European nations must increase their efforts to ensure security for the continent’s Jews in the face of widespread anti-Semitism, the Council of the European Union said in a declaration that one Jewish group called “unprecedented.”
French Jews said anti-Semitism in their country had become a “daily occurrence” after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe revealed a 69 percent increase in documented hate crimes targeting that minority.
Just moments before the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 people dead, the suspect is believed to have posted a final social media rant against a Jewish refugee settlement agency most people had never heard of, but which has increasingly become the target of right-wing rage and conspiracy theories.
The European Parliament expressed its concern on Thursday about the rise of neo-fascism and neo-Nazism in the EU, encouraging Member States to ban far right groups in order to prevent the normalisation of racism, fascism and xenophobia.
Criminal homicide charges have been filed against a man accused of killing 11 people and injuring several others inside a Squirrel Hill synagogue on Saturday.
“Jobbik have not changed, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing and represent a serious threat to Hungary’s Jewish community,” said Rabbi Shlomo Koves, Executive Rabbi of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, an affiliate of Chabad Lubavitch in Hungary.
An annual report on anti-Semitism compiled by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) shows an increase of almost 10 percent in racially motivated incidents against Jews in the past year, and almost 20 percent over the past two years.