Report: Sharp Rise in Anti-Semitic Incidents in 2012

A Tel Aviv University annual report has logged a 30 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide.

The rise comes at a time of a rise in European economic distress, but also reflects the murderous attack on Jewish schoolchildren in France last year.

The report, issued on Sunday, states that 686 anti-Semitic attacks were recorded in 34 countries, ranging from physical violence to vandalism against synagogues and cemeteries, compared with 526 in 2011. This sharp increase followed a two-year decline.

The report links the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, where an extremist Muslim gunman killed four, to a series of copycat attacks, particularly in France, where physical assaults on Jews almost doubled.

In Greece, Hungary and the Ukraine, economic hardships ushered in the rise of extreme right-wing parties with anti-Semitic rhetoric as part of their agendas. This political change has also encouraged anti-Semitic attacks, the report says.