There has been a 69% rise in anti-Semitic occurrences in France in the nine months since the beginning of the year. This was revealed by the French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe this past Friday in a memorial ceremony commemorating 80 years since Kristallnacht against German Jewry.
"Every attack against any of our citizens because of his Jewish religion reverberates like the breaking of a new crystal vessel," he said, referring to the beginning of the Nazi process of exterminating the Jewish people from the 15th of Marcheshvan, 5699, which was dubbed Kristallnacht. "Why should this painful event be remembered in 2018? Because we are still very far from eradicating or controlling anti-Semitism today," he noted, admitting that such acts are a constant fact.
After a peak of anti-Semitic attacks in 2015, there was a 58% fall in the following year, 2016 and an additional drop of 7% in 2017, but alternately, there was a rise of vicious attacks against Jews.
In an article he wrote, Philippe quoted Holocaust survivor and author, Elie Wiesel, that "the true danger, my son, is indifference." The Prime Minister promised that the French government "will not be indifferent" to the rise of anti-Semitism. The government intends to harden its rules in the fight of hatred in its authorities in the coming year and put pressure upon companies in the social structure to work harder in removing racial and anti-Semitic discrimination.
Philippe said that this will also be "an experiment with a network of seasoned investigators and judges in the battle against acts of hatred, which will reverberate throughout the country. He added that beginning from the middle of November, a national team will be mobilized to deflect discrimination and violence and enable teachers to deal with anti-Semitism.
In the US, the FBI said that hate crimes against Jews in the US rose by 37% in 2017. Anti-semitic attacks against Jews were 58% of all hate crimes that were related to religion.
