The alarming rise of antisemitism around the world tells us something profoundly disturbing: our societies are becoming ill.
Antisemitism is hostility, prejudice, discrimination, or violence directed against Jews because they are Jewish. It is neither a new phenomenon nor a problem confined to one country, one political movement, or one generation. It is an ancient hatred that has repeatedly resurfaced throughout history, often with devastating consequences.
The word antisemitism was coined in Europe in the late 19th century, but the hatred it describes goes back to antiquity. The persecution of Jews has taken many forms, from religious discrimination and forced segregation to pogroms, expulsions, conspiracy theories, and ultimately genocide.
One significant historical milestone occurred on March 29, 1516, when the Senate of the Most Serene Republic of Venice issued a decree confining the city’s Jewish residents to a designated, segregated enclosure. This became known as the Venetian Ghetto, recognized as Europe’s first formal Jewish ghetto. It was a stark example of institutionalized discrimination and the exclusion of Jews from the broader society.
The history of antisemitism is not limited to Europe. Jewish communities in Algeria, Libya, and other countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa experienced persecution, discrimination, violence, and displacement. In Algeria, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population left following independence in 1962. In Libya, Jewish communities endured pogroms and severe discrimination, leading to the eventual disappearance of a historic Jewish presence there.
Nazi antisemitism, rooted in centuries of anti-Jewish prejudice and 19th-century racial pseudoscience, culminated in the Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million European Jews. It remains one of humanity’s most horrific lessons about what happens when hatred, dehumanization, and political extremism are allowed to become state policy.
And Yet, Here We Are Again
Antisemitism is experiencing a disturbing resurgence across the world. Jewish communities are reporting increased harassment, threats, vandalism, intimidation, and physical violence. This resurgence is fueled by a combination of far-right and far-left extremism, neo-Nazi ideologies, Islamist extremism, and anti-Semitic rhetoric in other political and social movements.
A 2024 study by the Antisemitism Research Center of the Combat Antisemitism Movement recorded 6,326 incidents worldwide, representing a 107.7% increase over its 2023 total. According to that organization’s classification, 68.4% of the incidents were linked to far-left ideology. Islamist-linked incidents increased by 44.3%. These figures reflect that organization’s monitoring and classification methodology, but they underscore the scale of the concern.
The concern is not merely statistical. A 2025 global survey conducted through the Voice of the People initiative, involving more than 10,000 Jewish respondents in over a dozen countries, found that 76% considered rising antisemitism their most pressing concern.
The latest J7 Annual Report on antisemitism, published in 2026, paints an equally troubling picture. Covering the seven countries with the largest Jewish communities outside Israel, it recorded more than 91,000 anti-Semitic incidents between 2021 and 2025. In 2025 alone, these countries reported 23,174 incidents. The report also documented 20 people murdered in anti-Semitic attacks in 2025.
Although reported incidents declined from their 2024 peaks in four of the seven countries, they remained significantly above pre-October 7, 2023 levels.
The countries covered include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, France, and Germany. No Jewish community can afford to believe that this problem is happening somewhere else.
The United States Is Not Immune
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 6,274 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in the United States in 2025. Although this was lower than the record-breaking 9,354 incidents in 2024, it was still the third-highest annual total in the organization’s 46-year tracking history. Physical assaults reached a record high in 2025.
Another disturbing finding comes from FBI hate-crime statistics: in 2024, 69.1% of victims of reported religion-based hate crimes were targeted because of anti-Jewish bias.
Antisemitism is also increasingly visible on American college campuses, where Jewish students have reported intimidation, harassment, exclusion, and fear. A university should be a place where ideas can be debated freely, not a place where students are made to feel unsafe because they are Jewish.
The Security Guards Necessities
Consider the reality facing Jewish communities today. Synagogues, Jewish schools, community centers, and public gatherings increasingly require security guards and protective measures. Jewish students cannot always walk together in public without fearing for their safety. In some communities, they are now accompanied by armed security guards simply to go about their daily lives.
No community should have to live this way simply to practice its religion, educate its children, or gather together.
In The Political Arena
The political arena has also become part of this difficult conversation.
The 2026 Michigan Senate election brought these tensions into sharp focus. Abdul El-Sayed, now senator-elect, faced criticism over his statements concerning Israel and his response to the March 2026 attack on Temple Israel in Michigan. He subsequently apologized for remarks that some members of the Jewish community felt had contextualized or excused the attack.
Public figures must be held accountable for their words and actions, particularly when responding to violence against Jewish communities. At the same time, criticism of Israeli government policies should not automatically be equated with antisemitism, and a person’s religious identity must never be treated as evidence of prejudice. The distinction matters, and so does the standard of unequivocally condemning violence against Jews.
The world must also recognize that antisemitism cannot be excused when it comes from a political movement or ideological group with which we happen to sympathize. There can be no selective condemnation of hatred.
We should be careful when comparing today’s America or Europe to Germany in 1938. History is never an exact repetition. Nevertheless, the lessons of that period are unmistakable: the normalization of dehumanizing rhetoric, conspiracy theories, discrimination, and public hostility toward Jews must never be ignored.
It is particularly disturbing when people excuse antisemitism because it suits their political loyalties, ideological beliefs, or grievances against Israel.
Antisemitism Is a Disease
It is a cancer that can spread through societies and destroy the institutions that hold civilized nations together.
It kills Jews, but its consequences extend far beyond Jewish communities. It weakens democracy, undermines freedom, erodes the rule of law, and threatens the fundamental principle that every individual deserves equal protection and dignity.
A society that tolerates hatred against one minority ultimately puts the freedoms of everyone at risk.
The fight against antisemitism must therefore become everyone’s responsibility. Governments must enforce existing laws and protect Jewish institutions. Universities must guarantee the safety of Jewish students. Political leaders must speak clearly and consistently against antisemitism, regardless of where it originates. Communities must confront prejudice rather than normalize it.
We must also educate future generations about Jewish history, the Holocaust, and the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
You, the reader, may be Jewish or non-Jewish. You may have strong views about Israel or the Middle East. None of that changes the central issue.
The right of Jewish people to live safely, openly, and with dignity is not a political position. It is a fundamental human right.
The rise of antisemitism is not simply a Jewish tragedy in the making. It is a warning to the entire world.
The Danger
When antisemitism spreads, it is not only Jews who are in danger. It is the moral foundation of civilization itself.
The world must wake up before history teaches us these lessons yet again.
