Modern antisemitism is no longer just making headlines; it is claiming lives.
The numbers are staggering. A new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), examining the seven countries with the world’s largest Jewish communities—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Argentina and Australia—found that 2025 was the deadliest year for Jews since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Twenty Jews were murdered. More than 23,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded, a 136% increase over the previous year, while violent assaults—including beatings, stabbings and shootings—rose by 97%.
Is anyone really surprised?
Antisemitism has become part of everyday life. It is heard in restaurants and classrooms, in the casual ignorance repeated around dinner tables, in the relentless misinformation about Israel on television and in the cynical calculations of politicians chasing votes.
Even Ireland, whose Jewish population numbers only about 2,200, recorded 143 antisemitic incidents in the first six months of the year alone.
And as always, the blame is placed on the Jews.
The accusation itself has changed little over the decades. Joseph Goebbels insisted that Jews sought to destroy Germany. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, broadcasting from Nazi Germany, declared that “the Zionists want to destroy the Arabs.” Yesterday, Jews were accused of conspiring against nations. Today, Zionism is criminalized, and through that criminalization Jews themselves become legitimate targets.
Under Israel’s blue-and-white flag they are portrayed as imperialists, colonialists, racists and exploiters—the same ancient hatred dressed in contemporary political language.
The ADL identifies two principal drivers of this escalation.
The first is the normalization of anti-Jewish hatred in public discourse. Schoolchildren are encouraged to celebrate anti-Israel activism, while public figures and television commentators casually repeat accusations of “genocide,” “colonialism,” “militarism” and “occupation.” These slogans have become entertainment. They attract ratings. They shape public opinion.
The second is the growing influence of Islamist extremism.
Germany recorded 8,725 antisemitic incidents—70 for every thousand Jews. The United States reported more than 6,200 incidents. Australia experienced a staggering 246% increase and the highest number of Jewish fatalities among the countries surveyed.
Italy, although not included in the ADL’s J7 analysis, recorded 963 antisemitic incidents in 2025, compared with 241 just three years earlier.
Jihadism openly seeks the destruction of Israel and, ultimately, the democratic West itself. Yet too many Western societies refuse to recognize that they are already confronting a war against their own values, even as terrorists drive vehicles into crowds while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
This campaign extends far beyond physical violence. It is waged through money, propaganda, social media, images, historical revisionism and cultural intimidation. It invents a colonial history that never existed while demanding the erasure of Western history itself.
The ADL report confirms what many Jews already know from experience: today’s antisemitism kills—not only in Israel but throughout the Diaspora.
Its pattern is disturbingly familiar.
As in the darkest chapters of the 20th century, exclusion from public life precedes violence. Jewish professors and students increasingly face harassment and isolation on university campuses. Jewish intellectuals are marginalized. Books are rejected. Art is excluded. Familiar products are rebranded for political purposes. Victor Klemperer described similar social transformations in Germany in 1933, when everyday language itself became an instrument of persecution.
Today, many Jews think twice before wearing a kippah, displaying a Star of David, boarding a plane or simply revealing who they are.
Yet there is another image that deserves equal attention.
This week in Washington, President Donald Trump hosted two Jewish leaders who, regardless of whether one agrees with their politics, embody a historic transformation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat together as leaders engaged in existential struggles for the survival of their nations. Each, in his own way, represents resistance against aggression and authoritarianism. Their meeting symbolized something that previous generations of Jews could scarcely have imagined.
The Jewish people are no longer defined by helplessness.
The era of Jews being led silently to slaughter is over.
