Antisemitic incidents doubled globally in 2023, as worsening anti-Jewish sentiment surged after the October 7 Hamas terror massacre of 1,200 Israelis. According to a joint report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Tel Aviv University (TAU), the United States set a national record for the most antisemitic incidents in a year, with more than 3,700 occurrences in the final three months of the year alone—nearly a fourfold increase over the same period in 2023.
For the whole year, France saw incidents nearly quadruple in 2023 over 2022—to more than 1,600 in total—while the United Kingdom saw a year-over-year increase of almost 2,500 incidents. Even Germany saw a spike of more than 900 incidents from 2023 versus 2022. According to TAU Professor Uriya Shavit, the current state of antisemitism may not yet be at levels seen in the years leading up the Holocaust, but it is threatening the very existence of Jewish life in the West.
“The year is not 1938, not even 1933. Yet if current trends continue, the curtain will descend on the ability to lead Jewish lives in the West—to wear a Star of David, attend synagogues and community centers, send kids to Jewish schools, frequent a Jewish club on campus, or speak Hebrew,” Shavit, the Head of The Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the Irwin Cotler Institute, said in the press release on the report.
“With bomb threats against synagogues becoming a daily occurrence, Jewish existence in the West is forced to fortify itself, and the more it does so, the more the sense of security and normalcy is undermined.”
The 148-page ADL-TAU report comes as antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel protests are booming at university campuses across the US and spreading globally in the face of Israel’s war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. However, the report underlined that antisemitism was already rising even before October 7. The press release said the report “urged against seeing the recent wave of antisemitism as an emotional response to the war. Some antisemitic attackers emphasize their problem is with Israel, not with Jews, and then attack Jews and Jewish institutions.”
Regardless of the motivation or target, antisemitism has erupted post-October 7. ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said in the press release, “The aftermath of Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel on October 7th was followed by a tsunami of hate against Jewish communities worldwide.
“Unprecedented levels of antisemitism have surged globally in the streets of London, New York, Paris, Santiago, Johannesburg and beyond. This year’s report is incredibly alarming, with documented unprecedented levels of antisemitism.”
Furthermore, the threat goes even beyond global Jewry. “The explosion of antisemitism is a threat not only to Jews, but is toxic to our democracies, an assault on our common humanity, and a standing threat to human security—in a word, the bloodied canary in the mineshaft of global evil,” former Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Irwin Cotler was quoted as saying in the press release.
In the report, Cotler provided an 11-point pathway to address the antisemitic nightmare, including recommendations for governments to implement a national plan to combat antisemitism, broader education on antisemitism and the Holocaust, and celebrating the positive impact of Jewish people. Said Cotler of antisemitism, “Jews alone cannot combat it, let alone defeat it. What is required is a constituency of conscience—a whole of government, whole of society commitment and action to fight this oldest and most lethal of hatreds.”
In the press release, Prof. Shavit called for more to be done to combat antisemitism as well, in particular saying, “The reality in which big companies make big money by spreading big hate has to end.” Said Prof. Shavit, “One of the biggest challenges of our time is how to mobilize support for the fight against antisemitism without making it the definer of Jewish identity.”
Tragically, Jewish history is riddled with surges in antisemitism and unimaginable acts by individuals and governments who carried out that hate. That history, with 2023 in the recent rearview, troubles Greenblatt. He points out in the report that October 7 “amplified” antisemitic sentiments, including anti-Zionism—the denial of Jews’ right to self-determination in their own homeland.
As he wrote in the report, “Antisemitism isn’t just an abstract issue. It is a real-life threat to Jewish life in America and Jews around the world, and our history teaches us that we do not have the luxury to be indifferent when moments like these occur. That means we need to be clear-eyed about the threats we face and have the determination to confront them.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, May 5, 2024)