Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in 2012 highest ever on record

1941 Nazi propaganda poster in the Lithuanian language, equating Stalinism with the Jews. The text reads "The Jew is our enemy forever". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not only europe faces a growing negative attitude towards Jews. Last year Australia recorded the highest ever anti-Semitic incidents.

657 reports of violence directed at Australian Jews were made. This is a 21-percent increase over the previous year and only accounts the registered incidents. According The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s annual “Report on Anti-Semitism in Australia” the number of serious physical attacks was the lowest since 2005.

The authors of the report, Julie Nathan, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s research officer, and Jeremy Jones, director of international and community affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council wrote:

“In general, it can be said that Australians neither particularly like nor dislike Jews,”

The 202-page report does not include the recent brutal assault of five religious Jews walking home from Shabbat dinner in Bondi last month, described as the worst anti-Semitic incident of its kind since records began in 1989. This will be featured in next year’s report. 

The report does, however, include the fallout sparked by explosive revelations that Israel’s “Prisoner X” was Melbourne native Ben Zygier, an alleged Mossad agent who committed suicide in his maximum-security prison cell in 2010.

“A tragedy involving a single individual was used in some media to impugn the loyalty to Australia of Australian Jews as a group,” the authors wrote. “[It] … was used as a pretext by anti-Semites to accuse Jews in Australia of disloyalty.”

In europe we have seen a negative spiral against people who are not like the mainstream, homo's, transgenders, specific Muslims not belonging to the two big denominations, but also the different Jewish people.

In Europe there are people who want to let others know that the Muslims are trying to conquer the world and that Jews are undermining the economic evolution and are hindering the lower classes to become more wealthier. Like in the 1930s many Jews are considered to be the cause of the present economic crisis.

“Although stereotypes of Jews remain part of the culture in Australia, these are not as deeply ingrained or hateful as in European and Middle Eastern cultures,” according to the authors. “Anti-Semitism remains at the fringes of Australian politics and society, and though there are exceptions, anti-Semitism is not generally part of the mainstream discourse.”

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