A Jewish shop destroyed on Kristallnacht. Photo: German Federal Archive via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Although “Germany and Europe “are a much better place than they were” during the Nazi era, Israel’s neighbors today “slaughter hundreds of thousands of their own” and “we see the growing, visceral hatred of the Jewish state throughout Europe,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder wrote in an op-ed for the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

From Nov. 9-10, 1938, Nazi officials and German civilians killed more than 90 Jews and vandalizing more than 7,000 businesses. The night, which became known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” is considered a turning point of the Nazi era, foreshadowing the Holocaust atrocities to come.

According to the book “Demonizing Israel and the Jews” by Manfred Gerstenfeld, European polls indicate that today more than 150 million Europeans still hold extreme anti-Semitic or anti-Israel views. Twenty-five percent of European Jews fear wearing kippot or the Star of David in public. Eighty synagogues have been attacked in Germany alone in recent years, according to the Washington Post.

“Let’s hope the world does not wait again until it is too late to stop the calamity,” Lauder wrote.