2023 Austrian antisemitism report reveals wave of post-October 7 Jew-hatred

Antisemitism in Austria spiked after October 7, most of it directly related to Israel, according to a Wednesday report by Antisemitismus-meldestelle.

The report recorded 1,147 antisemitic incidents, although it cautions that even in normal years, significant amounts of antisemitism go unreported. However, due to the fallout from Hamas's attacks on October 7, the organization received such an overwhelming number of reports that they were forced to exclude some incidents that were not fully recorded due to issues of prioritization.

It also noted that on social media, where a single post contained many instances of antisemitism, it was only counted as a single incident, further reducing the recorded number.

The two largest categories of incidents were mass mailings and abusive behavior, then damage and desecration, and finally, the two lowest were physical assaults and threats.

On average, there were 3.14 daily antisemitic incidents, a rise from the 2022 figure of 1.97. However, when pre-October 7 data and post-October 7 data are taken separately, the former period contained an average of 1.55 daily incidents, while the latter period contained 8.31.

The only other year that had such a high rate of antisemitic incidents was 2021, which was attributed to antisemitic conspiracies related to COVID-19.

The report also claimed that the majority of the anti-Israel activists are from the Austrian far-left, but also that Israel has split left-wing groups in Austria into an "unbridgable chasm."

It also noted that the use of Jewish or "supposedly Jewish" activists as an attempt to obfuscate accusations of antisemitism against the anti-Israel movement largely drew on a minority of Jewish people who are not representative of "the fundamentally and traditionally very heterogeneous Jewish perspective."

As mentioned previously, while coronavirus-related antisemitism had been the most prominent form, it almost completely disappeared in the latest report.

Israel-related antisemitism spiked in October and then kept rising for the rest of the year; antisemitic conspiracies and Holocaust inversion followed a similar trend.

Ideology and antisemitism

In terms of ideology, it was largely evenly split, with right-wing ideology being responsible for about 34% of incidents, followed by Muslim antisemitism at 25%, and left-wing ideology at 18%. Non-ideological antisemitism was around 23%.

Although, in total, the split was even, there was a clear connection between ideology and the type of antisemitic incidents.  

Right-wing antisemitism dominated deliberate damage, desecration, and abusive behavior, whereas Muslim antisemitism dominated assaults and threats.

Left-wing antisemitism was only prominent in the mass mailing category, with it making up the smallest amount in every other category, and was totally absent from the threats category.