Particularly under Emperor Joseph II, Jews acquired more rights, such as those to practice crafts, own land, and operate their own cemeteries.

Shortly following Belgian independence, in 1831, Judaism was recognized as an official religion (besides Roman Catholicism, the country's majority faith, and Protestantism).

Prior to the Second World War, and its peak, the Jewish community of Belgium consisted of roughly 70,000 Jews (35,000 resided in Antwerp and 25,000 in Brussels).

Approximately 45% of the Belgian Jews (25.484 people) were deported to concentration camps from Dossin Barracks in Mechelen, primarily to Auschwitz.

[8] In October 2013, Isi Leibler, the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, reported on the alarming increase in the levels of antisemitism in Belgium.

10% of the Belgian survey respondents reported suffering from incidents of physical violence or threats due to their Jewish affiliation since 2008.

[10] The increased frequency of antisemitic attacks started in May 2014, when a Franco-Algerian from Roubaix killed four people in a shooting at the Belgian Jewish Museum in Brussels.

[11] Two days later, a young Muslim man entered the CCU (Jewish Cultural Center) while an event was taking place and shouted racist slurs.

[14] The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism reported six racist incidents, three of which tool place as a part of different demonstrations against Operation Protective Edge in Gaza (July–August 2014).

[17][18] In a report to UNESCO following a complaint by the Forum der Joodse Organisaties [nl], Unia, the country's watchdog on racism, said the float was of a clearly antisemitic kind, but that no laws were breached.

[20] An ADL (Anti-Defamation League) audit published in June 2015 revealed an increase in level of concern about violence against Jews in Belgium.

In a follow-up survey 53% of the respondents agreed with the statement: "Violence against Jews is a symptom of deep anti-Jewish feelings among some people in my country".

In all eleven categories included in the research, the Muslim population reached higher levels of agreement with anti-Jewish stereotypes.

The finding of the file presents a persistent increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in Belgium through the last ten years.