Chief Prosecutor’s report shows “omnipresent” antisemitism in Berlin
The publication of the 2021 Antisemitism Report by the Berlin Attorney General’s Office has reportedly sparked concerns among authorities in the German capital.
The annual report, which has recorded rising antisemitism in recent years, states that there have been two main trends in antisemitic discourse over the last twelve months: coronavirus conspiracy theories and incidents apparently inspired by developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Much of the rhetoric that has emerged from anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists has compared lockdowns to the Holocaust. These crude and inflammatory comparisons have included Berliners donning yellow stars bearing the word “Unvaccinated”, a comparison that has been made across the world, including in the United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere.
Such symbolism is reminiscent of the kind of insignia Jews in Germany and occupied Europe were forced to wear by the Nazis. Those wearing such items in 2021 do so in order to compare the persecution of the Jewish people with protective measures sanctioned by the German federal government in order to deal with the pandemic. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.
The report also contains a section on antisemitic incidents relating to Israel. It states that these kinds of incidents are inspired by the intensification of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group. Protests and demonstrations against Israel resulted, it says, in “many anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents.” In response to the spike in antisemitic incidents, Germany banned the Hamas flag in June.
The report clearly shows a growing antisemitism problem in the German capital. In 2021, Berlin authorities dealt with up to 661 cases motivated by antisemitism, including “antisemitic animosities, insults, threats and physical attacks.” This marks an increase from 417 such incidents in 2020 and 386 in 2019. This follows a similar report put out by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS), a Berlin-based agency that reports and documents antisemitic incidents throughout Germany. The RIAS study revealed that there had been 522 antisemitic incidents registered in Berlin between January and June 2021 – a period that includes the elevated tensions between Israel and Hamas – marking a seventeen percent year-on-year increase, and the highest number of such incidents since 2018.
Chief Prosecutor Claudia Vanoni said of the most recent report that “In 2021, the year of the 1700th anniversary of Jewish life in Germany, antisemitism was omnipresent as well.”
We reported last year that the German Government will pay €35 million to combat antisemitism. German Education and Research Minister Anja Karliczek said: “This is the highest number [of antisemitic incidents] in the last couple of years. There’s reason for worry that this is only the tip of the iceberg and that the unreported number of daily attacks on Jews is substantially higher.”
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