EUROPE – ENMA, a single platform against antisemitism, is born

“79% of Jewish victims of antisemitic violence have never reported it and this is what ENMA is also for. If successful, the platform’s comparability of transnational data on antisemitism will also help decision-makers in European countries.” With these words, the head of the German Research and Information Centre on Antisemitism (RIAS – Recherche- und Informationsstellen Antisemitismus) Benjamin Steiniz, from the Berlin headquarters of the European Commission, announced the creation of ENMA, acronym for European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism. “Antisemitism must be made visible in order to be fought,” added Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission’s Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. She defined Jew hatred as “a threat to democracy that remains unreported because doing so is too complicated. Whereas we need fast, digital and easily accessible means. This year the EU Commission will earmark EUR400,000 for ENMA to support and develop more direct contacts between antisemitism victims and the police.” ENMA was founded by RIAS, the Reporting Center for Antisemitism of Vienna and the Czulent Jewish Association (Poland). The presentation saw the Italian participation of Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, director of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center (CDEC), which is an associate member of ENMA together with the Union of the Jewish Communities of the Czech Republic. “ENMA’s goal – he explained – is to create a homogenous platform of data on antisemitism from all over Europe, each country collecting it in a different way. As CDEC is on the ENMA’s Board, we helped to set up the category structure to give life to the algorithm, now distributed among the associate members.”
Pagine Ebraiche asked him if Italy will be a full member of ENMA one day. “From the end of 2024, when the already secured EU financing will end, the ambition will be to raise funds and increase the number of institutions using this software.” Attending the presentation, Felix Klein, the German Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, commented “As a diplomat and as a pro-European, I welcome this international initiative. I believe that the creation of such structures is crucial to combat Jew hatred. And collecting data efficiently means then being able to classify and analyze it”.

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Translated by Francesca Roversi and revised by Marta Gustinucci, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, trainees at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.