Germany Logs an Antisemitic Incident Every 50 Minutes
In the month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, a German monitoring network recorded 994 antisemitic incidents — an average of 29 a day, or roughly one every 50 minutes. Investigators said much of the surge unfolded online before spilling into arson attempts and intimidation on the street.
In the 34 days between Oct. 7 and Nov. 9, 2023, reporting offices of Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism, known by the German acronym RIAS, became aware of 994 verified antisemitic incidents connected to the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war, according to the association’s monitoring report. That was an average of 29 incidents a day.
The daily rate marked a sharp rise from a year earlier. In 2022, RIAS documented just under seven antisemitic incidents a day, according to the same report — a comparison news outlets described as an increase of more than 300%. The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post both reported the figure as a surge of about 320%.
What the count contained
The 994 incidents included three cases of what RIAS classifies as extreme violence, 29 assaults, 72 cases of targeted damage to property, 32 threats, four mass mailings and 854 cases of abusive behavior, the report said. RIAS defines extreme violence to include attacks that can result in loss of life or serious injury, as well as attempts at such acts.
One of those cases occurred in Berlin on Oct. 18, when two incendiary devices were thrown at a Jewish community center that houses a synagogue, a school and a daycare center, according to the report. The Jerusalem Post described the same attack as two Molotov cocktails thrown at the center. RIAS said such incidents unsettle not only local Jews but the wider Jewish community in Germany.
A surge that began online
“One in five incidents occurred online,” the RIAS report stated, adding that it counts internet antisemitism as an incident only when it is directed at specific people or institutions. The association said the internet was “playing a special role,” as images of the Hamas attack were disseminated worldwide in the digital space and, in some cases, sent directly to relatives of those killed or abducted.
RIAS said the online material fed hostility that reached the street. Disinformation in the media, it noted, affected the mobilization of antisemitic gatherings and “thus has a direct negative effect on the safety of Jews in public spaces,” according to the report. Of the 11 online threats it documented in the period, it said, 10 were accompanied by “fantasies of violence and extermination, including death threats.”
Everyday life narrowed
RIAS said the incidents were reshaping daily life for Jews in Germany, many of whom, it reported, responded “by refraining from wearing symbols recognizable as Jewish and no longer speaking Hebrew on the street.” The Jerusalem Post reported the same finding, noting that Jewish life was becoming less visible as Jews refrained from wearing identifiable symbols and speaking Hebrew in public.
The month-long tally was an early snapshot. In its full 2023 count, RIAS documented 4,782 antisemitic incidents across Germany, an increase of more than 80% over the previous year, with 2,787 of them — more than half — recorded in the roughly three months after Oct. 7, according to the association’s 2023 annual report. The European Jewish Congress reported the same total and 80% rise.