New EU network to document anti-Semitism across Europe

A new EU initiative to record anti-Semitic incidents across Europe was launched in Berlin on Tuesday.

The European Network for Monitoring Anti-Semitism (ENMA) aims to provide a transnational overview of the extent of hostility towards Jews.

"Anti-Semitism must be made visible in order to be able to combat it," said European Commission Anti-Semitism Commissioner Katharina von Schnurbein.

Obtaining an adequate picture of anti-Semitism in society is a prerequisite for informing politicians and decision-makers appropriately,

she said. Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, Europe has seen what she described as a "tsunami of anti-Semitism."

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) says anti-Semitic incidents are under-reported, with as many as eight out of 10 people who experience anti-Semitism not reporting it. Von Schnurbein said that this was often because seen as too "cumbersome" to do so.

The ENMA network, which brings together Jewish and non-Jewish civil society organizations from various European countries, aims to lower the threshold for reporting such incidents to the police.

German Anti-Semitism Commissioner Felix Klein explained that all anti-Semitic incidents could be reported in the most direct, quickest and most uncomplicated way. This information would then be collected, verified, analysed and published. The data collected in this way paints a picture that more realistically reflects the reality of anti-Semitism in the countries.

The Managing Director of Berlin's RIAS Anti-Semitism Reporting Centre, Benjamin Steinitz, spoke of a milestone in anti-Semitism research and prevention. "Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, but too little is known about its transnational dimension," he said.