Italy’s Jewish community documented a record high of 963 antisemitic incidents in 2025—a 10% increase over 2024—which a communal leader on Thursday attributed to biased media coverage on Israel.
The Milan-based Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation), or CDEC, is due to publish the figures next week.
Whereas authorities in Italy are generally working to curb antisemitism, “The media are enhancing antisemitism,” Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, told JNS.
Some facts about the soon-to-be-released report were published last week by Moked, the news site of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI).
The number of incidents documented by CDEC has nearly quadrupled since 2022, when the tally was 241. It rose to 453 and 877 in the following two years, before reaching the 963-incident high mark last year, according to the report. Of the 2025 tally, 320 incidents were in real life, and the rest happened online, Moked noted.
The report did not offer a breakdown of incidents, which it said was part of the report scheduled to be presented in the Italian Senate on March 3.
One of the most robust measures undertaken by the government against antisemitism has been legislation, a draft text of which was approved by a Senate committee last month, that could help authorities ban gatherings that promote Jew-hatred as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition. Crucially, the definition includes examples of anti-Israel hatred.
“We have a better situation in Italy than many other communities because there is a real determination by the authorities to protect the Jewish community,” Fadlun said of Italian Jewry broadly.
Documented antisemitic incidents have risen sharply across Western Europe and beyond since Hamas triggered a regional war with its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.
In several European countries, governments, especially left-wing and centrist ones, have used harsh rhetoric against Israel and promoted sanctions against it. French President Emmanuel Macron accused Israel of “barbarity” and imposed an arms embargo, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called Israel a “genocidal state” and has banned products from Judea and Samaria.
Italy’s right-wing government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has employed a more nuanced approach, refraining from inflammatory rhetoric and efforts to isolate the Jewish state.
Asked by JNS why antisemitism figures continue to climb despite this and the determination he identified in the attitude of authorities, Fadlun said media and cultural institutions employ emotional tactics to incite against Israel.
Fadlun cited a recent example: A performance on Wednesday at the annual Sanremo Music Festival, one of the country’s main cultural events, in which singer Ermal Meta performed a ballad for a dead child in Gaza. The lyrics included what some interpreted as a call to violence, in the words: “My child, the night is dark, anger and prayer will no longer be enough.”
Yesterday “it was watched by millions of people, and this creates anger and hatred,” Fadlun said.
