The year 2012 showed a 30% rise of violent anti-Semitic acts throughout the world, as revealed by the Annual Anti-Semitism Report of the Cantor Center of the Tel Aviv University, administered by Professor Dinah Porat, as released this past Sunday morning.
This report, released every year at this time when the State of Israel commemorates its Holocaust Memorial Day, shows that the country experiencing the most virulent anti-Semitism this past year was France, with a 60% rise of such incidents since the previous year. In second place was the U.S. The figures are not adjusted for the size of the respective communities.
Altogether, there were 686 violent acts throughout the world, compared to 526 in 2011. These acts include physical attacks on people or property as well as direct threats against Jewish lives.
Broken down, the statistics show 273 attacks on Jews, including students and youth; documentation of vandalism perpetrated on about one hundred synagogues, 60 buildings serving the Jewish community including schools, and 90 cemeteries, memorial monuments and sites, especially in Poland but also in Hungary and Italy. In 163 incidents, private Jewish property was damaged, and among the 373 acts of anti-Semitic vandalism, 50 were carried out with arms and ammunition.
Most of the incidents appearing in the report took place in countries with high Jewish concentrations such as France - where 373 acts were documented. 315 Jews were attacked physically or verbally as compared to 177 two years prior. The authors of this report noted that the Moslem murderer of four lives in the Jewish school in Toulouse "was hailed as a model for emulation resulting in a succeeding wave of violent acts." This past year was, in fact, the most violent one since 2004, and its impact was felt in other countries, primarily England, as well.
The U.S. is probably considered the most Jewish-friendly country in the world, and yet, it appears second on the list, right after France, with 99 acts of violence against Jews. However the Jewish community of the U.S. is approximately ten times the size of the Jewish community of France. Britain was third with 86 acts, Canada had 74 and Australia had 53 violent attacks on Jews. While the last figure may seem negligible, it is a sharp rise of 40% in destruction of property and personal harassment.
