The latest series of anti-Semitic events that have cropped up across Europe in recent days has triggered a call for governments and Jewish communities to not remain complacent.
World Zionist Organization Vice Chairman Yaakov Hagoel said on Monday: "Anti-Semitic events have become commonplace for the Jews around the world. Unfortunately, for worldwide governments, the window of time to build a plan to eradicate anti-Semitism is running out."
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
The incidents include inscriptions such as "Juden Raus" (Jews outside) that appeared on the walls of the cemetery in Soveria Mannelli, Italy. Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans appeared in the stairwell, sidewalk, and in front of the house of Sherlock Baines (65), a Jew living in Dusseldorf whose parents were concentration camp inmates.
In Berlin, anti-Semitic abuse was hurled at a woman who spoke Hebrew with her children while shopping in Berlin when a foreign man turned to them and said, "these Jews are everywhere, get away from here, Zidovsky scum" (in Polish "Zidovsky" can be translated to "Jew", in Russian, it is an anti-Semitic word). "Bystanders noticed the anti-Semitic insult without responding to it," WZO said in a statement.
In Weimar, Germany, portraits of survivors from the Buchenwald concentration camp were vandalized in an open-air exhibition.
"The coronavirus-related anti-Semitic events will escalate and become even more violent and physical," Hagoel warned.
