From ancient hatred to modern violence: Antisemitism rises worldwide

The deadly attack on the first night of Hanukkah at an Australian beach is the latest in a long line of antisemitic attacks across the world. While there’s nothing new about antisemitism, numbers show it does continue to rise globally.

Antisemitism history

Antisemitic sentiments can be traced back to Biblical days, including the killing of Jesus Christ, which began theological antisemitism.

“The fact of the matter is that antisemitism is always there,” Samuel Heilman, emeritus distinguished professor of sociology and Jewish studies at City University of New York Graduate Center and Queens College, told Straight Arrow News. “It’s like cancer. It takes, sometimes, a little bit of a change to bring it up to the surface, but it’s always lurking there. This feel of hatred for Jews that has lasted from one generation to another.”

More than 400 years later, John Chrysostom, the archbishop of Constantinople and a canonized saint, became known as the architect of antisemitism.

“The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession,” Chrysostom said in one of his well-known homilies.

From 1096-1291 brought the Crusades, a war primarily between Christians and Muslims, but Crusaders also aimed to eliminate the Jewish population through death or conversion.

Fast forward to the year 1517 when Martin Luther launched his Protestant Reformation. When he could not get many Jews to convert, he turned against them.

“Their synagogues… should be set on fire, and what does not burn must be covered over with earth so that no man will ever see stone or cinder of them again,” Luther said.

Then, six million Jews were systemically slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis across Europe during the Holocaust.

Antisemitism increase

While antisemitism is not new, data from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows the number of antisemitic incidents across the United States has increased nearly 900% in the last ten years. An ADL poll shows nearly half of all people in the world hold “significant antisemitic beliefs.”

“It is in particular on the rise because it is coming both from the right and from the left at the same time,” Pamela Nadell, author of “Antisemitism, an American Tradition,” told SAN. “And in other areas, we haven’t always seen that.”

The world has seen serious antisemitic attacks across the world in recent months including Australia, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Germany and more.

Nadell pointed to the Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacist protest in 2017 as an example of the right’s antisemitism.

“White nationalists and neo-Nazis were chanting, ‘Jews will not replace us,’” Nadell said. “It was elevating a very old idea about Jews seeking to displace what they perceived as the rightful race to rule America and obviously to rule the world.”

Nadell said antisemitism from the left has a different identity.

“The antisemitism coming from the left is antisemitism that is deeply rooted in the idea that Israel is an illegitimate state, and that idea goes back to the Soviets,” Nadell said.

War in Gaza

As Israel’s military offensive continues in Gaza, most Americans now have a negative view of the Israeli government.

There are a large number of Jews who do not support what Israel is doing in Gaza. A recent poll showed 48% of American Jews disapproved of Israel’s alleged genocide in the territory.

But to antisemites, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jewish person who doesn’t show full-throated support for Israel.

“They don’t split the hairs,” Heilman said. “I think it’s a similar kind of thing, when people were talking during the Nazi era, that the Nazis were really just opposed to Jews who were acting in ways that were not viewed as Aryan. But it turned out that even Jews who had converted and even Jews who were married to Aryans were considered to be all in the same package.”

Heilman pointed to the Bondi Beach shooting as an example of antisemites not caring about the difference between antisemitism and antizionism.

“I don’t think that the shooters in Australia would have made a real distinction,” Heilman said.

Antisemitism has been on the rise in Australia for many years.

“I was shocked and horrified, because to see a mass shooting in a country that doesn’t have its tradition, and then to see it happen to Jews on a beach the first day of Hanukkah, was just unbelievable,” Nadell said.

What can be done?

Jews make up less than 0.5% of Australia’s population. Jews make up only 0.2% of the world population.

“Jews have been a minority wherever they’ve been, but a minority that somehow manages to avoid disappearing,” Heilman said. “And I think the idea that the minority, like the Jews, are still here, is a problem for majority cultures.”

Israel was created in 1948 as a Jewish homeland and it’s where the majority of Jews live.

“Israel was created as a place where Jews would no longer be a minority and where Jews would be safe,” Heilman said. “Ironically, antisemitism has found a way to even take that and say, ‘no, Israel is not going to make Jews safe.’ If the Holocaust didn’t make Jews safe for the future, then Israel isn’t going to make Jews safe in the future either, because the hatred of Jews simply has found a way to make itself live no matter what the circumstances are.”

So how does something like antisemitism, that’s been around for thousands of years, get erased from mankind?

“The reality is, there’s no magic bullet,” Nadell said.

Experts SAN spoke with said world leaders will play a role in protecting that minority.

“We need leaders who make it clear that attacking any group of people because you don’t like their policies or you don’t like their loyalties or you don’t like their history is something that should be discouraged in all of the places where these attacks on Jews have happened,” Heilman said.

There are also organizations around the world looking to curb antisemitism.

“We need grassroots organizing, we need education, we need interfaith coalitions, and more,” Nadell said. “Those are the steps that could begin to lay the seeds to turn the world away from this hate.”

The post From ancient hatred to modern violence: Antisemitism rises worldwide appeared first on Straight Arrow News.

Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief