The 2025 report, published on Wednesday, documents a wide range of incidents collected by RIAS reporting centers across the country throughout the year and classified by the association as antisemitic.
In the western German state of Hesse, for example, a rabbi was shoved in front of his children, and his cell phone was snatched from him. In their verbal attacks, the perpetrators blamed the rabbi for the actions of the Israeli government.
Among the range of incidents, RIAS cites experiences reported by Jewish people in Germany in which they were subjected to verbal abuse, and some reported having received death threats on social media. A Jewish woman received a picture of a Zyklon B canister on Facebook with the description “Still in stock.” Zyklon B was the gas used by the Nazis in concentration camps to murder Jews and other persecuted people during the Holocaust.
RIAS, an association funded by the German government, was founded in Berlin in 2018 and tasked with collecting incidents reported as antisemitic across the country. RIAS has regional offices in 11 of Germany’s 16 states.
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For RIAS, antisemitism begins before it becomes a criminal offense
The data RIAS presented on Wednesday in its annual report is not representative; RIAS collects reports of complaints across the various offices and online portal and then attempts to categorize the results.
The nationwide RIAS findings for 2025 overall indicated a number of reported incidents classified as antisemitic that remained roughly at the 2024 level.
The incidents are broadly separated into categories that targeted Jewish people and institutions, people and institutions perceived or addressed as Jewish, and other non-Jewish people and institutions. The incidents are categorized by type of incident and attributed motivations. There has been criticism of the organization’s classification of the reported incidents and its methodology, and the fact that not every incident recorded formally constitutes a criminal offense.
Julia Kopp, project manager at RIAS Berlin, says that antisemitism does not begin at the point at which it manifests as a criminal offense.
Significant critique of RIAS’s work and methodology also came from the Berlin-based international organization “Diaspora Alliance.” It has accused the German government-funded association of disproportionately representing what it calls “Israel-related antisemitism” and underestimating far-right extremist activities, which are rising in Germany, and in doing so, threatening the fight against antisemitism. RIAS has rejected these allegations.
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The impact of developments in the Middle East
However, the number of incidents RIAS recorded as antisemitic in Germany increased sharply after the Islamist group Hamas attacked on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 people taken hostage. In the ensuing warin the Gaza Strip, more than 73,000 people have been killed. Israel’s conduct in the war has been found by many international rights organizations and a United Nations commission to be a genocide.
RIAS researchers say that some Jewish people in Germany have reported receiving antisemitic hate messages even if they have openly criticized the current Israeli government. The association also writes in its report that recent developments in the Middle East — such as the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas last October — are not reflected in the number, timing, and intensity of antisemitic attacks.
For 2025, the RIAS report documented four cases of extreme violence in Germany. One prominent incident that made headlines was the knife attack in February 2025 on a Spanish visitor to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. The man was saved by an emergency medical technician; the perpetrator was sentenced to 13 years in prison in March of this year. The convicted man, who is from the eastern city of Leipzig, said he mistook the Spaniard for a Jew.
RIAS staff attribute 68% of all incidents under what it categorizes as “Israel-related antisemitism”. While the State of Israel was founded after World War II to serve as a place of refuge or homeland for Jewish people, by no means are all Jews in the world Israeli citizens, nor are all people with Israeli passports Jewish. Experts warn of such false conflations.
Josef Schuster, the chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, pointed this out in an interview with DW: “In Israel, there is a Christian and Muslim minority that is not at all small. And Jews in Germany primarily hold German passports.”
‘Antisemitism threatens our democracy’
In its reporting work, RIAS uses the working definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). That definition has been criticized by numerous scholars as vague when it comes to the line between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel and antisemitism.
Felix Klein, the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight Against Antisemitism, is alarmed by the figures in the RIAS report. “The RIAS annual report shows that antisemitism appears to be on the rise in Germany without any sign of slowing down,” he said, adding, “Antisemitism does not just target Jewish people. It threatens our democracy, our freedom, and the moral core of our country.”
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Schuster reports growing concern in Jewish communities
According to the RIAS report, the hostility spread via social media is alarming. The number of reported incidents rose from 1,996 in 2024 to 2,314 last year. According to the data, 43% of all overt threats reported occurred online, and those targeted said they experienced lasting effects in their daily lives.
Schuster told DW that more and more members of the community are sharing their concerns with him.
“They worry about being recognizable as a Jew on the street, for example, when they wear a kippa [yarmulke] or a Star of David as jewelry,” he said. “It is also important to note — and this is especially important to me — that this situation is not the same everywhere in Germany. However, it is particularly negative and especially alarming in urban areas.”
This article was originally written in German.
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