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Crimes Against Jews on Rise in Germany

Anti-Semitic offenses climbed over 25% last year

by
Gabriela Geselowitz
May 06, 2015
 German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau on May 3, 2015. (Alexandra Beier/Getty Images)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau on May 3, 2015. (Alexandra Beier/Getty Images)

The number of anti-Semitic offenses in Germany is once again on the rise, as well as crimes against foreigners, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said today. De Maiziere based his statement in part on evidence that used “new reporting methods that more closely track the motivation of perpetrators,” reported the AP.

In 2014, crimes against Jews were up 25.2% from the year prior, while crimes against foreigners were up 21.5%. In Germany, the number of reported crimes increased overall.

This spike is part of a larger uptick in anti-Semitism across Europe, where anti-Semitic incidents reached a seven-year high in 34 out of Europe’s 45 countries, according to a Pew study that covered 2011-2013. (This figure surpassed even the number of countries with notable levels of Islamophobia, also on the rise.)

De Maiziere’s statement comes just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at Dachau, where she marked the concentration camp’s 70th anniversary of liberation.

“Jewish life is part of our identity,” she said. “We are all forever called upon, to never close our eyes and ears to those who today accost, threaten, and attack people when they identify themselves somehow as Jews or also when they side with the state of Israel,” she said.

Gabriela Geselowitz is a writer and the former editor of Jewcy.com.