Swiss Jewish association concerned about anti-Semitic cases

A synagogue window in Frankfurt, Germany, this week. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) says it has registered 26 anti-Semitic incidents in Switzerland over the past two weeks.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, an average of two incidents each day have been reported, SIG Secretary-General Jonathan Kreutner told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Friday.

In a year-on-year comparison, this marks a big amount for such a short period of time, he said. In the whole of 2022, there were 57 cases. “The SIG is concerned about this trend,” said the organisation, adding that it was imperative to ensure that emotions connected to the Israeli-Palestinian war did not spill over to Switzerland.

+ SIG president Ralph Lewin: war “must not transfer to Switzerland”

According to the SIG, the 26 incidents included three assaults, five insults, six graffiti, eight e-mails and letters, and four posters or anti-Semitic statements made during demonstrations.

The SIG figure does not include anti-Semitic statements on the Internet – nor does it include the French-speaking part of the country. However, the CICAD association – which operates both in French-speaking Switzerland and online – said on Friday that it noted 88 incidents in the past two weeks, 66 of them on the Internet.

Another group, the Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism, also noted an increase in cases, Keystone-SDA wrote on Friday: among them was also an Islamophobic incident, when a 16-year-old was called a terrorist in the street because he spoke Arabic.

Joint appeal by seven parties

In a joint statement on Friday, Switzerland’s seven largest political parties appealed to the population, saying anti-Semitism has no place in Swiss democratic society. It is the joint task of authorities, parties, associations and all citizens to act with civil courage against any such incidents, they said.

Following the attack by Hamas, Swiss security authorities have stepped up measures at Israeli representations in Switzerland, while demonstrations linked to the war are currently banned in several cantons and cities.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].