Italian senator faces 200 anti-Semitic threats daily
November 7, 2019
Italian senator and Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre, who receives 200 social media threats daily, has been given a police escort. Three right-wing parties abstained as an anti-hate committee was initiated in parliament.
Image: Imago Images/Italy Photo Press
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Israel‘s ambassador to Italy, Dror Eydar, said the persistent threats made against the 89-year-old Italian senator and Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre "symbolize the danger that Jewish communities still face in Europe today."
Italian state radio reported Thursday that Milan's prefect had assigned a Carabinieri paramilitary police security detail to Segre because of the 200 threats and insults she received daily.
She was, however, only being accompanied when attending public events, added her chief of staff, Paola Gargiulo, saying Segre also received "vastly more messages of support."
Threats 'very worrying'
Anti-Semitism researcher Stephao Gatti said, nevertheless, that the persistent threats against Segre were "very worrying" for Italy's Jewish community of 30,000 as well as larger Jewish communities in France and Germany.
And the threats are "not coming just from extremists," he added, referring to Holocaust deniers and others on the far-right in Italy.
Three parties abstained
When the Senate last month created a committee to combat hate, racism and anti-Semitism, three right-wing parties withheld support: Matteo Salvini's League, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy all abstained.
The League and Brothers of Italy asserted that Segre's initiative would lead to censorship.
The Vatican's cardinal secretary Pietro Parolin subsequently criticized the parties' abstentions.
"We should all be united in some things, such as basic values," said Parolin, according to Italian online media.
The Corriera della Sera newspaper reported Thursday that the abusive campaign directed at Segre went back "at least" to 2018, when Italy's Prosecutor's Office opened a file, followed by Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese setting protection among her priorities.
'Monkey' chants
Last Sunday, soccer forward Mario Balotelli, who is black, became visibly upset and nearly left the field when subjected to monkey chants in a further sign of growing racist attitudes in Italy.
On Thursday, Agriculture Minister Teresa Bellanova tweeted support for Segne, writing: "the politics of hate will not stop your commitment, nor ours."
Most were defamatory abuse directed at prominent Jews, said Gatti, and seldom cases of violence.
Examples included a Jewish woman slapped in the northern province of Cuneo this year and a Jewish professor who was spat upon in Rome,
Ruth Dureghello, head of Rome's Jewish community and on a visit to Auschwitz with students, said last week's vote outcome in parliament manifested a "climate that has changed."
Few children survived
In 1944, Segre was deported from Italy to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a 13-year-old girl.
Of the 776 Italian children under 14 years old deported, only 25, including Segre, survived.
In recent years, she has dedicated much of her time to visiting schools to recount the horrors of the Holocaust perpetrated under Nazi German rule during World War Two.
Attacks on synagogues in Germany
The attempted attack on a synagogue in Halle is not the first in recent years. Even after the horrors of the Nazi era, anti-Semitic incidents occur in Germany — on individuals, memorials and Jewish places of worship.
Image: Imago Images/S. Schellhorn
Cologne, 1959: Swastikas and hate speech
In December 1959, two members of the Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) right-wing extremist party painted swastikas and the words "Germans demand: Jews out" on the synagogue in Cologne. Anti-Semitic graffiti emerged across the country. The perpetrators were convicted, and the Bundestag passed a law against "incitement of the people," which remains on the books to this day.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images/Joko
Lübeck, 1994: First arson attack on a temple in decades
People across the world were horrified at the March 1994 attack on the synagogue in the northern city of Lübeck. For the first time in decades, a synagogue in Germany burned. Four right-wing extremists were eventually convicted of arson. The day after the fire, 4,000 locals took to the streets under the slogan "Lübeck holds its breath." In 1995, the same synagogue was hit by another arson attack.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Büttner
Essen, 2000: Stones hurled into Old Synagogue
Armed with paving stones, more than 100 Palestinians from Lebanon attacked the Old Synagogue in Essen in October 2000. The incident occurred after a demonstration against "violence in the Middle East." A police officer was injured. Mahmud Alaeddin, deputy head of the general delegation of Palestine in Germany, distanced himself from the attack.
Image: picture-alliance/B. Boensch
Düsseldorf, 2000: Arson and stones
A 19-year-old Palestinian and a 20-year-old Moroccan damaged Düsseldorf's New Synagogue with incendiary devices and rocks in October 2000 as "revenge" against Jews and the state of Israel. "We need the respectable people to rebel" against anti-Semitism, then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder demanded. The federal and state governments and various NGOs launched campaigns to counter extremism.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Weihrauch
Mainz, 2010: Molotov cocktail attack shortly after inauguration
Shortly after being inaugurated in September 2010, an arson attack hit the New Synagogue in Mainz during the night of October 30. The spectacular Deconstructivist building by architect Manuel Herz was erected on the site of the former main synagogue that was set on fire during the Kristallnacht, the Nazis' national night of pogroms, in 1938.
Image: picture-alliance/akg/Bildarchiv Steffens
Wuppertal, 2014: Incendiary devices
In July 2014, three young Palestinians hurled incendiary devices at the front door of the synagogue in Wuppertal. In a highly controversial decision, the court ruled there was "no evidence whatsoever" of anti-Semitic motives. Jews in Germany and the foreign media were outraged. The chairman of the Jewish Community Wuppertal declared the ruling as "an invitation to further crimes."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Seidel
Berlin, 2019: Knife-wielding attacker
A man wielding a knife climbed over a barrier at Berlin's New Synagogue on the eve of Shabbat on October 4, 2019, during the holy period between the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Security personnel overwhelmed the attacker, whose motive remained unclear. Police released him afterwards, a decision Jewish leaders called "a failure" of justice.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Avers
Halle, 2019: Shooter attempts mass murder on Yom Kippur
About 80 people were in the synagogue on Wednesday afternoon to observe Yom Kippur, the Jewish calendar's holiest day. The alleged attacker reportedly attempted to shoot his way into the synagogue but was prevented by a safety door. Two passersby were shot to death and two were injured. The suspect, who has a history of right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic, and misogynist rhetoric, was detained.
