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Dinah Porat, director of Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, added that "cases of desecrating Jewish cemeteries (picture: Jewish cemetery in northern France) and monuments increased" last year to 141, from 91 the year before.
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TEL AVIV (AFP)---The worldwide number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2007 increased by nearly seven percent from a year earlier, according to a study released on Wednesday.
"There were 632 violent anti-Semitic incidents around the world in 2007, an increase of 6.6 percent compared with the year before," said Dinah Porat, director of Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism.
Report author Porat said the centre divides violence into two categories: physical, verbal and visual abuse, and major attacks that use weapons or arson with the intent to kill.
The report was released as Israel prepared to mark from sunset its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, which recalls the some six million Jews who died in Nazi death camps during World War II.
At the same time, the report found "an encouraging decline in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in certain countries, especially France, Germany, South Africa and the United States," Porat said.
She attributed the fewer number of incidents to more intervention by authorities and human rights groups.
The report also found that there were fewer attacks against Jewish institutions and educational institutions worldwide, down to 62 last year from
94 in 2006.
However, Porat added that "cases of desecrating Jewish cemeteries and monuments increased" last year to 141, from 91 the year before.
Also major attacks against Jews last year rose to 57, a threefold increase from 2006.
The report noted for example that while anti-Semitic incidents in France fell from 97 in 2006 to 47 last year, at the same time major incidents of attempted murder -- with a weapon or in a fire -- increased from two to eight in 2007.
The same tendency was found in other countries like Ukraine with four major violent attacks last year compared with none in 2006.
