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Jewish Activists Urge Berlin to Combat Anti-Semitism Amid Hate Crime Spike

Late last week, police detained a group of young adults who attacked a Jewish-Syrian man in a Berlin park after they saw a Star of David on his neck.
Sputnik

In an open letter on Wednesday, the heads of about 40 Jewish organizations based in Germany urged Berlin to clamp down on anti-Semitism, citing a spate of anti-Jewish attacks in the country, according to Haaretz.

In the letter, the authors insisted that anti-Semitism should be recognized as "an attack on the inviolability of human dignity and on the foundations of the entire liberal democratic community."

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According to them, this recognition is in line with the International Alliance for Holocaust Remembrance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which they warned "cannot be successfully fought as a mere subcategory of racism."

"Anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia cannot be equated," the letter underlined.

Additionally, the authors stressed the necessity of all non-government organizations, including Muslim ones, to only receive funds "if they have publicly distanced themselves from all forms of anti-Semitism."

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The letter's publication came several days after seven men and three women, aged between 15 and 25, including six Syrians and three German nationals, were detained after beating up a passer-by in a Berlin park.

Police said that the assailants were subsequently released, but investigators dealing with politically motivated crimes have taken over the case.

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In another development last week, a 19-year-old Syrian migrant was found guilty of an April attack against an Israeli man who was wearing a Jewish kippah skullcap on a street in Berlin.

Over the past two years, more than one million refugees, many of them Syrians, have flooded Germany, as Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country's borders.

Merkel's open-door policy has been widely criticized, and helped the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party take third place in last year's parliamentary elections.

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