The rise in anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terrorist massacre in Israel has paved the way for attacks on Jewish communities around the world. Over the past year, schools, community centers and houses of worship have faced threats, intimidation and physical violence.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, told Fox News Digital that through 2024, the “perceived level of security” with which the American Jewish community lives has changed. “It’s hard, when you have a place you call home, and suddenly you don’t feel like home.” Hauer said that while an atmosphere of “progressive anti-Semitism” has become “an accepted part of daily life” in America, the issue is “still seen as a problem for Jewish people, not society.” But as a stain.”
The suddenness of the change has been surprising, Hauer said. “It was like we were the source of darkness,” he explained. “The people whose needs we stood shoulder to shoulder to fight for their rights suddenly don’t recognize us, so that’s troubling.”
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Anti-Jewish hatred was demonstrated at an anti-Israel demonstration in London. Anti-Semitism in Britain has reached record levels since the Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October. (Campaign against anti-Semitism on X)
The Anti-Defamation League counted more than 10,000 anti-Semitic incidents between October 7, 2023, and October 6, 2024, up from 3,325 during the previous year and representing the highest annual total counted by the group. These included more than 8,000 incidents of harassment, 150 physical attacks and 1,840 incidents of vandalism. Combined, more than half of these incidents occurred at anti-Israel rallies (over 3,000) or at Jewish institutions (over 2,000).
Some politicians and the United Nations (UN) have promoted domestic anti-Israel hatred. In January, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza without calling for Hamas’ disarmament, which was widely condemned by Jewish community leaders.
Despite many US officials and the State Department condemning the spread of anti-Semitism, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Envoy to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, visited several US campuses in October while presenting her latest report before the UN General Assembly . During a stop at Barnard College, Albanese “described Israel’s war in Gaza as ‘genocide,’ justified the October 7 attack, and questioned Israel’s right to exist,” The Times of Israel reported.
The victim, described by the Jewish United Fund as a “member of the Jewish community”, was shot in the shoulder in Chicago in an anti-Semitic hate crime. (Fox 32 Chicago)
The hatred on university campuses took a new form when anti-Israel factions emerged in educational institutions across the country during the spring. During some encampment protests, Jewish students were excluded from their own campus spaces.
Terrorist flags have been raised on American streets and campuses during anti-Israel protests. School administrators and business leaders who have angered anti-Israel protesters have tagged their homes and institutions with the inverted red triangle that Hamas uses to denote military targets. In July, protesters replaced the American flag with a Palestinian flag in Washington, DC, and scrawled “Hamas is coming” on a statue of Christopher Columbus.
In September, an ISIS-inspired attack on a Jewish community was foiled by Canadian and US authorities. On October 26, a Moroccan national who entered the country illegally in March 2023 shot a Jewish worshiper in Chicago before engaging in a shootout with responding police and paramedics. Chicago leaders waited five days before confirming the religious identity of the suspect’s target and noting that the shooter had intentionally targeted the Jewish community.
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Jewish students from El Camino Real Charter High School walk out in protest of anti-Semitic incidents at Woodland Hills School, California, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Sarah Reinzwirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and founder of The Lawfare Project, addressed the motivation for the climate of intolerance, telling Fox News Digital that “President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Democratic leaders in big cities across the country are taking action to crack down on Jews.” Have failed.” Hated because it is politically inconvenient for them to enforce the civil rights of Jewish Americans and ensure public safety.”
He said that “For years, the progressive left has ignored the Jew-hatred coming from within itself, they have chosen to ignore the reality that Jewish people are a minority, that people still have to defend their legal protections in the face of Marxist-oriented There is a great need.” and Islamist-inspired attacks on their identity, indigenous rights to their ancestral homelands, and their ability to enjoy equal protection under the law, given their support for social justice for all people, by being called out for their hypocrisy. Jews minimize identity to survive. Jews other than Jews – and even refrain from characterizing attacks against Jews as hate crimes, especially when the attackers are members of other minority communities.”
An anti-Israel sign with the phrase “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” at a protest near Tulane University in New Orleans. The phrase has been criticized as a call for the destruction of Israel. (Credit: Ryan Zamos)
worldwide hatred
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Fox News Digital that he thinks the world is “at a turning point” where anti-Semitic intolerance is concerned. With popular social media influencers “normalizing” hatred toward Israel, national leaders around the world are escalating anti-Israel rhetoric and extremists “are not realizing that when they target the Jewish community They will be held accountable”, Rabbi Cooper said, calling it “a perfect storm.”
In Europe, there is an 800% increase in anti-Semitic hate incidents seen in Sweden between 2022 and 2023. Jews across Europe have reported that they no longer wear items that identify their religion and have sometimes changed their names to avoid being targeted. In France, Jews applying for immigration to Israel are expected to increase by 430% from 2022 to 2023.
Although Ireland has a small Jewish population, it has seen an increase in anti-Semitism and Jewish self-censorship. In December, Israel announced it would close its embassy in the country, citing Irish leaders’ “delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state.”
The United Kingdom has also seen a large increase in anti-Semitic hatred, with the Community Safety Trust reporting a record 1,978 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2024. This includes a 246% increase in “damage and desecration of Jewish property” between the first six. months of 2023 and the first six months of 2024. The Israeli minister for migrant affairs and combating anti-Semitism said in March that due to its pro-Hamas atmosphere, London had become the “most anti-Semitic city” in the world.
In late November, a bus carrying Jewish schoolchildren was attacked with stones after protesters harassed those on board. A few days earlier, a man threw bottles at a group of Jewish teenagers, injuring one of them and being hospitalized.
The headlines of hatred towards the Jewish community abroad have been terrifying. In June, a 12-year-old Jewish girl in France was raped by two teenagers because of her religion. In November, the body of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan was found dead in the United Arab Emirates after disappearing from his Abu Dhabi home.
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At York University in Canada, anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled in a classroom on October 26, 2023. (Courtesy of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus)
More than nine synagogues around the world have been the target of arson attacks since October 7, according to social media posts by Hen Mazig, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. The latest attack took place on December 18 at a synagogue in Montreal, which was also targeted in November 2023, the New York Post reports. Just two days later, shots were fired overnight at a Jewish elementary school in Toronto. According to the Times of Israel, it was the third shooting at the school since May.
Another recent arson attack occurred on December 6 at a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia. The Simon Wiesenthal Center responded to the incident by issuing a travel advisory for Australia, stating that the country’s leaders have failed to stand up against “persistent demonization”. Persecution and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions.”
A member of the Jewish community recovers an object from the Adas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia on December 6, 2024. An arson attack on the Adas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Friday morning forced congregants to flee as the building was engulfed in flames. (I’m not afraid/Getty Images)
Just a month earlier, the Simon Wiesenthal Center had issued similar advice for the Netherlands after a “Jew hunt” following a football match, in which Jewish fans in the city were tracked down and attacked. This incident led to another attempt at “Jew hunting” in Antwerp and an attack on a Berlin youth football team.
When Cooper’s group put a travel advisory on the Netherlands, he told Fox News Digital that “theoretically, you could put a travel advisory on almost everywhere in Western Europe.”
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Anti-Israel protesters hold banners and chant slogans at a protest in London on December 9, 2023. (Photo by Andy Solomon/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In America, as anti-Semitic intolerance is infiltrating elite universities, workplaces, the medical community, and the entertainment industry, Rabbi Cooper summarized that “the challenges ahead are going to be quite difficult.” He also said he has hope because of the resilience of the Jewish community and the security provided by American democracy.
Cooper said many of the appointees from President Trump’s incoming administration, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, the incoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, “are defenders of our community.” As they begin implementing the new policies, he said he believes “a lot of good things can happen very quickly.”
