"Anti-Semitism, racism, and slander are not opinions, they herald crime," conference president Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt said.

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"We must force the operators of social media networks to take responsibility. It's painful to see how little Facebook is trying to do," Goldschmidt said.

A number of corporations and large companies around the world have announced they would be pulling paid ads from Facebook, claiming that the network's algorithm encouraged rifts and divisiveness.

The Conference of European Rabbis is an umbrella group that represents over 700 chief rabbis and leaders of Jewish communities in Europe. Since its founding, one of the conference's aims has been to fight anti-Semitism. In recent years, it has expanded that battle to include social media.

The CER is calling for "a coordinated international approach" to fighting hate content on social media platforms.

Goldschmidt published an article in which he said that the operators of "Facebook, Twitter, Google – they all have an obligation. If you have money, you can stop hatred and incitement. Anti-Semitism, racism, and slander are not opinions, they herald crime."

The rabbi went on to say that the platforms must "erase anti-Semitic messages of hate, and not after days or weeks of investigations, but immediately. Especially during the corona crisis, in which populist moods spread quickly – not to ban people or to censor, but to stop crimes from taking place in the real world." 

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The warning by Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt was sounded as the Conference of European Rabbis awarded the Moshe Rosen Award on Thursday in Rome to the founder of the Catholic charity Sant'Egidio, Andrea Riccardi.

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Goldschmidt said the award recognizes non-Jews who promote dialogue, understanding and tolerance to ensure a Jewish future in Europe, which he said: "I believe is at risk."

Goldschmidt told The Associated Press that the receding memory of the Holocaust, rising far-right sentiment and radical Islam are the key factors fueling the anti-Semitic climate.

An attack two weeks ago on a German synagogue was the latest violent manifestation of the trend, but also includes more subtly negative stereotypes and verbal expressions of cultural contempt.

"The last survivors and the last perpetrators are about to leave our world and the Holocaust is changing from being something that is living memory to being part of history," Goldschmidt said. "Certainly, it is also the political turmoil in Europe today, which is unsettling all the agreements and values which were agreed in 1945, after World War II."

Goldschmidt said a myriad of factors – ranging from attacks on Jews and encroachments on Jewish life like a Belgian law outlawing the Kosher slaughter of animals – have made Europe less safe for Jews than 20 years ago.

During that period, the number of Jews in Europe has diminished, he said, from 2 million to 1.5 million today, largely through emigration.

Riccardi is being recognized for work by the 51-year Sant'Egidio community to construct a dialogue between lay Catholics and Jews, reaching beyond Vatican efforts to mend relations with Jews dating from the 1962 Second Vatican Council.

The Sant'Egidio community believes that preserving the memory of the Holocaust is critical to constructing a united Europe, and for the last 25 years has marched with the Jewish community on the anniversary of the Oct. 16, 1943 deportation of Roman Jews to Nazi German death camps.

Sant'Egidio has also helped create a memorial to deported Jews at the Milan Central train station, and has participated in memorial walks in Antwerp, Belgium and Pécs, Hungary.

"I think that it needs to be recognized that this is a difficult moment, because nationalism is giving rise again to a politics of hatred," Riccardi told AP. "And the first chapter, not the only one, but the first chapter of political hatred is anti-Semitism."

"This must make us worry, and it should wake us up."

Riccardi said the trend can be countered by keeping alive the memory of the Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million European Jews, creating solidarity between the Jewish and Christian communities in daily life, and investing in a common culture.

"Anti-Semitism is like a storm, at a certain point it explodes. We need to act at the first signs," he said.

The Moshe Rosen Award was named for the late chief rabbi of Romania who safeguarded his community during communism.

The first recipient two years ago was former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and last year the award went to Lithuanian novelist, Ruta Vanagaite, for her work challenging conventional thinking in a book about her country's involvement in the Nazi killing machine that exterminated 95% of the Jewish population.

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