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An asylum seeker who wrote the foreword of a book urging the killing of Jews has been granted permission to live in the UK.

Egyptian-born Yasser Al-Siri faces the death penalty in his home country and was allegedly part of a conspiracy to murder a general as ordered by Osama Bin Laden.

It has been reported that 2,000 copies of books espousing “the killing of Jews” were found at addresses linked to Mr Al-Siri, but a 2015 Immigration Tribunal did not consider that this evidence was sufficient to overcome the apparent absence of evidence of his involvement in the conspiracy to murder the general.

The Home Office rejected his asylum case on security grounds again in 2018, claiming that Mr Al-Siri had “advocated the use of violent jihad” on social media, and the Government sought to keep him out of the UK. But the Court of Appeal ruled last week that Mr Al-Siri should be allowed to stay, on the grounds that the evidence of his “sympathy for extremist views” was insufficient.

Lord Justice Phillips stated at the conclusion of the case on 8th February: “The starting point is that an unappealed Tribunal decision is final and binding and must be accepted and implemented by the Home Secretary, unless there is a good basis for impugning that decision.”

The Home Office is reportedly “disappointed” with the result and considering its next steps.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is a travesty that our country should give the privilege of residence to a man who has reportedly urged the killing of Jews. Our research shows that the threat from Islamists is regarded as serious by 95% of British Jews, and with good reason. It is disappointing that the courts have shown insufficient concern for the wellbeing of British citizens in arriving at this decision.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2020 showed that over eight in ten British Jews consider the threat from Islamists to be very serious.

Swastikas have been scrawled on a building in Hollywood, Florida.

Located on Florida’s east coast between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood is home to some 2,500 Orthodox Jews. The building on which the swastikas were drawn is understood to be a venue for Jewish lifecycle events and parties. 

The city’s police department was alerted.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: StopAntisemitism.Org

The head of Argentina’s main Jewish umbrella body, which is involved in a judicial enquiry involving the country’s former president, is receiving police protection after he received a threatening letter.

Jorge Knoblovits, head of the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), received a letter at his office urging him to leave the country.

DAIA is party to a judicial complaint against the country’s former President and now Vice President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, that accuses her of colluding with Iran in impeding justice for the victims of the 1994 AMIA Jewish centre bombing, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds were injured.

Mr Knoblovits has previously received anonymous messages urging DAIA to remove itself from this judicial action, as well as threats over other issues such as Argentina declaring Hizballah a terrorist organisation. DAIA security advisors recommended requesting police assistance in response to this latest letter.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A Holocaust survivor has been left traumatised after she and her son, a Rabbi, were verbally abused, and the son was punched, by a woman in an unprovoked attack on a bus.

The assailant struck the son in the head whilst screaming: “I hate you Jews, it’s not your place, you took our money.”

She also threw the Rabbi’s hat to the floor in the assault, which took place at 14:48 on Tuesday, 9th February on a 76 London bus travelling from Stoke Newington to Stamford Hill.

Passengers pleaded with the bus driver to stop, as the incident took place as they were driving by a police station, but he allegedly refused.

Police are understood to be looking for a black woman, but a detailed description has not been circulated.

The abuse of the Holocaust survivor, aged 80, and the attack on her son who is a Rabbi in North London, comes in the same week that a disabled Jewish man was verbally abused on another bus with the driver failing to act then too.

Police are currently investigating the incident, which was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD4563 9/2/21.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is yet another unprovoked act of violence against members of the Jewish community going about their day. Our research has shown that almost half of British Jews conceal visible signs of their Judaism in public due to antisemitism, and fear of attacks such as this clearly feed into this sentiment. TfL must explain why the bus driver took no action, allowing the abuse to go on despite the violence and the protests of other passengers, and the assailant must quickly be identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Pork products and a pig effigy were used in antisemitic assaults against synagogues in two Swiss cities within a few days of one another, sparking concern among Jewish groups.

After a pack of bacon and a stuffed toy pig were left outside a synagogue in Lausanne, the CICAD, a leading Swiss Jewish communal organisation, posted on Twitter, saying: “Acts of this nature are an insult to any Jew and take on a highly symbolic dimension when they are committed in a synagogue. These are serious facts which must challenge our authorities and our fellow citizens.”

Four days later, a woman threw slices of pork at a Liberal synagogue in Geneva. CICAD said that criminal complaints would be filed.

The group also issued a statement explaining why the incident was “far from trivial”. It was reminiscent, the group said, of the ancient antisemitic Judensau (a folk art image of a Jews engaged in obscene contact with a female pig) used in anti-Jewish texts and art and in Nazi imagery and cartoons. Its use has been especially prevalent in German-speaking countries, the statement noted.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A synagogue in Spokane, Washington was vandalised with swastikas and antisemitic graffiti on 8th February.

Police are trying to identify the perpetrator of the vandalism at Temple Beth Shalom, who was allegedly caught on surveillance video.

The congregation’s Rabbi Tamar Malino told local news that a white power symbol was also painted on a window. She said that it was “horribly upsetting and frightening” to know that there was “that much hatred out there”. She added that she believed that this was more troubling than an incident five years ago, saying that this was “really different” from a small chalked image; this time the perpetrator used “big, bold red writing on the outside of the building.”

Mayor Nadine Woodward called it “a hate crime” and said that the symbols and writings were “disgusting” and “desecrate a place of worship.” The Mayor added: “This type of hate and divisiveness in our community will never be tolerated.”

Describing the incident as “reprehensible”, Police Chief Craig Meidl said: “There is no place for hate-mongering in our community.” He  said that police were committed to doing everything possible to arrest the perpetrator. “We will always stand with those who are the target of hate and bigotry,” he declared.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Spokane Police Department

A teenager from Cornwall who recently became the UK’s youngest terror offender has controversially been spared a custodial sentence.

Now sixteen, the neo-Nazi teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted two counts of dissemination of terrorist documents and ten of possession of terrorist material, after he downloaded his first bombmaking manual at thirteen, and joined the far-right Fascist Forge. In 2018 and 2019, he expressed antisemitic, racist and anti-gay views online, reportedly talking about “gassing” Jewish people and hanging gay people. He is also believed to have been in contact with the founder of the proscribed neo-Nazi terror group Feuerkrieg Division.

His home was searched and police found a Nazi flag, a racist slogan on the garden shed and manuals on his computer and phone about making weapons.

He is also understood to have recruited other young people to the cause.

Nevertheless, he has only received a two-year youth rehabilitation order, after Judge Mark Dennis QC told the Old Bailey that a custodial sentence would “undo” the progress made since the teenager was arrested in July 2019. The judge added that the teenager has “significant vulnerabilities”.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “While rehabilitation of young offenders is a priority, so are justice and deterrence. This convicted terrorist has recruited other youth to a violent far-right cause and must be held accountable for the impact on society and on the future lives of those he has influenced, and it is difficult to see how a non-custodial sentence achieves this. A weak sentence also sends precisely the wrong signal to other would-be terrorists, broadcasting the message that recruitment of minors to violent terrorism carries no real cost.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously reported on far-right efforts to recruit young people.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

A man has subjected a Jewish couple – including a disabled man – to ten minutes of verbal abuse on a London bus.

The offender screamed “You f***ing damn p**** this is our country, I will batter the f*** out of you” and various other obscenities at the couple. He was also apparently infuriated that the disabled person allegedly took longer to board the bus; witnesses denied that this was even the case.

The incident took place at 12:45 on 8th February on a 253 bus at Manor House, London N4, heading towards Hackney Central, and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol. The assailant alighted at 

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD4968 05/01/2020.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “This is a despicable and unprovoked attack against elderly members of the Jewish community, one of whom was disabled. TfL must explain why the bus driver took no action, allowing the abuse to escalate so appallingly. At a time when 44% of British Jews are telling us that they are afraid to show any sign of their religion in public, Police must act swiftly to ensure that this antisemitic criminal is brought to justice before he reoffends.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2020 showed that three in five British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

A swastika and antisemitic graffiti were discovered on a student’s desk at the Pembroke Hill School, Kansas City on 27th January. The incident occurred on the same day that the school formally recognised International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

School officials have declined to provide further details on the contents of the antisemitic graffiti.

A Jewish parent of a student at the school claimed that this vandalism is not an isolated incident and it is rather part of an increasingly concerning pattern. According to local press, several incidents of antisemitic behaviour have been reported at Pembroke Hill School, including swastikas graffitied across a Jewish student’s locker and a bathroom wall. On another occasion, a student allegedly raised his arm in a Nazi salute while shouting antisemitic epithets at a Jewish student.

In a letter to parents on 27th January, the head of the school maintained that the recent incident would be harnessed to educate the community and student body on the impact of intolerance and prejudice, and the importance of respect.

Pembroke Hill School officials stated that disciplinary action will be taken against whoever is responsible for the recent incident and the school will continue to uphold a zero tolerance for actions or symbols that reinforce “any form of bigotry”. The school has been unable to identify the perpetrator, however it remains under investigation.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A Florida police department is to investigate an incident in which a former civilian employee engaged in a furious antisemitic rant, telling an elderly man: “Move your f***ing car, you stupid Jew.”

A video of Leslie Socolov, 64, a retired police stenographer with the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), went viral after being posted on Twitter by an online antisemitism watchdog. Wearing her uniform jacket on which “Miami-Dade Homicide” was clearly visible, Ms Socolov was filmed in a restaurant car park in Boca Raton, screaming at the 78-year-old man.

Ms Socolov was seen running to the SUV and telling the driver: “Move your f***ing car, you stupid Jew!” Slurring her words and appearing unsteady on her feet, she continued: “You f***ing piece of s***. Just because you’re Jewish and a Democrat doesn’t give you the right to stay there. Move it!”

Prior to her rant, Ms Socolov had allegedly rammed the SUV with her Prius. The SUV driver called emergency services. Ms Socolov was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office.

Denying that she was antisemitic and claiming that she was Jewish, Ms Socolov said, “I’m not antisemitic, I’m getting persecuted,” adding: “Look at these Democrats getting away with bulls***.”

In a statement, MDPD condemned its former employee of 20 years and said that it was investigating. It described the “hateful speech” as “appalling”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

The Metropolitan Police has disclosed that it arrested a 73-year-old man in Southwark yesterday on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance.

Campaign Against Antisemitism and others have reported recently that Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour leader, conceived and has been distributing grotesque flyers comparing lockdown rules to Auschwitz. Referencing a headline in the Evening Standard that the new COVID-19 vaccines are a “safe path to freedom”, the leaflets show the slogan atop the infamous gates to Auschwitz.

Mr Corbyn has distributed the leaflets in heavily-Jewish Barnet and now in Southwark, which has prompted his arrest.

Responding to his arrest, Mr Corbyn absurdly argued that he could not be antisemitic because he had been married to a Jewish woman and once employed a Jewish person who was a “superb worker” in a comment attributed to him in the JC. Mr Corbyn reportedly protested: “The idea we’re antisemitic in any way is completely absurd. I was married for 22 years to a Jewess and obviously her mother’s forebears fled the Baltic states just before the war because of Hitler or the Nazis in general. I’ve worked with Jewish leading world scientists over the last 30 years. I’ve also employed Jewish people in my business Weather Action, one of whom was a superb worker.”

Mr Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour leader, is a vehement opponent of pandemic lockdowns and has spoken at numerous rallies against lockdown rules, including appearing alongside the antisemitic hate preacher David Icke. Recently, the former BNP leader, Nick Griffin, also compared the lockdown to Auschwitz.

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Mr Corbyn has a history of controversy in relation to antisemitic conspiracy theories. He has previously retweeted @whiteknight0011, a notorious neo-Nazi who declared that “They will force Trump in to war What do you think happened to Hitler? Bilderberg CIA IMF Banker Gangsters They are the problem” along with four images. The @whiteknight0011 account has since been suspended. One image showed Lord Jacob Rothschild, the Jewish banker and philanthropist, against the background of a Nazi flag, claiming that he controls the world. A second showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppeteer controlling ISIS through Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, orchestrating the war in Syria and Paris attacks as Lord Rothschild and the Queen look on approvingly. A third image showed the faces of supposed Jewish conspirators who run the world to society’s detriment, proclaiming: “Know your enemy”. The last image showed a family photo of the Royal Family, claiming that they are in cahoots with these Jewish conspirators in committing “the worst genocides, invasions and theft in all history.”

Mr Corbyn has also claimed that “Zionists” were conspiring against his brother: when Jewish then-MP Louise Ellman complained of antisemitic attacks against her, Piers accused her of using it as a cover for political attack, tweeting: “ABSURD! JC+ All #Corbyns are committed #AntiNazi. #Zionists can’t cope with anyone supporting rights for #Palestine”.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Service said: “A 73-year-old man was arrested in Southwark on Wednesday, 3 February on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance. A 37-year-old man was arrested earlier the same day in Bow, east London, on suspicion of a public order offence. Both men were taken to a south London police station. They have since been bailed to return on a date in early March. The leaflet contained material that appeared to compare the Covid-19 vaccination programme with the Holocaust.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “These grotesque flyers comparing the lockdown to the Auschwitz death camp are just the latest stunt in Piers Corbyn’s long history of Jew-baiting, which apparently runs in the family. Lately, he even shared a platform with the modern date antisemitic hate preacher David Icke. It is time that Corbyn faces the legal consequences of his trolling of Jews.”

A fire is believed to have been deliberately started at a Jewish centre in a small Massachusetts town near Boston.

Authorities are investigating a blaze in the early hours of the morning in a “dumpster” at Chabad of Sharon, Mass. The centre incorporates a synagogue, a school and other learning and recreational facilities.

There is not yet proof of arson but police are reportedly investigating the fire as suspicious.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo’s private residence was defaced with several swastikas in the early hours of 31st January.

According to local press, seven large swastikas were found sprayed across a mailbox and the front of the house. The vandalism was discovered the following morning and reported to local law enforcement, who have thus far been unable to identify those responsible.

A demonstration of the far-right political action group Vlaanderen Ons Land, Flanders Our Country, was held the same weekend in Brakel. Police are trying to establish if there is a connection between the demonstration and the vandalism. The protest comprised fifteen participants, however there was reportedly a large federal police presence.

Through his spokesperson, Prime Minister De Croo condemned the damage to his private property and the failed attempt to intimidate his family through fascist and antisemitic symbolism.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office East Flanders, an investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A teenager from Cornwall is the UK’s youngest terror offender, after he admitted twelve terrorism offenses.

It is understood that he downloaded his first bombmaking manual at thirteen, and joined the far-right Fascist Forge. Now sixteen, the neo-Nazi teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted two counts of dissemination of terrorist documents and ten of possession of terrorist material.

In 2018 and 2019, he expressed antisemitic, racist and anti-gay views online, reportedly talking about “gassing” Jewish people and hanging gay people. He is also believed to have been in contact with the founder of the proscribed neo-Nazi terror group Feuerkrieg Division.

His home was searched and police found a Nazi flag, a racist slogan on the garden shed and manuals on his computer and phone about making weapons.

The prosecutor observed that “The age is the alarming factor and his conduct betrays a maturity beyond his chronological age.”

Sentencing at the Old Bailey is expected on 8th February.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “There has been a notable rise in far-right activity among the young, with older activists deliberately targeting youth with specially-designed videos and other material. Social media companies are too often failing to act against the threat, which, as this latest conviction shows, is very real. The number of prosecutions of young offenders shows that the criminal justice system is taking the matter seriously, but further preventative action is necessary to stop the deplorable brainwashing of young people with far-right hate.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously reported on far-right efforts to recruit young people.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

An Orthodox Jewish boy and his father were violently attacked in Antwerp on Wednesday night.

The incident, in which the alleged assailant grabbed the 13-year-old Orthodox boy by the throat and then attacked the boy’s father, was blamed on antisemitism that has resurfaced in the Belgian city and was possibly fuelled by comments from Antwerp Mayor Bart De Wever in relation to COVID19 compliance and the Orthodox community.

Two days earlier, Mayor De Wever had commented on the poor response to a mail-shot inviting 6,500 residents of Antwerp’s Jewish quarter to test for the virus. In criticising the low response he asserted that the community risked a “wave of antisemitism” as a result.

His critics claim that the comments, in which he referenced “Jewish schools” and the “Jewish quarter”, singled out Jews for criticism and helped to fuel antisemitism in Belgium.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A campaign to find the perpetrator of antisemitic attacks on two Jewish sites in Huntsville, Alabama, will include digital billboards.

The billboards are part of a campaign to find the perpetrator behind antisemitic graffiti daubed at the Etz Chayim Synagogue and at Chabad of Huntsville last April. Rewards totalling $18,000 (£13,000) are being offered. The FBI is offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction, while the ADL is offering a separate $2,000 reward and Huntsville Area Crime Stoppers a further $1,000.

Based on surveillance footage, investigators believe the same man vandalised both locations. They hope to be helped to find him through “digital billboards across north Alabama and southern Tennessee,” according to a press release.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Google

Antisemitic and anti-black racist slurs and pornographic images appeared online when a virtual lesson being given by an elite San Francisco school was hacked.

According to the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), the hacking took place during an anti-racism talk to students of Lowell High School. The SFUSD said that students were using the Padlet platform to share reflections on anti-racism lessons when the messages and images appeared.

The SFUSD said its Department of Technology were trying to identify the hacker and trace the origin of the posts.

Lowell principal Dacotah Swett issued a video statement, saying: “My heart goes out to the members of our community who were targeted — our Black and Jewish students.” Directing comments to the perpetrators, she said that she would pursue “by all means available” to her those who made “these racist and antisemitic attacks on our community.”

Noting that their “words and actions” had no place at Lowell, she added: “Your actions constitute hate speech and you will be held accountable.”

Students from Lowell High School have complained about ongoing racism at the elite school where nearly 70% of students are either Asian-American or White. Less than 2% of students are Black, and 12% are Hispanic.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a petition had been started by a Lowell teacher and black student calling for a federal investigation into the hacking.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A screaming Holocaust-denier infiltrated a virtual gathering last weekend of the Or Shalom Synagogue, according to the Vancouver congregation’s leadership.

They said that the antisemitic racist used a fake identity and “snuck into their virtual gathering” in what they are calling a “Zoombombing.”

Synagogue co-Chair David Kauffman explained that due to pandemic-related restrictions the synagogue in Canada’s main West Coast city held a virtual event on Sunday evening. He said that an unknown person using a “Jewish sounding” name joined the Zoom, but kept his video off before screaming and “disrupting with what sounded like a recording of Holocaust denial”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has warned about the phenomenon of Zoombombing over the past year, as video gatherings have become more common during the period of pandemic lockdowns.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French Jew.

Social media posts remembered Mr Halimi who, on 20th January 2006, was kidnapped by an antisemitic gang and then tortured in what Washington Post columnist James McAuley described as “one of the most brutal antisemitic attacks in France in recent memory (and there have been quite a few).”

Mr Halimi, who lived in the Paris suburb of Bagneux with his mother and sister, spent three weeks in captivity as gang members tortured him and tried to extort ransom money from his relatives. He died on the way to the hospital after being dumped near a railway track on the outskirts of the French capital.

Part of the eulogy written for Mr Halimi by Judea Pearl, father of murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl, was also shared on Twitter: “Let there be no silence on your grave, Ilan; no rest, nor learned discussion… until another Zola rises with a louder ‘J’accuse’.”

Francis Kalifat, president of CRIF, the organisation representing French Jews, wrote on Twitter, “I think of his family and all the victims of antisemitism. Neither forgiveness nor forgetting.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A suspect has been named in connection with the antisemitic vandalism of a prominent Montreal synagogue.

Adam Riga, who also goes by the name Adam Rackett, has reportedly been identified as the man charged with the antisemitic vandalism of the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue in Montreal.

One of the Canadian city’s major Jewish landmarks, the synagogue was spray-painted with swastikas a week ago. In a letter to congregants, the synagogue’s Rabbi Adam Scheier said that the perpetrator, who had been stopped by a synagogue security guard, was carrying a canister of gasoline when arrested after spray-painting doors of the synagogue with swastikas.

Mr Riga is understood to be a supporter of the movement to boycott Israel.

Montreal police said that a psychological exam had been ordered on the a 28-year-old, as he appeared to be suffering from mental health problems.

On Twitter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the vandalism “despicable,” while Marc Miller, the Indigenous Services Minister, condemned it as an “utter disgrace.”

Former Premier Stephen Harper tweeted that his prayers were with the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue and its congregation. “I’m saddened and appalled to see such a vile antisemitic attack on a place so sacred to the Montreal Jewish community,” he declared, adding: “We must come together as Canadians and denounce all forms of hatred.”

Rabbi Reuben Poupko, co-Chair of Québec’s main Jewish representative organisation, said yjsy the Jewish community was “outraged” by the “vile assault on Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.” He added: “This attack targets the entire community and all those who embrace civility and tolerance.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

The terrorist group Al-Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula has condemned the Governments of four Arab countries for their rapprochement with Israel and has called on Muslims to kill Jews who visit.

In its report, Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor states that an editorial  in the 8th January issue of the terror group’s publication described the Governments of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco as “traitors” and accused them of a “humiliating stance” on “the Jewish occupation” and the “violation” by “the criminal Jews” against the Muslim nation.

After further accusing them of being “submissive to the Ziono-Crusader coalition”, it allegedly urged Muslims to “seize the opportunity presented by the visits of Jews to Muslim countries to cut off their heads,” pointing out that “the jihad waged against Jews today” was not limited to “those who are in Palestine”, as Jews were “walking around in the region,” offering “a rare opportunity.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A court has ruled that a neo-Nazi teenager who planned to throw homemade bombs at Durham synagogues can be named.

Jack Reed, 18, can be named after his bid for anonymity was rejected by a court.

Last January, Mr Reed was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to six years and eight months in prison after being found guilty by a unanimous jury of preparation of terrorist acts between October 2017 and March 2019. He has also been given a separate custodial sentence for unrelated child sexual offences against a schoolgirl.

Mr Reed, who is from Durham, had begun drafting a manifesto titled “A Manual for practical and sensible guerrilla warfare against the kike system in the Durham City area, Sieg Heil”. Other items seized from his home included a copy of Mein Kampf and material on explosives and firearms.

The prosecution claimed during the trial that the defendant had become “an adherent of neo-Nazism – the most extreme of right-wing ideology”, noting that he had written in his diary on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday that the Nazi leader was “a brave man to say the least. Although maybe having written proof that I admire their number one enemy isn’t such a wise idea. I will however say that I one day hope to follow in his footsteps.”

Mr Reed’s anonymity was due to expire on his eighteenth birthday, which fell on Christmas Eve, but an extension was granted following a request to continue the restrictions, which, after the latest legal proceedings, has now been denied. The defence claimed that there would be a “huge negative impact” on the teenager – who is undergoing mental health assessments – and his family, if his identity were revealed.

At a hearing at Manchester Crown Court, the judge reportedly ruled that the Crown Court had “no power…to make the order sought”. In fact, the judge even ruled that there was no power even to have made the short extension.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

Antisemitic stickers have been found appended to street furniture in Penzance.

According to Cornwall Against Antisemitism, stickers reading “The Holocasut didn’t happen. But it should have” and featuring a swastika, have been found in numerous locations, including the A30 Heamoor roundabout underpass.

Other stickers read: “Antisemitism is caused by Semitism”.

Those seeing the stickers have been called on to report them to the police on 101.

Last year, members of the proscribed National Action group were sentenced to prison, having engaged, amongst other activities, in far-right stickering and recruitment campaigns.

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues to monitor and report on far-right stickering campaigns, including by the far-right Hundred Handers group.

Concerns have been raised by calls from the British far-right to emulate the attack on the US Capitol in the UK.

Posts on 4chan and Gab, both networks popular with the far-right, were of particular concern, including a Gab group called Britfam with close to 5,000 British members.

A significant proportion of the posts were reportedly threats against British politicians and calls for action emulating the attack on the US Capitol, and included antisemitic abuse toward social media companies (for example, “another Jew silencing us”), the British Prime Minister and the President of the United States. 

There were also references to the Rothschilds and Israeli involvement.

Research by the Community Security Trust and Hope Not Hate suggests that calls for violence currently remain marginal, but called for vigilance from Government.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

A customer at the Mill Hill East Waitrose was called a “f”””ing Jew” by a fellow customer who had allegedly jumped the queue and whom she had confronted for not wearing a facemask, according to the JC.

The victim, from Hendon in North London, reported that the other customer turned to her and said: “f*** off, you f***ing Jew. Go back to where you came from, you c***.”

The victim said that she reported the customer to the Waitrose staff but was shocked at being told to “walk away”, with the staff allegedly ignoring the matter.

She then tried calling 999 but was informed by the operator that this was not a police matter.

The victim said that she felt “very vulnerable walking around the aisles”, particularly as she continued to see the other customer, whom she eventually encountered again at the checkout line. “She started calling me a c*** again and said ‘keep the mask on, I bet you’re so ugly behind that mask’.”

She claims that a manager then ordered both of them to be quiet.

The victim has apparently not returned to the branch, and says that she has contacted the chain twice to demand an apology. “I do feel absolutely victimised. I’ve never felt like this before. I felt horribly alone, and that’s why I can’t let it go. It’s keeping me awake,” she reportedly said.

When approached by the JC, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police reportedly urged the victim to report the incident online, saying: “That would be unlikely to amount to an investigation in respect of close contact/unmasked etc, but an allegation of racial abuse ought to be recorded.”

A Waitrose spokesperson reportedly said: “We are very sorry to hear about this. We do not tolerate any sort of discrimination. Any customer who is found to discriminate against a member of staff or another customer will be banned. We are also now taking a more robust approach to mask wearing and customers must wear a mask when they are in our shops unless they are exempt.  We will refuse entry to those who do not comply. Once again, we are very sorry to learn about the customer’s experience.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

A man with “entrenched racist views” has walked free from court after shouting antisemitic abuse and giving Nazi salutes on a flight from Warsaw to Liverpool.

Louis Mann’s rant was reportedly filmed by a fellow passenger, a family member of Holocaust victims, who said that he was “shaken”, “shocked” and “disgusted” by the abusive language. Mr Mann is a 28-year-old medical student studying in Poland and was allegedly under the influence of alcohol during the incident.

The prosecution advised that “The defendant was a passenger on a Wizz Air flight from Poland, Warsaw, to Liverpool on 19th October 2019 The flight arrived at Liverpool John Lennon Airport at 17:37,” adding: “The flight was full and passengers reported during the flight Mr Mann had had to be repeatedly asked to sit down, to fasten his seatbelt and to refrain from making rude and offensive gestures.”

The offence for which Mr Mann was charged apparently took place once the flight had landed in the UK. He allegedly “got out of his seat before permitted to do so” and responded to requests from the flight crew to sit down with a “tirade of racial and religious abuse by words and gestures”. According to the prosecution, “He was standing in the aisle of the flight making a Nazi salute and was shouting ‘Anglo-Saxon race, we are superior’.” He also apparently said, “‘Know your place, don’t answer back, you’re a Slavic race traitor n***** lover’,” spoke of “inferior people”, and shouted abuse to “Jewish n***** lovers”.

Mr Mann’s racist rantings apparently continued as he was being arrested and even once he reached the custody suite, where he told one policeman: “You’re alright, you’re Aryan.”

According to the defence, Mr Mann was impacted by recent mental health problems and that he had been “groomed” by far-right groups in Poland.

Wlodzimier Tych wrote in a victim impact statement: “Prior to this I have always felt very welcome in this country. I have lived in this country for 31 years; I have never experienced this sort of behaviour. I am of Jewish origin, this made me feel very shaken and upset, I also felt angry, disgusted and upset as he continued his behaviour regardless of other people’s feelings.”

Mr Mann, of Morecambe, admitted being drunk on the plane but denied a charge of racially aggravated harassment. The court described Mr Mann as having “entrenched racist views” and upheld the drunkenness charge, increasing the sentence to reflect the racial element.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism publishes its latest Antisemitism Barometer, comprising a survey of the British public’s views toward Jews and a poll of the Jewish community.

The Barometer’s poll of the British public’s views towards Jews is the first survey to use the Generalised Antisemitism Scale, devised by Dr Daniel Allington of King’s College, Louise Katz of the University of Derby, and Dr David Hirsh of Goldsmiths, for the purpose of this study. The survey was designed and analysed by Dr Allington, with fieldwork carried out by YouGov.

  • Using the new twelve-question Generalised Antisemitism Scale, the survey shows that 55% of British adults do not harbour any antisemitic views; they did not affirm a single one of the twelve statements.
  • The other side of the coin, however, is that there is deeply troubling normalisation of antisemitism, as 45% of British adults did affirm at least one antisemitic statement, although over half of them only agreed with one or two antisemitic statements.
  • 12% of British adults have entrenched antisemitic views, affirming four or more antisemitic statements. 
  • The most popular antisemitic statement was that “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews”, with which 23% of British adults agreed. That view is antisemitic under the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the Government.

The Barometer also includes a separate survey of British Jews designed and analysed in consultation with Dr Allington and carried out by Campaign Against Antisemitism and Jewish community partners. The survey reveals that:

  • British Jews are showing early signs of recovery from the Corbyn era but have been left scarred. Far more British Jews are optimistic about their future in the UK this year, but the proportion who decline to display visible signs of their Jewish identity due to antisemitism is at a record high.
  • British Jews’ confidence in the criminal justice system is low: a majority believes that the Crown Prosecution Service does not do enough to protect British Jews and the courts were also strongly criticised. Only the police receive more praise than criticism.
  • British Jews reserve the greatest opprobrium for politicians. They believe that almost every political party is more tolerant of antisemitism than it was last year; the Labour Party is viewed as more than twice as tolerant of antisemitism than any other party showing that it still has a great deal of work to do to win the confidence of British Jews.
  • In the first ever poll on the subject, an overwhelming majority of British Jews — 91% — want the Government to proscribe Hamas in its entirety.
  • Two thirds of British Jews are deeply concerned by the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish concern, and 55% by its handling of antisemitism complaints, Channel 4 also performs poorly with British Jews. Both broadcasters are state-funded.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Britain’s Jews are back from the brink. This study starkly shows that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn dealt a crushing blow to Jews’ confidence in their very future in this country, and that our community is now beginning to recover.

“But scars remain. Notwithstanding the relief felt by so many, our data shows that nearly half of those who normally wear outwards symbols of their Judaism now feel they have to hide it, and despite nine months of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of Labour, British Jews remain just as sure that the Party harbours antisemites.

“Though Britain remains one of the best countries in the world in which to live as a Jew, almost a fifth still feel unwelcome in this country. The departure of Mr Corbyn is no substitute for the sustained action and leadership to protect the Jews of this country — in politics, universities and social media — for which we have been calling for years.”

The full Barometer is available at antisemitism.org/barometer.

Italian police are investigating an online antisemitic attack that occurred during a Zoom presentation of a book written by leading Italian Jewish journalist Lia Tagliacozzo on 10th January.

The incident, carried out by ten people, aimed antisemitic slurs and slogans at the journalist and organisers of the virtual event, Turin’s Jewish Studies Centre. The threatening and discriminatory phrases included “Jews we’re going to burn you all in the ovens”,“the Nazis are back” and “You must die”. Laughter and fascist chants could also be heard. Several images of Hitler, swastikas and the Third Reich eagle emblem were displayed across viewers’ screens.

The attackers reportedly registered themselves onto the event using fabricated e-mail addresses and the names of individuals known in the wider Jewish community.

The perpetrators were removed swiftly from the Zoom meeting and the event was able to continue with more than one hundred participants present.

Ms Tagliacozzo, who is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, praised the organisers for their prompt response and ensuring that the cyber-attackers were unsuccessful in preventing the continuation of the presentation.

Following a post on her social media page, Turin prosecutors stated that the case would be taken seriously to ensure the group is identified and held responsible.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Eddie Elmer, a resident of Vancouver, Canada, has decided to speak out after falling victim to a hate-motivated physical assault for the second time in a year.

The incident occurred “in the heart of downtown” Vancouver early on 9th January. Mr Elmer reported that a male approached him while he was waiting to cross at a junction and began shouting antisemitic comments. The perpetrator reportedly yelled, “you Jewish people”, and proceeded to strike Mr Elmer in the head and leg.

In August of last year, Mr Elmer reported another hate-related incident in which an unknown male called him a homophobic slur, followed him and threatened to “put a bullet in [his] head”. He has subsequently issued a public statement on his personal social media page and expressed a deep concern for his safety and wellbeing in Vancouver.

A report to the Vancouver Police Board in October of 2020 discovered that hate crimes had increased by 116 percent since the previous year.

Mr Elmer called the emergency services directly after the recent incident, and the suspect was arrested on an unrelated warrant. The city’s hate crimes section is reviewing the file and the investigation is ongoing.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist in this project.

Research into the educational materials used by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has discovered that the content contains antisemitic prejudice and the glorification of terrorism. The recent study was conducted by the research body IMPACT-se, which monitors school curricula on a global scale.

The report claims that the materials violate the United Nations’ requirements, outlined by the cultural organisation UNESCO, to remain neutral, respect “the other” and pursue peace, in order to refute incitement and potential bias.

It stated further that UNRWA resources actively encourage martyrdom and terrorism, and fail to condemn the use of violence. The idea of a Jewish state is described as “the Enemy” and multiple conspiracy theories and false claims are mentioned to justify violence. The materials, also included in unrelated subjects such as mathematics, reportedly seek to demonise the Jewish community and undermine Jewish history and culture.

Some of the resources have allegedly been copied from Palestinian Authority textbooks that have received significant criticism for their overtly antisemitic views.

UNRWA educational materials are used to teach over 500,000 children.

IMPACT-se concluded that the content of UNRWA educational materials undermines “any facade of UN-mandated neutrality”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A Confederate flag, described as “a potent symbol of white supremacy” was placed at a New York City Holocaust museum on Friday.

The incident at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust came two days after the incident at the US Capitol which featured far-right activity.

Jack Kliger, the museum’s President and CEO, said that the police had been informed. In a statement, he described the flag as “a potent symbol of white supremacy, as evidenced by the events at the US Capitol this week”, adding that the incident showed that “hate has now arrived at our doorstep.”

The New York Police Department confirmed that the incident was being investigated, but did not confirm whether it was being treated as a “bias crime”. The spokesperson called it an “atrocious” act.

The museum played a central role in New York’s efforts to combat antisemitism in early 2020 after Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed that every pupil in a New York City public school should be required to visit a museum dedicated to the Holocaust.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A Jewish family was subjected to antisemitic abuse while walking on New York’s Upper West Side on 3rd January.

Dovid Efune, who runs the New York-based Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner, was walking with his wife and three young children when a man accosted them with hostile questions and antisemitic insults.

Mr Efune, who wears a kipper and tzitzit (ritual fringes) and describes himself as “conspicuously Jewish”, gave a first-person account to his newspaper saying that as he and his family were walking on Broadway and 82nd Street, a man began walking alongside and calling out questions about Jews. After being asked to go away, the man allegedly said: “Why aren’t you in Israel? Are you not Jewish?” After being asked more forcefully to go away, he allegedly shouted “Go to Israel” and then “Heil Hitler!”

Mr Efune said that the man “eventually took off” when he began calling the police, adding that the police “never arrived.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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