Protesters against coronavirus measures who liken themselves to Jews under Nazi persecution are stoking global antisemitism, the Israeli government said in a report marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, Jan. 27.
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Such Holocaust tropes have become "widespread" and along with violent demonstrations linked to last year's 12-day conflict in Gaza were the main factors behind physical or online attacks on Jews in Europe and North America last year, said the 152-page report by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.
In recent months, several US and British politicians have apologized after suggesting vaccine or lockdown policies were reminiscent of Hitler's regime.
Some demonstrators against pandemic curbs have worn yellow stars like those the Nazis forced on European Jews.
Such displays showed factual knowledge of the genocide was eroding, the report said, adding that some coronavirus agitators have been "consuming and disseminating antisemitic conspiracy theories that Jews are responsible for the crisis and are using it for oppression, global domination, and economic gain."
Expanding on the findings, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai said Holocaust distortion or trivialization is itself antisemitic and can sometimes lead to the actual endangerment of Jews.
"There are people so fraught with hate who can, when faced with such imagery, be tipped over into action," he told Reuters.
The US-based Combat Antisemitism Movement said that in 2020 and 2021 it had found 63.7 million engagements – participation, sharing, or "liking" – during online discussions linking the pandemic to the Holocaust.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center has urged world leaders to come out against such discourse – a call apparently heeded by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who on Monday said the yellow star protests were "reprehensible."
"COVID brought Holocaust trivialization to a summit," Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan said. "Things like that, sometimes done by politicians, by public figures, are despicable and Yad Vashem is very clear in demanding those persons retract."
Israel's Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, whose parents and brother were among the six million Jews killed by the Nazis and who himself survived a concentration camp as a child, had a more personal appeal during a Reuters interview.
"Please leave the word 'Holocaust' for the Holocaust – and nothing but it," he said.
In related news, the government's cancellation of quarantine for school children went into effect on Thursday morning.
Children studying at special-need schools will no longer be required to take a rapid antigen test twice a week. In case of exposure to a coronavirus carrier, unvaccinated students will be required to self-isolate for 5 days (from the moment of exposure) and will be able to exit quarantine with a negative antigen test taken at a government-approved facility. School children studying at institutions that participate in the testing program will no longer be required to take two at-home antigen tests a week either.
However, unvaccinated teachers continue to be required to take two antigen tests a week at a government-approved facility. In case of exposure to a coronavirus carrier, they will be required to self-isolate for 5 days and will be able to exit it with a negative antigen test from a government-approved facility.
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