Apologies in advance to readers who tell me that they wish I wouldn’t write about political and social issues. I’ll be back with lighter and brighter fare later this week.
Antisemitism Is Spreading Everywhere… and It’s Getting Deadly
I’m writing this on Friday, October 3. Two days earlier, I wrote the following in my Journal, in anticipation of writing a longish essay about the state of antisemitism today:
I’m very concerned about what is undeniably a new strain of antisemitism that seems to have broken out. It is a virulent and contagious strain of Jew-Hate that has been growing steadily since the subhuman attack and slaughter of peaceful and defenseless Israeli Jews by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.
It is deeply infested in the US, Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and in virtually every Liberal and Leftist political party in the Free World. It is deeply infested in universities, trade unions, teachers’ unions, and even environmental and civil-rights groups. It’s spread throughout Hollywood and the Arts. It’s the default interpretation for the mainstream media for any and all news about Israel. And it is expressing itself in violent protests and what seems to be murder.
While the blood of the slaughtered was still warm on Oct. 8, we witnessed a shocking, worldwide expression of support for the inhuman butchers who engineered and carried out that massacre. Back then, the rhetoric was about open-air prisons and freedom fighters, proportionality and Islamophobia. Now it’s about the objectification and demonization not just of Israel, but of Jews. All Jews.
Genocide is a word that these groups have selected to mischaracterize Israel’s war with Hamas – although nothing could be farther from the truth. But the current environment feels like a petri dish for some form of semi-passive global genocide against the Jews.
I know that this sounds extreme. And I know that many who read this will dismiss it as a hysterical delusion. But based on what I’ve experienced personally, in conversations with economists, authors, college professors, business leaders, and even Libertarian thinkers, I am losing hope that all this hatred and resentment will soon go away.
My leftist and liberal friends (including leftist and liberal Jews) will object to my worries. They will assure me that this is all Netanyahu’s fault, and that once the Palestinians have their own state, the trouble will go away. (They forget – or maybe they don’t know – that in 2005, in an effort to appease its Arab enemies, Israel ceded the Gaza Strip to the Muslims that lived there and forced the Jews living there to clear out.)
Manchester England: Two Killed, Three Hospitalized
Last week, in Manchester, England, a man named Jihad al-Shamie attacked people outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Two were killed. Another three were hospitalized.
Writing about the incident in The Free Press, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore said this:
This was the inevitable result of two wild years of anti-Jewish racism and radicalism, dehumanizing anti-Jewish slogans and images, blood libels, support for terror, calls to “globalize the intifada” and “decolonize Israel now,” unleashed on the streets and in the media.
These were barely policed by policemen who stood by; nor by politicians who swung between crowd-pleasing Manichaean hyperbole and sensible, balanced reassurance; nor by the television anchors who disgraced the noble vocation of journalism with irresponsible exaggerations and mistakes that were never corrected; nor by the National Health Service doctors openly keening to kill Jews who are still working in hospitals, despite condemnations from Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting.
This is a country where British citizens are arrested for praying quietly in front of an abortion clinic or a woman standing quietly with a sign in front of a hospital. And where people are thrown in jail for criticizing ten years of unpoliced rape of young British girls by Pakistani Muslim men, and others are put in jail for protesting the murders of innocent children.
And get this: When he carried out the attack, al-Shamie was on bail for an alleged rape.
The Free Press continues:
So today we want to explain how we arrived here and where Britain might go next.
We begin with an eyewitness account of the atrocity, courtesy of a team of reporters at The Mill, a start-up local newspaper in Manchester. They describe the awful events that made this Yom Kippur “the darkest of days” for the city’s 300-year-old Jewish community. Read their report here.
This attack did not happen in a vacuum. It happened, writes Ayaan Hirsi Ali, because Britain has been subverted. By that she means that the country has been transformed from within. “To look at Britain today is to see subversion in action,” she writes. “The lesson of Manchester is stark. When we appease, the subversion grows. And with it comes terror.” Why has Britain allowed this to happen? And what can be done to fix it? Read her essay here to find out.
Simon Sebag Montefiore says that the intifada has come to the UK. And the scale of the problem was made clear not just by the terror attack yesterday morning, but also by what he calls the “bloodthirsty fiestas” that followed in the streets of London and Manchester. Britain, he writes, “tossed helplessly on a storm partly of its own making.” Can its leaders steady the ship?
Israel, Iran, and American Power
I saw these two pieces just before I put this issue to bed – and they’re quite good.
The first one is a debate between David Smith and Coleman Hughes in which Smith brings up one of the most disturbing left-wing narratives about Israel.
The second one is a written response from Coleman Hughes.
Six Facts about Antisemitism in the US Today
1. Roughly seven in 10 (69%) Jewish adults report experiencing antisemitism online or on social media – including those who say they have been personally targeted and those who say they have seen or heard antisemitic incidents. This increases to 8 in 10 (83%) among young Jewish adults.
2. While far-right and White supremacist hate remains a very serious threat in the United States, more American Jews say the extreme political left is a very serious antisemitic threat compared to 2021. “The vitriol coming from the progressive left, which I once identified as my community, has been truly shocking,” said one respondent, a Jewish woman from the South. “At this point, there isn’t really a space in which it feels safe to say the words ‘I’m Jewish.’”
3. Roughly half (48%) of US Jewish college students say that they have felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because they are Jewish; avoided wearing, carrying, or displaying things that could identify them as Jewish; or avoided expressing views on Israel on campus or with classmates because of fears of antisemitism.
4. Half (50%) of American Jewish college students say they noticed anti-Israel protests or demonstrations, and about 4 in 10 (42%) noticed pro-Palestinian encampments. For those who had noticed demonstrations, roughly half (51%) said those demonstrations made them feel very (25%) or somewhat (26%) unsafe.
5. 81% of American Jews said that caring about Israel is very (51%) or somewhat (30%) important to what being Jewish means to them.
6. 85% of American Jews and the US general public believe that the statement “Israel has no right to exist” is antisemitic.
(Source: American Jewish Committee Report, Feb. 12, 2025)
One Man’s Story: “I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus”
When Max Long graduated from high school in Boston in 2015, he made Aliyah (emigrated to Israel) and joined the Israeli Defense Forces – granting him a front-row seat to the existential threats facing the Jewish state. He anticipated dangers as a soldier. He did not expect to face danger as an American Jewish college student.
On Rosh Hashanah in 2024, Long prepared a plate of apples and honey and stood on the edge of campus with a sign inviting people to hear his perspective as an IDF soldier – a routine he continued every Wednesday for a month.
“I had seen there’s a whole lack of representation on campus of our narrative,” said Long, 27, a part-time student at DePaul University in Chicago who had walked by encampments daily and decided to make himself available to answer questions. “What really enraged me to go out there was seeing a rally for the martyrs with pictures of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.”
But on Nov. 6, 2024, he said two masked men approached him on the edge of his Chicago college campus, where he had been inviting passersby to ask him questions. One approached him from the front, shook his hand, and asked questions for a couple minutes. The other, he said, approached from behind and knocked him unconscious.
Between 2015 and 2018, he and his fellow IDF soldiers had worked to uncover cross-border terror tunnels between Israel and Gaza. When his active duty was complete, he launched Growing Wings Foundation, a nonprofit to link lone soldiers like himself to the community support they would need.
He made plans to return to the US to attend college in 2023, but after Oct. 7, he was immediately called up from the reserves and sent back to Gaza where he helped recover hostages’ bodies from the tunnels.
After that tour of duty, he picked up where he left off and enrolled in classes for the spring of 2024.
“I had seen so much to not go out and share that reality,” he said. “For me to live in the US, I cannot live in silence and in secret, especially on my own college campus.”
For three hours, Long stood just outside the campus entrance answering questions, sharing his story and fielding a fair share of harassment and hateful rhetoric.
“That’s how I realized how deep-rooted this antisemitism is,” he said.
The day after he was attacked and the suspects escaped, students staged a sit-in inside the school library holding “Wanted” flyers featuring Long’s face, not the assailants.
He has not returned to campus for class since. He attends class remotely.
“Knowing I have a team around me that’s got my back, I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus,” Long said. “Now that my face is out there, it’s worrying. Who will be the lunatic who wants to be a hero by taking me out?”
(Source: The Free Press)
Why Did Candace Owens Become an Antisemite?
This is the first time I’ve been acquainted with Tovia Singer. The guy is very impressive. Click here.
Rob Rinder: “Countless examples of antisemitism in 2025”
TV personality Rob Rinder talks to Sky’s Sarah-Jane Mee about the “spike in antisemitic hate online,” as he reflects on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. Click here.