Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, has warned of a “horrifying rise in antisemitism" over the last year as she spoke at a Holocaust Memorial Day event with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
Addressing the audience virtually, Hotovely said: “This year we’re seeing a horrifying rise in antisemitism.
“In the last year alone we have seen Jewish people across the country being attacked and harassed simply because they’re Jewish.
“Antisemitism keeps evolving so the Jews of this country must deal with the modern version of antisemitism but as well as traditional hatred we have all suffered for years,” the diplomat said on Tuesday.
Ms Hotovely was joined by Foreign Minister Liz Truss and others in attending a virtual HMD ceremony held by the Embassy with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Ms Hotovely did not confirm details about the incident she witnessed.
She drew media coverage in November when she was rushed out of a debate after a crowd of protesters gathered outside the London School of Economics where she had addressed students. She later said she would “not be intimidated”, and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi was among those expressing their support over the incident.
Data released by the Community Security Trust last August revealed record levels of antisemitism between January and June 2021. Cases were driven largely by a spike in May during the Israel-Gaza conflict, the charity found.
Lord Eric Pickles, the UK’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, spoke of the rising threat of Holocaust distortion, a term used to describe efforts to misrepresent the history of the Shoah.
“There is a new worry of Holocaust distortion, more mainstream but just as pernicious [as denial].
“It doubts numbers, assigns different descriptions to places. Death camps are redesignated as transit camps. Contemporary events are compared to the Holocaust. Collaborators of the Nazis are wiped from the national memory,” he said.
He added, “Holocaust distortion can be found in all levels of society and it’s far from being a fringe phenomenon, from facts twisted on the internet, to opportunist statements made by politicians, misleading exhibitions of museums, and most recently comparing measures to combat Covid-19 to the Holocaust.”
The event also heard from Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, who was joined by her great-grandson Dov Forman with whom she co-authored her memoirs, Lily’s Promise, in 2020.
Together they have also amassed more than 1.6 million followers on a TikTok account created to share her testimony.
Ms Ebert, 98, and her family were put in a cattle truck and sent to Auschwitz. Her mother, youngest sister and brother were murdered in gas chambers.
She was sent to Leipzig from Auschwitz to work as a slave labourer and was liberated by allied forces in 1945.
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Lily Ebert, pictured with her great grandson Dov (Photo credit: Israeli Embassy)
Addressing the event, she said, “Hundreds of members of my extended family were murdered during the Holocaust.
“I am telling you what took place because they cannot.
“I promised myself that if I survive against all the odds I will do all I can to share my story, for myself and for those that did not survive.”
Cantor Jonny Turgel - whose late grandmother Gena survived the Krakow ghetto, Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen - recited the El Malei Rachamim prayer.
