New Report: Sharp Rise in Anti-Semitism in 2013; No. of Attacks Against Jews Is Steadily Increasing

An annual report on anti-Semitism worldwide during 2013 was released today (April 27, 2014), a day before Israel marks Yom HaShoah -- Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day -- the Jewish Press website reports.

The report -- compiled by Prof. Dina Porat of the Moshe Kantor database for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress -- describes a severe escalation in the worldwide anti-Jewish atmosphere in 2013, as anti-Semitism continues to infiltrate the mainstream from the extreme left and right fringes, and its manifestations have become an almost daily phenomenon.

The major conclusion of the research conducted by the Kantor Center team and supported by both community reports and independent surveys by non-Jewish sources, is that the anxiety felt by Jews around the world -- both as individuals and as communities -- originates in the growing intensity and the increase in insults, abusive language and behavior, threats and harassment, but not necessarily in an increase in the number of physical violent incidents.

During 2013, the Kantor Center team registered and analyzed 554 violent anti-Semitic acts perpetrated with weapons or without, by arson, vandalism or direct threats against Jewish persons or institutions such as synagogues, community centers, schools, cemeteries and monuments, as well as private property. Physically violent incidents decreased in 2013 by 19 percent to 554 attacks, yet the number of direct attacks against Jewish persons is steadily increasing.