Violent anti-Semitic crimes worldwide reached 5-year record in 2019

The number of anti-Semitic violent crimes documented worldwide last year rose to 456 cases, an 18% increase over 2018 and the highest tally since 2014, the European Jewish Congress says in the Annual Report on Antisemitism Worldwide 2019.

More than a quarter of the cases that are classified in the report as violent were threats. The rest involved actual physical violence, including 242 cases of vandalism, 21 cases of arson and 62 assaults on people, with about a quarter of them involving a weapon.

The data were not aggregated according to country, though the report does include many Western countries and countries with large Jewish populations.

“Not only have the numbers increased substantially but the worst types of attacks grew, which should be extremely disturbing for leaders and authorities around the world,” EJC President Moshe Kantor says in a statement.

He adds that the coronavirus pandemic is changing the way in which anti-Semitism is being expressed.

“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it,” Kantor said. “The language and imagery used clearly identifies a revival of the medieval ‘blood libels’ when Jews were accused of spreading disease, poisoning wells or controlling economies.”

— JTA