Antisemitism
Raheli Baratz, Head of the WZO Department for Combatting Antisemitism, explains that most antisemitic incidents go unreported.
In an interview with Israel National News Raheli Baratz, Head of the WZO Department for Combatting Antisemitism and Enhancing Resilience, explains that 10 antisemitic incidents per day are reported to her department from around the world.
“We know about only 10 to 20 percent of what has really happened,” Baratz says. “We don’t know of most of these things and this is more important. I want people all over the world to report what is happening, small events or big events, even if it’s someone shouting at you in the street or if a swastika was drawn on your walls. I want every Jew to feel safe and to report everything that happens.”
Are countries more aware of antisemitism in the year 2022 than they were in the past?
“Unfortunately, there is no awareness, not even here in Israel. I think the students here in Israel don’t know anything about antisemitism. They think that antisemitism finished in 1945 when the Holocaust ended. But unfortunately, it’s not like this,” she explains. “We must get more awareness of what’s happening all over the world.”
The war in Ukraine has created antisemitism from both sides.
“Unfortunately, the Jews are always the ones who get blamed for everything. Right now, we can see pictures and caricatures of Israel, they want to blame the Jews, they want to blame the Jews from America for the war. Israel supports the Jews in Ukraine; Israel supports the Jews in Russia. In both cases we can see antisemitism.”
There is also currently a very troubling story coming from Sweden.
“We can say this is the new Dreyfus Trial because a Jewish doctor is fighting for his good name. They want to fire him because he is a Jew. We had three doctors in his department in the Swedish hospital and they all got fired or had trouble with the department they worked for, all of them because they were Jews.”
