Antisemitism Commissioner warns against conspiracy theories during coronavirus crisis

The Commissioner of the German Federal Government for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, Dr. Felix Klein, has warned against the mass circulation of antisemitic conspiracy theories in connection with the spreading of the coronavirus.

“The pandemic creates a climate of general uncertainty, which provides the ideal breeding ground for accusations against individual groups of people”, Klein told the “Tagesspiegel” newspaper. “It is “not surprising” that Jews and Israel are the main targets.”

“Antisemitic hate speech is spreading quickly on the Internet and in particular on popular social media platforms,” Klein added, “There is talk online of a Jewish takeover of the world economy, Jewish profits from a possible vaccine, biological weapons developed by Israel, or a Jewish attempt to reduce the world population.” According to Klein, these crude forms of antisemitism are paving the way for worse. The past has tragically shown that words can become actions.

The Federal Commissioner called on all possible measures to be undertaken, so that hate speech is not continued to be disseminated online. “We call on everyone to take action and report online antisemitic defamation to the relevant operators” said Dr. Klein.

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