JUSTICE - No. 66

23 Spring 2021 ntroduction As the number of antisemitic incidents and crimes has increased in Europe, and particularly dramatically within the European Union (EU), the European agencies have sought effective remedies. Their task is difficult, due to the lack of reliable and consistent data about the incidents and their earlier failure to understand the effects that rising antisemitism has had on Jewish communities and to take concerted and consistent action. Echoing its previous reports, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) noted in 2019 that evidence collected by FRA consistently shows that few EU member states record antisemitic incidents in a way that allows them to collect adequate official data…. While there is a noted increase, … the recording of hate crime incidents remains inadequate and coupled with victims’ hesitance to report incidents to the authorities, the extent, nature and characteristics of the antisemitic incidents occurring in the EU is underreported. 1 The perception by Jews of the deteriorating situation is illustrated in the FRA 2019 Eurobarometer findings. The report noted that whereas only 36% of the general public say that antisemitism has increased in the past five years, 89% of Jews thought that it had become worse. Among the Jewish respondents, 70% stated that their government does not combat antisemitism effectively, and 68% believed that their country’s general population knows little about the history and practices of Jewish people. 2 In response to growing concern over the rise in antisemitism, the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, in December 2019 announced the establishment of a new “dedicated team” in the Commission to work with the Coordinator on combating antisemitism. 3 European institutions also reacted to the growth in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a report identifying conspiracy theories, the Commission noted that the pandemic has seen a rise in harmful and misleading conspiracy theories, mostly spreading online. The section on antisemitism noted that “not all conspiracy theories target Jews, but Jews have been the target of conspiracy theories for centuries. Jews have been falsely blamed for moments of crisis, such as diseases, wars, and economic crises.” 4 The report also mentioned some common antisemitic narratives, such as claims that Jews control the government, the media, or banks for malicious purposes, or that the Holocaust was caused by Jews or never took place. The European agencies' approach to tackling antisemitism is now necessarily more focused and determined than before. Since antisemitism has religious, historical, racial, and political origins, it necessitates remedies in a holistic approach that may be different Improving European Tools to Combat Antisemitism I MichaelWhine 1. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, “Antisemitism - Overview of Antisemitic Incidents recorded in the European Union, Annual Update, 2009 -2019,”p. 4 (2020), available at https://fra.europa.eu/sites/ default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2020-antisemitism- overview-2009-2019_en.pdf 2. European Commission, “Special Eurobarometer 484: Perceptions of antisemitism” (Jan. 2019), available at https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/ index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/85035 3. European Commission,“Speech by European Commission President von der Leyen at the high level event: ‘After Halle: from words to action against anti-Semitism’”(Dec. 10, 2019), available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/ presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_19_6734 4. European Commission and UNESCO, “Identifying conspiracy theories”(2020), available at https://ec.europa . eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/ fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_ en