Germany saw 2,480 antisemitic incidents in 2022, monitoring group says

A group tracking antisemitism in Germany says that it documented 2,480 incidents in the country last year — just under seven incidents per day on average.

In its annual report, the Department for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, or RIAS, says that while it registered a slight decrease in antisemitic incidents in 2022, compared to the year before, there were nine incidents of extreme violence — the highest number of such cases since nationwide record keeping began in 2017.

Those extremely violent crimes include a shooting at a former rabbi’s house next to an old synagogue in the western city of Essen last November. Germany’s federal prosecutor is now investigating the case along with two other violent antisemitic crimes on suspicion that they may have been carried out in cooperation with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

More often, however, “it is everyday situations in which Jews are confronted with antisemitism,” Benjamin Steinitz, the head of RIAS, tells reporters in Berlin.