German report records 564 anti-Semitic incidents with Islamic links

German monitoring centres recorded 564 anti-Semitic incidents with an explicitly "Islamic or Islamist" background between 2019 and 2025, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The figure represents just 1.8% of the more than 31,200 anti-Semitic incidents documented over the seven-year period in Germany, according to the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism (RIAS).

"The proportion is therefore comparatively low," the organization said in its report, titled "Anti-Semitism in Islamic and Islamist Contexts."

By comparison, RIAS attributed 17.4% of the incidents to anti-Israel activism and 11.7% to right-wing extremism. In around 55% of cases, RIAS said it was unable to clearly determine the background.

However, incidents with an Islamic or Islamist background were disproportionately likely to involve threats, attacks or extreme violence, the report found.

Such cases accounted for 15.1% of anti-Semitic incidents in this category, compared with 6.1% of all incidents recorded by RIAS.

Shots fired at Essen synagogue

Among the most serious examples cited by RIAS were shots fired at the Old Synagogue in the western city of Essen in 2022, allegedly by members of an Iranian terrorist cell, and a knife attack at Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in February 2025. A tourist was seriously injured in the neck in the Berlin attack.

RIAS, a civil society organization that receives funding from the German government, said anti-Semitism was also a feature of everyday life.

In Frankfurt in June 2024, two people wearing kippahs were subjected to anti-Semitic abuse in public, according to the report. A person who attempted to intervene was threatened and told that Allah would kill them.

Prevention measures needed

"Anti-Semitism must be clearly identified as an essential component of Islamist mobilization and resolutely combated," RIAS managing director Benjamin Steinitz said.

"To do so, measures based on the rule of law and prevention programmes are necessary."

Steinitz said efforts to confront Islamism should not be left to far-right actors.

RIAS operates reporting centres in 12 of Germany's 16 federal states, where victims and witnesses can report anti-Semitic incidents.

Its figures cover not only criminal offences such as attacks, threats and insults, but also hurtful or intimidating statements and incidents in everyday life and online.

The RIAS figures are therefore not directly comparable with Germany's official police crime statistics.