A record number of antisemitic incidents, ranging from verbal and online threats to assaults, were recorded in Austria last year, a non-governmental organisation said in a report published on Thursday.
The number of cases rose slightly in 2016 to 477 from 465 the previous year, when the figure had jumped by roughly 200, the organisation, the Forum Against Antisemitism said.
The report follows a finding by Austria’s BVT domestic intelligence service a year ago that incidents involving xenophobia, islamophobia and antisemitism were on the rise in the small country that was swept up in Europe’s migration crisis and where the refugee influx has become a hot-button issue.
“It is of course alarming,” said the president of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), Oskar Deutsch.
“We now have two consecutive years at a record level,” said Deutsch, who put the size of Austria’s Jewish community at roughly 13,000-15,000 in an overall population of 8.8 million.
