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Antisemites Worldwide Grow More Brazen in Public and Online Attacks
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Hatred against Jews has moved from hateful words into violent action – in the U.S. and around the world – where Jews are blamed for everything from genocide to the weather.
Antisemites killed more Jews outside of Israel last year than in any year since the 1994 Jewish community center bombing in Argentina, including 15 at a Hanukah celebration on Bondi Beach, a grandmother in a firebombing in Colorado and two Israeli embassy staffers – one American – in Washington, D.C. In the U.S. the statistics are just as alarming.
Hate Against Jews Has No Borders
The J7 – the Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism – recently released its annual report documenting more than 23,000 antisemitic incidents in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. More than 90% of diaspora Jews live in these countries. Total incidents were up 136% and violent incidents were up 97% from 2022 – the year before the Oct. 7 massacres.
The NY Police Department’s latest statistics on the rise of hatred against Jews are also cause for alarm. Jews were the target of 57% of confirmed hate crimes in 2026 while representing roughly 10% of the city’s population.
What was termed a surge of hate after Oct. 7 has become the new baseline – American Jews were targeted an average of 17 times a day last year. A senior ADL director stated: “If governments let antisemitism take root, the violence won’t stop with Jewish communities. History shows Jews are the canary in the coal mine: when hatred against Jews rises unchecked, it’s an early warning that everyone’s safety and rights are at risk.”
‘A Jewish Place of Worship’
A man in Sarasota, FL, recently smashed a Chabad synagogue’s window with a brick. Police reported that the suspect chose his target “because it was a Jewish place of worship” after he saw propaganda on social media that morning that made him angry. Chabad Rabbi Levi Steinmetz responded: “We refuse to allow fear to dictate our future. We will continue to be an open and welcoming home for Jewish life.”
The desecration reaches even congregations that are still rebuilding from tragedy. In CA, vandals sprayed swastikas and “Zionism is not welcome” graffiti across a mural at the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center on the only wall left standing after last year’s wildfires. Melissa Levy, the synagogue’s executive director, asked: “Why would you do that at an American synagogue that burned down in a fire, that has done nothing but try to lift up after tragedy?” It was the second time the site had been defaced.
The hostility towards Jews shapeshifts into different forms. Jewish authors are finding it increasingly difficult to find publishers or host book launch events. Novelist Meg Keene was told by a literary agent to “remove all Jewish content in the book that didn’t directly drive the plot and to change the name of a character named Yael because it’s Israeli.” Jewish authors are launching their own publishing houses in response to an 82% decline in publishing of Jewish fiction.
A Global Blame Campaign Against Jews Accelerates
Spain recently deployed troops after about 60,000 migrants surged across border from Morocco into the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the North African coast. Many causes for the migrant upsurge were cited amid strained relations with Morocco and years of pressure on Europe’s asylum system. None of that mattered – the Jews were still blamed.
The accusation crossed every political line on social media. Far-left, far-right and radical Islamist accounts posted nearly identical claims about the same incident. The Combat Antisemitism Movement analyzed tracked how quickly popular influencer accounts reframed a European border emergency as a Jewish plot:
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‘Jews Aren’t Allowed Here’
A father took his children to La Fontaine Park in Montreal. When a woman walked her two dogs into the children’s playground and frightened his kids, he pointed to a sign banning dogs. She responded that “Jews aren’t allowed here,” demanded to know where his family lives and told him, “your kids are f*cked up.” Also in Montreal, surveillance video recently caught a man setting fire to one of the city’s most popular kosher restaurants. Police are investigating the blaze as possible arson – leaving the city’s Jews further on edge. In Canada, where Jews are only roughly 1% of the population, they are the target of 71% of religious hate crimes.
Being recognizably Jewish in public has become risky. Antisemites targeted an Israeli family on vacation in Naples, Italy. At their hotel, a bartender said, “Jews stop bothering us,” and a waitress segregated them into another room: “Jews not here. Get up. You have a private room.” When a mall employee heard the adult children speaking Hebrew, he screamed “Free Palestine, Heil Hitler” and performed the Nazi salute. In Berlin, a Jew was threatened with the same salute and a mob in Greece chased Israeli tourists, shouting “F*ck Israel, Free Palestine.”
Hatred of Jews even leads to defiling the monuments of Jewish history. In Cordoba, Spain, vandals painted a swastika on a statue of Maimonides in the Jewish Quarter where the medieval scholar and physician was born. The Barcelona Jewish Community responded that “Maimónides belongs to the intellectual heritage of all humanity.”
‘Jewish Schools as Secure as the NSA’
The J7 task force demanded that “governments must stop reacting after Jews are attacked and start acting before – with real security funding, stronger laws and social media platforms that enforce their own rules.”
In Congress, the bipartisan Right to Worship Act would establish a 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship of every faith – largely a response to violent attacks at synagogues. In CA, a U.S. district judge recently upheld a new state law meant to address the “widespread surge in antisemitic discrimination, harassment and bullying” in K-12 schools.
Others are paying for the guards at the door. Britain announced a record increase in funding for Jewish community policing to about $330 million – a third of it to be spent recruiting 300 additional officers to police Jewish neighborhoods, synagogues, schools and community centers. A government minister said security at Jewish schools now rivals the British equivalent of the National Security Agency.
In Spain, where Maimonides and his family fled persecution more than 800 years ago, the city of Alcobendas recently adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism – joining the more than 1,300 governments, organizations and businesses that have already accepted it.
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1. When something goes wrong, someone blames the Jews
A border crisis in Spain had public, documented causes. Within hours, far-left, far-right and radical Islamist accounts had all reached the same conclusion: the Jews did it. The incident is recent, but the pattern is ancient. Jews were accused of poisoning wells during the Black Death, of murdering children for ritual purposes and of secretly controlling governments and banks. The details change with the century, but the accusation does not. Blaming Jews for disasters is not political analysis – it is the oldest conspiracy theory in the world.
2. Hatred of Jews never stops with the Jews
Five Toronto police officers were disciplined for celebrating the Oct. 7 massacre on their own department’s podcast – a police force that glorifies terrorism cannot protect anyone. Publishers who exclude Jewish characters from novels and bookstores that cancel Jewish authors prove that pressure campaigns work – and the next campaign will come for someone else. Societies that turn on their Jews do not stop there. Jews are the first target, rarely the last one.
3. Jewish resilience and shared purpose are the way to fight back
Despite rising hostility, many Jews are responding with renewed pride – wearing visible symbols of their Jewish identity and deepening ties to Jewish communal life. Jewish day school enrollment across North America has climbed 7.5% in five years to more than 101,000 students, rising across every denomination. Many factors are contributing to the increase, including antisemitism after Oct. 7 – but also “wanting to be more connected to the Jewish community.” When Jews are safe and confident, democracy is stronger. These acts of courage and connection show that identity, unity and moral clarity remain stronger than hate.
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Contemporary Jew Hatred: A Structural Analysis and Personal Reflections
Emory Univ. Prof. Deborah Lipstadt served in the Biden admin. as the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. She recently delivered the keynote speech at the Contemporary Antisemitism Conference at Israel’s Univ. of Haifa
“Jew hatred is being used not just to wreak havoc with Jewish life, but to erode that democracy and create doubts about its long-term viability. The onus is on society at large. If it fails to comprehend that it, too, is in the crosshairs and that it must commit itself to responding forcefully and unequivocally, then pessimism will be more than justified. For the sake of democracy’s survival, those who treasure it cannot afford to look away from the scourge of antisemitism.
“The views of political activists on the far right and the far left coincide and they are bound together by this shared hatred. The third and increasingly most dominant force in the spread of Jew hatred is Islamist jihadism. On campus classrooms and the quad, at protest marches in Sydney and in London, and a myriad of other settings, Islamist extremism has been a galvanizing force in the spread of overt and often deadly Jew hatred. It poses an existential threat to Jewish physical and communal survival.
“More than just a common cause, the far right, far left, and Islamists have built a coalition in which this cross-ideological antisemitism becomes the unifier, the glue that holds these ideological opposites together. Also, Foreign Malign Influences working through proxies, social media bots, and direct contacts instigate, magnify, and promote Jew hatred and antizionism, spreading antisemitic disinformation.
“There’s a double tragedy here. Not only do these Islamist radicals target Jews and Jewish institutions, but they also target their fellow Muslims, including minority Muslim sects, Muslim liberals, and Muslim women and girls who refuse to comply with their Islamist religious precepts. These, too, are in their crosshairs. We are, to use a contemporary term, throwing moderate Muslims under the bus.”
Excerpts from The Atlanta Jewish Times article on her speech.
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- Speak up with integrity: Challenge extremist rhetoric from all sides, including within your own circles. Silence or selective outrage lets hate grow unchecked. Tell elected leaders to unequivocally condemn all hate regardless of its source.
- Engage beyond politics: Build relationships with faith, civic and campus partners that value safety and mutual respect over ideology – and demand elected officials to do the same. Treat anti-Jewish hatred as a moral issue, not a partisan one.
- Model unity: When hate targets any group, stand visibly with those affected. Moral consistency restores trust and reflects the best of American civic life.
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Stories of Resilience
Stories Impacting American Jews
Stories Impacting the U.S. and Israel
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The Focus Project develops and distributes news, background, history and weekly talking points on timely issues to inform individuals and organizations about issues affecting the American Jewish community and Israel, and help readers speak with more consistency and clarity. The editions also provide potential responses for addressing incidents of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. With input from a spectrum of major American Jewish organizations, we focus on that which unites us, rising above political and individual agendas.
Recognizing that hatred of Jews comes in many forms and directions, we strive to address all sources as they arise, and educate our growing audience on topics ranging from inter-religious relations to relevant international developments. From week to week, we may focus on issues arising from the political left, university campuses, from the political right and from institutions, government, and corporations. We don’t try to address all issues in each edition. We hope you will find this information useful in your writing and/or speaking. We are always open to your feedback: info@focus-project.org.
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