VIENNA – Anti-Semitism has grown during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly online, a new European Union report said today, but gaps in data make it difficult to measure how bad the problem really is.
As well as old lies being revived, “new anti-Semitic myths and conspiracy theories that blame Jews for the pandemic have come to the fore”, said the report.
“Anti-Semitism, especially online, grew during the pandemic,” said the report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
At the same time, the agency’s own research showed that anti-Semitic acts are consistently under-reported.
The lack of data on the issue made it harder to tackle the problem, said the report.
The report based its findings on a review of official data compiled by EU member states, and what it called unofficial data collected by civil society organisations.
There was no official data available from two member states, Hungary and Portugal.
Rights groups in Germany noted the link between the surge in anti-Semitism and the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the first months of the pandemic, the Department for Research and Information on Antisemitism Berlin said 44% of the incidents it had recorded were linked to the coronavirus.
A federation of Jewish communities in the Czech Republic recorded 874 incidents last year, up from 694 the previous year.
Almost all of them were published in the media or online, and many concerned anti-Semitic conspiracy theories specifically related to the pandemic, said the report.
“Anti-Semitism is a serious problem,” FRA director Michael O’Flaherty said in a statement introducing the report.
“But without the data, we do not know how serious it is.”
EU countries need to encourage the reporting of such incidents, and improve the recording of data collection, he added.
“With that, we will be better able to tackle hatred and prejudice against Jews.” – AFP, November 9, 2021
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