ROME (JTA) — Italian politicians asked the European Union to establish a task force on anti-Semitism following the recent attacks on Jewish targets in Paris and Copenhagen.
The recent anti-Semitic attacks have “affected and upset” the two countries’ large Jewish communities, the politicians — from the left and right wings — wrote in a letter sent last week to the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini.
They also wrote that “every day and for years now anti-Semitic words and gestures, often violent, outrage Jewish citizens in many European capitals.”
Among the promoters of the letter is Emanuele Fiano, a Jewish center-left lawmaker in charge of national security issues who is a past president of the Jewish Community of Milan and former director of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy. His father, the writer Nedo Fiano, is a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp and at 89 still speaks about his experiences.
