Anti-Semitic acts in Germany increased by 10 percent overall, though violent acts increased by a staggering 60 percent in 2018, reported the BBC.
There were 1,640 anti-Semitic incidents in Germany last year, according to data that was released to the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
The 62 acts of anti-Semitic violence marked a 60 percent increase over the 37 incidents in 2017.
Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the BBC that the increase showed that government intervention was “urgently needed.”
Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, stressed that “there is no place for antisemitism in Germany.” Jewish life in Germany must be allowed to “develop freely and safely,” stated Demmer.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, authorities have suggested that most of the incident are carried out by right-wing extremists.
Despite last year’s rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, three events supporting the anti-Israel BDS campaign in Germany have been canceled in recent weeks, Benjamin Weinthal reported last week for The Jerusalem Post.
Weinthal described the cancellations as “German efforts to stomp out what many view to be a cover for classic anti-Semitism.”
One of the canceled events was to feature pro-BDS activist Abraham Melzer as a speaker.
A court last year found that Melzer’s “behavior can and may, without question, be judged as anti-Semitic.”
The news of the increase in anti-Semitic acts in Germany comes just days after France reported a huge 74 percent increase in anti-Semitism last year.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner decried the “poison” of hate that is seeping into French society as he revealed that the total number of recorded anti-Semitic acts, which rose from 311 in 2017 to 541 in 2018.
Last week, Community Security Trust released a survey showing that anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom reached a record-high in 2018.
