Germans send in anti-bullying experts to stop anti-semitism

GERMANY is sending scores of antibullying experts into schools to counter a rise in anti-semitism.

Franziska Giffey, the German family minister, told the Rheinische Post: “Anti-semitism in schools is a big problem. We need to take religious bullying in classrooms and school playgrounds very seriously, regardless of who the bullies are.

“Children must learn respect and how to live together peacefully. That is the foundation of a peaceful society.”

She added: “In the coming school year, as a first step, we will send 170 anti-bullying experts into selected schools in Germany, funded by the federal authorities.”

Recent incidents included one at the John F Kennedy School, in a Berlin suburb, in which a pupil was subjected to anti-jewish taunts and had drawings of swastikas stuck to him.

Figures issued by the German government suggest 90 per cent of antisemitic crime in Germany is carried out by the far-right. There were 1,504 anti-semitic attacks in the country in 2017, which was a rise of 2.5 per cent from the year before.

Felix Klein, Germany’s anti-semitism commissioner, told Der Tagesspiegel: “There is a brutalised climate now, in which more people feel emboldened to say anti-semitic things on the internet and in the street. Previously, that was unthinkable, but the threshold has dropped.”

In April, Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, warned people to avoid wearing Jewish skullcaps in major cities after two men wearing kippahs were attacked in central Berlin by three anti-semites.