Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- A leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Stephan J. Kramer, said anti-Semitism is gaining ground in German society, Der Tagesspiegel reported today.

The council, which represents Germany’s more than 100,000- member Jewish community, received about 40 percent more hate e- mail a week than usual during the recent conflict in Gaza, said Kramer, as quoted in an interview with the newspaper. A tenth of the 300 weekly messages were explicit death threats directed at council members, he was cited as saying.

Kramer, who is the Central Council’s secretary general, was also quoted as saying that no members of his organization would attend today’s annual parliament session commemorating Holocaust victims on the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In past years, Kramer said, council members had been shown disrespect by not being personally greeted by leaders of the chamber.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Brett Neely in Berlin bneely3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 27, 2009 05:01 EST