Online anti-semitism on the rise in Czechia
Antisemitic incidents in the Czech Republic nearly doubled last year, with more than 4,000 cases reported, primarily online.What is fueling this trend and how bad is the situation?
The Annual Report on Antisemitism in Czechia recorded 4,328 antisemitic incidents in 2023, a 90 percent increase compared to 2022. Michael Pelíšek is the executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities:
“After the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, we saw a dramatic rise in our recordings. In the first three quarters of the year, there was a rise of just 50%, but in the last quarter, we saw a rise of 250%.”
Traditionally, most antisemitism springs from the far right. Now, there is a new trend triggered by the actions of the Israel Defense Force in Gaza:
“This activated antisemitism coming from the far left, and not only the far left but also from the moderate left. We see antisemitic content coming from various artists or performers and academia, from people who otherwise didn't show any sympathy for political or ideological extremism.”
This ugly trend seems to be a continuation of a historic tendency to look for scapegoats whenever anything tragic or bad happens:
“If there were an eruption of a volcano in the middle of Europe, very soon we would see antisemitic incidents connected to this eruption, with claims of how Jews made it happen and how they profit from the chaos it caused.”
To put Czech antisemitism into context, it is important to remember that Czechia and previously Czechoslovakia have always been places where Jewish people felt free and safe. Irena Kalhousová, the director of the Herzl Center of Israeli Studies at Charles University, explains:
“The Jewish community here felt welcome. Antisemitism was never a part of the mainstream, thanks also to Tomáš Masaryk.”
Kalhousová refers to the first president of Czechoslovakia, who famously defended Leopold Hilsner, a Jewish man accused of a ritual murder in a prominent antisemitic trial at the of the 19th and 20th century.
“I can tell you that the Czech Republic is one of the safest places for the Jewish community or Jewish people in the world. Jews feel much safer in the Czech Republic than anywhere else in Europe. There are many reasons for this. Some of them are rational, and some of them are not so easy to understand. But this is the way Jewish people feel in Czechia,” adds Michael Pelíšek, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities.
