Following the terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023, Jews worldwide are finding themselves »in the crosshairs«, said Jonathan Greenblatt, Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.

The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the deadly attack on the Jewish community centre Amia in the Argentinian capital. The bomb attack on 18 July 1994 killed 85 people, and injured more than 300 others.

Greenblatt addressed the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in the US. In the immediate aftermath, conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel began to circulate on the internet. There is no place for political violence in a democracy, Greenblatt insisted. There is also no place for senseless, hateful anti-Semitism. None of this should be normal.

Meeting of a ›task force‹ against anti-Semitism

The ADL is a member of the J7 initiative, which was founded in the summer of 2023, and sees itself as a ›task force‹ for the fight against anti-Semitism. Other members include the Board of Deputies of British Jews (UK), the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (France), der Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland (Germany), the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (Canada), the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (Argentina), and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (Australia). Overall, the initiative spoke of an alarming rise in anti-Semitism in all seven countries as a result of 7 October.

The executive director of the Zentralrat der Juden, Daniel Botmann, is also present in Buenos Aires on behalf of Germany. In a recent interview with this newspaper, when asked about the next step for the J7, he said: »We want to ensure that the legal framework for the fight against anti-Semitism is further tightened in all our countries. In doing so, we are also contributing to the strengthening of democratic structures as a whole. According to Botmann, the Zentralrat will take over the chairmanship of the J7 in the first half of 2025.