German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Sunday to resolutely combat anti-Semitism, speaking at a rally to condemn a spate of hate speech and attacks against Jews in Germany during the latest Gaza conflict.

About 5,000 attended the event, held under the banner "Stand Up: Jew Hatred - Never Again!", which coincided with the first ever annual meeting of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in the German capital.

The fight against anti-Semitism is our state and civic duty," said Merkel in an address at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate, close to the city's Holocaust Memorial. "I will not accept it, and none of us here will accept it."

It comes 75 years after the outbreak of World War II, a crime that remains a source of enduring shame in the country.

Levi Salomon of the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism said that the trigger for the flare-up of anti-Semitism was the escalation in the Middle East, but the cause was the anti-Semitism that remains rooted in large parts of German society.

Merkel, in her latest weekly podcast, vowed to "personally do everything I can - as will my entire government - to ensure that anti-Semitism doesn't have a chance in our country."

But the chancellor stressed that "we've got a lot of work ahead of us."