Antisemitic incidents rose by 42.5% from 2023 to 2024, according to a Tuesday Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) study, steadying after a post-October 7 Massacre peak that was significantly higher than before the Hamas-led attack.
The collection of antisemitic incidents in the German, Italian, and Romansh areas of Switzerland found that 2024 saw 221 antisemitic incidents compared to the 155 recorded incidents in 2023. In 2022, there were only 57 recorded antisemitic incidents. This means that 2024 saw an overall increase of 287% from 2022. From 2018 until 2022, the number of antisemitic incidents was around 50 each year.
The dramatic rise of antisemitism in the two months after the October 7 Massacre incidents fell to a more stable level in Switzerland in 2024, but antisemitism had steadied at much higher levels than in recent years. October and November of 2023, in the immediate wake of the Hamas-led pogrom in southern Israel, saw a spike in Swiss incidents with 50 and 47 episodes, respectively.
While 2024 only had 22 and 13 incidents in October and November, the average amount of antisemitic episodes each month from January to September was 17, with 12 incidents more on average than the same months in 2023.
A March Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and Haute école de travail social Fribourg (HETS-FR) survey of Swiss Jewry cited in the SIG report revealed that 46.9% of the 1,335 respondents had experienced at least one antisemitic experience in the past month. In a previous 2020 study, only 31.3% of respondents had experienced antisemitism in the same time frame.
There were eleven antisemitic physical attacks in the German, Italian, and Romansh areas of Switzerland in 2024, compared to ten in 2023 and one in 2022. This included last March's Zurich stabbing attack of a 50-year-old Orthodox Jew by a 15-year-old Tunisian immigrant that had declared allegiance to the Islamic State. The victim suffered multiple stabbing attacks and was critically wounded, barely surviving only with the intervention of bystanders.
In an August incident related by SIG in the report, two men attacked a religious Jew in Davos, slapping and spitting while shouting "free Palestine." In December, SIG said that a person engaged in a series of attacks on six Jews in Zurich. Over a weekend, he hit, snatched items from them, and insulted them.
The ZHAW and HETS-FR study found that 3.9% of respondents had experienced an act of antisemitic violence in 2024, whereas in 2020, 1.9% had experienced antisemitic violence.
Last year also saw two rare incidents of antisemitic property damage, which SIG said they had not recoded any such incidents in the last two years. One of these incidents included the August attempted arson attack on a Zurich synagogue.
SIG recorded antisemitic graffiti separately, with 44 such acts in 2024, compared to 42 and 9 in 2023 and 2022. In June, several Jewish-owned Zurich art galleries were vandalized with anti-Israel slogans. In July a Jewish Schwyz resident reportedly had two Nazi swastikas painted on the door of their house.
The ZHAW and HETS-FR study found that in 2024, 3.8% of respondents had experienced antisemitic property damage that year, while 3.2% had in 2020.
Most of the incidents that occurred in 2024 were antisemitic comments, representing 46.5% of total incidents, followed by the similar category of verbal abuse with 19%. There was a massive increase in antisemitic comments from 2023 to 2024, rising from 38 to 103.
There had only been six such incidents in 2022. This included an incident last January in which a man reportedly proclaimed that “Hitler should have won the war” and “The Nazis didn’t do everything wrong." In another incident related by SIG, a man wearing a kippah was approached in Fribourg and told "I hate the Jews."
In 2024, there were 44 more direct verbal antisemitic abuses, compared to 42 in 2023 and nine in 2022. In a Basel incident last January, a woman with a star of David necklace reportedly was told “Hitler should have finished his job” and “Free Palestine,.” In July, a Jewish schoolgirl was told “You damned Jewish girl, you’re lucky you still have a family!" At an August soccer match in Aargau, an opposing player told a Jewish team that “They should burn you all, you fucking Jews!"
SIG said that 45% of the incidents that occurred in 2024 were linked to the war in the Levant, but the figure would have likely been higher. However, motivations were not always clear.
This was the first year that SIG gathered online activity reports, documenting social media remarks and comments on news articles. They recorded 1596 antisemitic comments over the year, 890 of which occurred on Telegram, 103 on TikTok, and 94 on X. Only 28% of the comments were connected to the war in the Levant, others often exploring various conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes.
Avoidance behavior
SIG pointed to the ZHAW and HETS-FR study to demonstrate the avoidance behavior adopted by Swiss Jews to avoid antisemitism. In 2024, 32.% of Jews often avoided wearing items that identified them as Jewish, compared to 19.5% in 2020. Over 28% of Jews had considered leaving Switzerland, compared to 18.5% in 2020. The study also tracked an almost 20% decrease in life satisfaction and an almost 7% increase in poor mental health among respondents from 2020 to 2024.
"The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza exacerbated the security situation for Jewish people and institutions in Switzerland," read the study.
While SIG welcomed the Federal Council's introduction of a bill banning Nazi symbols and the National Council of States banning Hamas as a terrorist organization in December, the Jewish body said that more needed to be done.
The ZHAW and HETS-FR study found that 67.8% of respondents didn't believe that Swiss authorities were addressing antisemitism effectively.
SIG recommended that the Federal Council draw up an antisemitism and racism action plan and strategy in line with a June parliamentary vote. It also called for more recording of antisemitic incidents, as had already begun in several cantons. Swiss authorities should launch an awareness campaign about the origins and scope of antisemitism, said SIG, and introduce teaching programs in schools, including anchoring the Holocaust in canton curriculums.
