(JNS) Antisemitism in Germany is on the rise, with 60 percent more violent attacks and almost 10 percent more antisemitic incidents overall in 2018. Last year, 1,646 incidents involving attacks on Jews were officially reported to German police, including 62 violent offenses that left 43 people injured. Jewish leaders have suggested that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is largely responsible for the rise, with members having dubbed the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “monument of shame,” and the Holocaust a “speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”

At the same time, Jews have experienced increased attacks by Arabs who have migrated to Germany, including an incident last year in which a 19-year-old Syrian whipped an Israeli man with a belt, calling him yahudi, or “Jew” in Arabic. Days later, hundreds of people rallied in support of the German Jewish community wearing traditional Jewish head coverings in an event called “Berlin Wears a Kippah.”