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Antisemitic incidents are on the rise in France, Germany, and the UK. In Lyon, France, this weekend, a Jewish woman was stabbed in her home. The authorities said they found a swastika painted on her door. In Berlin last month, assailants threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue and Jewish community center.
In the United Kingdom, these reports of antisemitic incidents more than quadrupled in the days immediately following the initial attacks, according to the Community Security Trust , an organization dedicated to protecting the British Jewish population. In Germany, an organization that tracks antisemitism reported 70 incidents in the 11 days following the Hamas attacks, triple the number in the same period the year before.
Stars of David have been spray painted on Jewish homes in Paris and Berlin β an ominous echo of the violence, forced displacement, and genocide European Jews experienced in these same places less than years ago. Those fears are acutely felt by Jewish leaders across the continent.
An organization dedicated to tracking Islamophobia found that reports of Islamophobic acts in the UK increased five-fold in the days after the Hamas attacks, according to the Financial Times. European Muslims are worried for their safety. In the United States, too, both Muslim and Jewish communities are being singled out by acts of hatred. As in the US , the current onslaught is not happening in a vacuum, but amid a climate of rising antisemitism. For the Jews of Europe, though, the context is unique.
