Severe antisemitic violence in Western countries surged in 2025, with 20 Jews murdered in four attacks across three continents, the highest such toll in more than 30 years, a Tel Aviv University report finds.
The annual antisemitism study, released on Monday by the university’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the Irwin Cotler Institute, reports sharp increases in physical assaults in many countries and says overall incident levels remain far above pre-Gaza war figures despite some localized declines.
The report cites particularly alarming data from Australia and Canada, where total incident numbers hit record highs, and notes that the end of the war in Gaza coincided with fresh spikes in incidents in Britain and New York.
Editors of the 152-page survey sharply criticize the Israeli government, alleging it “contributed nothing” to the fight against antisemitism, diluted the term through political overuse. The authors called for the ministry tasked with combating antisemitism to be dismantled and its functions shifted to Israeli embassies and consulates.
A first-of-its-kind study within the report concludes that many perpetrators of antisemitic attacks in the United States, France, Canada and Britain between 2020 and 2025 acted as “lone wolves” from white supremacist or anti-Zionist Muslim milieus, complicating prevention efforts.
“The data raise concern that a high level of antisemitic incidents is becoming a normalized reality. The peak in the number of incidents was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, [2023], attack, after which we began to see a downward trend—but unfortunately, that trend did not continue in 2025,” said Professor Uriya Shavit, the report’s editor-in-chief. “The steep increase in the number of cases of severe violence is not surprising. The rule that applies to all types of crime applies here as well: when law-enforcement authorities are indifferent to small crimes, the result is big crimes.”
