Hatred against Jews has spiked in Germany with the spread of the new coronavirus, the government’s anti-Semitism commissioner warns.
“There are direct links between the current spread of the coronavirus and that of anti-Semitism,” Felix Klein says in Berlin at the launch of a new government research project into the issue.
“There is a boom in conspiracy theories in times of crisis,” he says, describing anti-Semitism as a virus of its own that is “contagious on a social level.”
Germany’s special envoy on anti-Semitism Felix Klein. (Courtesy German Interior Ministry)
For example, he cites claims circulating online that the pandemic is the result of a failed bioweapon test by the Israeli secret service.
“In recent weeks, right-wing radicals have increasingly tried to leverage the coronavirus crisis for their own ends,” Klein says.
— AFP
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