Fear of anti-Semitic attacks or insults is at a higher level in France than other European countries, including Hungary, a poll of European Jews has found
The survey of 5,847 Jewish people from the eight European countries where 90 per cent of Europe’s Jews live found that more than three-quarters believe anti-Semitism is on the rise.
The European Jewish Congress has condemned the findings, timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms in Nazi Germany, as “a watershed moment for the continent of Europe”.
“The Jewish reality in Europe is of great concern and the authorities need to deal with incidents of hate and intolerance in a holistic manner to really combat these manifestations before it is too late,” said Dr Moshe Kantor, the congress’s president.
According to the survey, conducted by the European Union's Agency for Fundamental Rights, almost one-third of Jewish people have considered emigrating because they do not feel safe. In Hungary, France and Belgium between 40 to and 48 per cent said they had thought about fleeing.
Thirty eight per cent of the Jewish polled people in Sweden, France, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Latvia said they always or frequently avoided wearing a skullcap, Star of David or anything else that could signal their religion.
“As long as you keep kippa, festivities etc. private, there seems to be no problem. However, as soon as we, like Christians or Muslims, also want to attach importance to our religion and to openly live our religion, the situation changes dramatically,” one German man told the pollsters.
Over a fifth of those surveyed said they faced harassment over the last year with most of it, up 75 per cent, taking place on the internet.
The study found that 60 per cent of French Jews fear insult or harassment in a country where the far-right Front National has topped recent opinion polls, 60 per cent are fearful of physical attack.
There have also been French arrests of extremist Muslims for planning attacks on Jewish targets following last year’s Toulouse murder of a rabbi and three children by an Islamist terrorist.
“Our religious places are under systematic police surveillance. This is a sign that the threats are real and that the government takes them seriously,” said a French Jew surveyed for the study.
In Hungary, where another far-right party Jobbik is the country’s third largest, 57 per cent of Jews fear insult and 33 per cent live in fear of physical attack.
Hungarian Jews also reported the highest levels of harassment, with 43 per cent saying they had been verbally abused over the last five years.
In Britain nine per cent of respondents said they had often heard the statement “Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis,” a figure rose to 59 per cent for Hungary.
An anti-Semitic statement reported as “seen or heard” by 24 per cent of German Jews was: “The Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated”.
“Israelis behave like Nazis towards the Palestinians,” was reported as the most common anti-Semitic statement by 48 per cent of people polled.
“Anti-Semitism is a disturbing example of how prejudice can persist through the centuries, and it has no place in our society today,” said Morten Kjaerum, the director of the EU agency that carried out the study.
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