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As antisemitism spikes across Europe, more fingers are pointing at Russia
(JTA) — When Stars of David began appearing on Jewish homes and institutions in Paris’ 10th arrondissement late last month, as well as on a Jewish woman’s home in Berlin, many were quick to bring up comparisons to the Nazi era.
But French authorities pointed to a surprising culprit: Russia.
According to French authorities, the pictures of the Stars of David first began to spread via a Russian-run news site called Recent Reliable News (RRN) before being found by others online. Shortly after the incident went viral, VIGINUM, France’s intelligence unit devoted to tracking foreign digital interference, recorded more than 1,000 bots making over 2,500 posts related to the incident on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
RRN, seemingly a news aggregator, was revealed in June to be part of a network of web domains used by Russian hackers for a disinformation operation targeted at Western Europe known as “Doppelganger.” RRN and sites like it were used to mimic major news outlets and even government sites, sharing information with a clearly pro-Russia slant.
“VIGINUM has a high degree of confidence that these bots are affiliated to the RRN network, given that one of their main activities consists in redirecting people to RRN websites,” France’s foreign ministry said in a press release earlier this month. “France strongly condemns the involvement of the Russian network Recent Reliable News (RRN/Doppelgänger) in the artificial spreading and initial distribution on social media of photos of graffiti representing Stars of David in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.”
As antisemitism has spiked in Europe in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, multiple investigations have pointed to Russian involvement in stoking an already tense situation. While motives remain unclear, experts have noted that fomenting already brewing divisions and chaos in the West has been a tradition of Russia’s security services since the Cold War.
French investigators noted that their probe is ongoing, and they still have yet to confirm if the vandalism was the work of Russian state-backed actors. But they revealed that two suspects arrested in connection with the graffiti were Moldovan nationals who allegedly painted the stars on the orders of an unknown individual whom they communicated with by phone in Russian. (While Moldova’s national language is Romanian, like many other former Soviet republics, Russian has remained a first language for many of its citizens.)
As more details about the vandalism emerged, more questions were raised. For one, not all of the stars were sprayed on Jewish buildings. Second, the style of the stars — from an elegant stencil, in a deep blue color reminiscent of the Israeli flag — seemed out of place for an antisemitic incident.
While the details remain murky, Nina Jankowicz, the U.S vice president of the Centre for Information Resilience and an expert on disinformation, said the episode tracks with Russia’s modus operandi.
“This definitely seems like it could fit the bill of the types of provocation that Russia has been known to be behind in the past,” Jankowicz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Russia uses these pre-existing fissures in society to drive further polarization or drive issues that are hot button issues in society, generally, without regard for, for the context.”
Such moves have been part and parcel of Russia’s foreign policy for decades and a key feature of its so-called “hybrid war” since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Driving polarization in Western societies is really an easy way to have wins for Russia,” Jankowicz said.
That hasn’t been restricted to amplifying divisive topics in the digital sphere. During the 2016 U.S. elections, dueling protests unfolded on the streets of Houston, Texas, both for and against a local Islamic center. What neither side fully knew at the time was that both protests were spawned by Facebook groups made by operatives in Moscow.
“I think we’d like to think that at this point, Russia is just doing stuff on the internet and then poisoning dissidents every so often. But these sorts of on the ground operations — which sometimes aren’t carried out in the most perfect way — are 100% the sort of thing that they’ve done in the past, and that they continue to do even after the U.S. election in 2016,” Jankowicz said.
Jankowicz noted that Russia is an equal opportunity inciter, switching from causes on the right to left at will, and the country is no stranger to using antisemitism as a weapon. In fact, it’s a trick cribbed straight from the Soviet Union playbook.
“During the Soviet period, especially in places like Germany, Russia, would very deliberately deface memorials and use antisemitic attacks, as late as the 80s, in order to stoke the specter of antisemitism,” she said.
In the late 1980s, before German reunification, Rainer Sonntag, the leader of West Germany’s most influential Neo-Nazi group, was doing double duty as a spy for both the East German Stasi and Soviet KGB. During the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the Stasi forged hundreds of letters of support from “veterans of the Waffen-SS” in an attempt to embarrass West Germany.
“They have been on both sides of issues like civil and human rights issues related to the Black population in the United States, LGBT rights, and all sorts of things. So it’s not beyond them to play both sides,” Jankowicz said.
Russia has leveled the same charges at the West, most commonly at Ukraine and the United States. Last month, Moscow claimed U.S.-backed forces instigated the mob which stormed Makhachkala airport looking for Jews in Dagestan, Russia
“The events in Makhachkala last night were inspired also through social networks, not least from the territory of Ukraine, by the hands of agents of Western special services,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
“This is something we’ve noted previously in a variety of online influence campaigns – more of a ‘muddying of the waters’ than a clear ‘trying to do X’ type operation,” said Justin Crow, a researcher at the University of Sussex who focuses on Russia and open source intelligence. “Almost always around highly sensitive contemporaneous cultural issues – i.e. exploiting circumstantial events to sow discord, without that discord needing to be specifically targeted at one group or another.”
Russia isn’t the only country deploying the strategy and involving Jewish institutions. Two weeks ago, a fire was set outside of a synagogue in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The building was only lightly damaged, but Armenian authorities were quick to open an investigation, claiming that the arson was committed by a foreign national who was only in the country for a few hours.
Like the situation in France, news of the attack was most widely spread by media connected to an opposing nation: Azerbaijan, which has been at war with Armenia over the disputed region known as Nagorno-Karabakh to Azeris and Artsakh to Armenians.
Azerbaijani media has reported that the attack, as well as a vandalism of the same synagogue in early October — just before the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7 — had been claimed by ASALA, an Armenian Marxist-Leninist group that had fought with Turkey in the 1970s and 80s but has largely been considered inactive since 1991.
“We didn’t know what had happened yet, and Azerbaijani channels were already circulating photos of the building,” said Rima Varzhapetyan, the head of Armenia’s Jewish community, according to the Times of Israel. “Obviously, there are some forces that work not against us Jews, but against Armenia. This is outrageous.”
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The post As antisemitism spikes across Europe, more fingers are pointing at Russia appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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French Officials Replant Olive Trees to Honor Murdered Jew Ilan Halimi After Vandalized Memorial
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
More than a month and a half after the olive tree planted to honor Ilan Halimi was vandalized and cut down, French authorities are continuing efforts to replant olive trees in memory of the young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death in 2006.
On Tuesday, local officials unveiled a commemorative plaque in the garden of Paris City Hall and planted a new tree to honor Halimi’s memory.
“This tree is a symbol of life,” said Ariel Weil, mayor of Paris Centre. “Next year will mark the tragic 20th anniversary of Ilan Halimi’s murder.”
“At the time, he was barely a young man. At 23, full of passion and the energy of youth, he pursued the promise of love — but met a tragic death instead,” Weil continued. “With this tree, however, it is Ilan Halimi’s life that is being planted in our garden.”
Last week, the southern French town of Pollestres also planted a new olive tree in honor of Halimi, calling it “a symbol of peace and remembrance” and a stand against hatred and antisemitism.
“We aim to promote values against barbarism, racism, and antisemitism, and I must say that right now, there is a climate of hatred between communities,” said Jean-Charles Moriconi, the town’s mayor.
“I believe that to unite everyone, we need gestures like this — proof that when something is torn down or destroyed, it will be replanted,” he continued.
Last month, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region, two weeks after Halimi’s previous memorial was vandalized.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the northern Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — praised these gestures as a powerful symbol of “the deep roots of the Jewish people in the [French Republic], and in the history of France,” saying that “no one will be able to uproot them.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. In August, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
Shortly after this latest attack, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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Israel Diverts Gaza Flotilla Ships, Says ‘Greta Thunberg Safe’
Sailing boats, part of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, sail off Koufonisi islet, Greece, Sept. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis
Several vessels of the international flotilla heading to Gaza have been stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port, the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate campaigner, and her friends are “safe and healthy,” the foreign ministry said in a post on X alongside a video that appeared to show Thunberg and several masked and armed Israeli military personnel.
The flotilla’s organizers said that Israeli military personnel intercepted and boarded the ships, which aim to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza — the Palestinian enclave that has been ruled by the terrorist group Hamas for nearly two decades — and deliver some aid there.
Some 20 vessels were seen approaching the flotilla earlier on Wednesday night, multiple people on board said, as passengers put on life vests and braced for a takeover.
“Multiple vessels … were illegally intercepted and boarded by Israeli Occupation Forces in international waters,” the organizers said in a statement. “We are diligently working to account for all participants and crew.”
It said that its communications were jammed before boarding began, which interfered with cameras that were providing live streams from various boats and communications between vessels.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, which consists of more than 40 civilian boats carrying about 500 parliamentarians, lawyers, and activists including Thunberg, is trying to break Israel‘s blockade despite repeated warnings from Israel to turn back.
It is about 70 nautical miles off the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, inside a zone that Israel is policing to stop any boats approaching.
A live video feed from one of the boats in the flotilla showed passengers in life vests sitting on deck.
It is not clear how many of the boats had been intercepted or stopped. Some passengers said their vessels continued to advance.
Organizers remained defiant, saying in the statement that the flotilla “will continue undeterred.”
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment about intercepting the vessels.
Its foreign ministry earlier said the navy had warned the flotilla it was approaching an active combat zone and violating a lawful blockade, and asked them to change course.
The ministry said that it reiterated the offer to transfer any aid peacefully through safe channels to Gaza.
TRYING TO BREAK THE BLOCKADE
The flotilla is the latest sea-borne attempt to break Israel‘s blockade of Gaza.
The flotilla had been hoping to arrive in Gaza on Thursday morning if it was not intercepted.
This was the second time the flotilla was approached on Wednesday. Before dawn, the mission’s organizers said two Israeli “warships” had approached fast and encircled two of the flotilla’s boats. All navigation and communication devices went down in what one organizer on board described as a “cyber attack.”
A video post on the flotilla’s Instagram page showed the silhouette of what appeared to be a military vessel with a gun turret near the civilian boats.
Reuters confirmed that the video was filmed from the flotilla, but could not confirm the identity of the other vessel in the video or when the video was taken.
Last week members of the flotilla claimed the mission was attacked by drones, which reportedly dropped stun grenades and itching powder on the vessels, causing damage but no injuries.
Israel did not comment on that attack, but has said it will use any means to prevent the boats from reaching Gaza, arguing that its naval blockade is legal as it battles Hamas terrorists in the coastal enclave.
Italy and Spain deployed naval ships to help with any rescue or humanitarian needs but stopped following the flotilla once it got within 150 nautical miles (278 km) of Gaza for safety reasons. Turkish drones have also followed the boats.
Italy and Greece on Wednesday jointly called on Israel not to hurt the activists aboard and called on the flotilla to hand over its aid to the Catholic Church for indirect delivery to Gaza – a plea the flotilla has previously rejected.
Israeli officials have repeatedly denounced the mission as a stunt.
“This systematic refusal [to hand over the aid] demonstrates that the objective is not humanitarian, but provocative. They are not seeking to help, they are seeking an incident,” Jonathan Peled, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, said in a post on X.
PAST ATTEMPTS TO DELIVER AID
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Gaza since Hamas took control of the coastal enclave in 2007 and there have been several previous attempts by activists to deliver aid by sea.
In 2010, nine activists were killed after Israeli soldiers boarded a flotilla of six ships manned by 700 pro-Palestinian activists from 50 countries.
In June this year, Israeli naval forces detained Thunberg and 11 crew members from a small ship organized by a pro-Palestinian group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition as they approached Gaza.
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FBI Cuts Ties With Anti-Defamation League, FBI Director Says
FBI Director Kash Patel attends the signing of an executive order by US President Donald Trump on a deal that would divest TikTok’s US operations from ByteDance from its Chinese owner ByteDance, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The FBI said on Wednesday it had cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish group that tracks antisemitism, after Republicans criticized the group for including slain activist Charlie Kirk’s organization in a glossary on extremism.
In a social media post, FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau “won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”
The ADL did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear what sort of ties the FBI had with the ADL.
Patel’s announcement followed criticism of the ADL by right-wing activists and leaders, including billionaire Elon Musk, over its inclusion of Kirk’s Turning Point USA in a “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” on its website. Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in September.
After that criticism, the ADL removed the entire glossary from its website. The glossary had said that Turning Point USA had a history of “bigoted statements,” a charge the group rejects.