A new report has revealed incidents of anti-Semitism have increased sharply around the world in the past year.
The Antisemitism Worldwide Report 2021 released by Tel Aviv University on Wednesday attributed the growing trend to radical movements that fuel prejudice and hate, largely through social media.
Several countries marked a significant increase in anti-Semitism, including in Australia.
In Australia, 447 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Australia in 2021, a 35 per cent increase from the previous year.
The incidents in the report were compiled from the data held by a range of domestic Jewish organisations that submitted their findings to the University's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry.
The findings were released on the eve of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel.
On Wednesday, the nation stopped to remember the six million victims of the Holocaust who were killed in Nazi Germany during World War Two.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visit the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Museum in Jerusalem. Source: Getty / Ronen Zvunun / AFP
"The Holocaust is an unprecedented event in human history," Mr Naftali said.
"I take the trouble to say this because as the years go by, there is more and more discourse in the world that compares other difficult events to the Holocaust.
"But no. Even the most difficult wars today are not the Holocaust and are not comparable to the Holocaust."
Dvir Abramovich, chairman of civil rights organisation the Anti-Defamation Commission, said the rise in anti-Semitism has been a noticeable trend in Australia.
"I think there's been a surge in Holocaust trivialisation, exploitation and abuse. It's become another weapon in diminishing the experience of the Jewish people," Dr Abramovich said.
Dr Abramovich said the rising trend of anti-Semitism is not surprising, with the past six years placing Australia "at the centre of the storm".
"There's been an explosion of anti-Semitism. And even as someone who fights anti-Semitism 24/7, the last few years have shocked me to the core," he said.
Matteo Vergani, a sociologist at Deakin University who researches anti-Semitism in Australia, warned that, while not many Australians hold strong anti-Semitic views, there is a large group who may harbour dangerous generalisations of Jews.
"There are only a few people in Australia who have strong anti-Semitic views. But at the same time, there is a larger proportion of people who neither agree nor disagree with some views, suggesting some latent anti-Semitism associated with negative stereotypes of Jews, like the idea that Jews have too much power.," Dr Vergani said.
Dr Abramovich says anti-Semitism in Australia is experienced in different forms. Students in schools and universities, religious leaders being threatened with violence, social media and public slurs have all been reported.
The Worldwide Report says the increase in anti-Semitic incidents has been fuelled largely by radical left and right wing movements, often through social media posts.
Dr Abramovich says social media has been hijacked and weaponised to produce anti-Semitic content, which is often amplified after .
The report also pinned a rise of anti-Semitism to conspiracy theories arising from COVID-19, with false claims being made that Jews created and spread the virus around the world.
"Digital technology and social media and the internet have meant that neo-Nazis, white supremacists, hard core bigots, can spew their dangerous ideology behind the screen instantaneously, inexpensively, and anonymously."
For Dr Abramovich, the increase in anti-Semitic expression is troubling.
"I just want to say that this week we are commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day. And the Holocaust did not begin with the engineers who designed the crematorium at Auschwitz," Dr Abramovich said.
"It began with a society that saw the Jews as their enemy, as the devil in human form, as inhuman. So we have to make sure that the anti-Semitism which is exploding in our country does not become the norm."
According to the report, Italy was one of the few countries that recorded a decrease in anti-Semitism reported across the year.
