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Dear Friends,
In the global struggle against increasingly normalized antisemitism, Romania passed legislation mandating education about the Holocaust and Jewish history for all high schools. France’s prime minister announced that new measures against antisemitism will be rolled out early next year, and the leader of the UK Labour Party proclaimed that “anti-Zionist antisemitism is the antithesis of the Labour tradition.”
After more than a dozen mezuzahs were stolen on campus this semester, Indiana University formed a task force to combat the rise in antisemitism at the university. Hundreds marched against recent antisemitic attacks in Austin, Texas and Los Gatos, California.
In the U.S, a series of brazen antisemitic threats aimed at Jewish communities signaled increasing alarm. The FBI arrested a St. Louis man for threatening to blow up a local synagogue, telling agents “I hate them with rage…I just feel like killing Jews.” A man in Queens threatened a kosher bagel store – demanding it “remove those Israeli flags or I’ll burn the building down.” Nearby, two more antisemitic assaults took place in Brooklyn. Ahead of Hanukkah, a menorah was stolen from outside the same Alabama synagogue which last year was vandalized with graffiti reading “F— Kikes,” and “Gas Em All.”
At a town planning board meeting in New York, a resident railed against the growing Jewish community and spoke of backing his car over Jews. Offensive political discourse trivializing the Holocaust continues to escalate, including a protest in Kansas, and one outside a New York Jewish politician’s office featuring yellow stars and swastikas. On campus, Duke University’s student government denied a new pro-Israel group recognition.
Elsewhere around the world, antisemitic vandalism targeted a Holocaust memorial in Spain, and the courthouse in Ottawa, Canada. A Brazilian journalist apologized for saying his country would need to “kill Jews to match Germany’s wealth.” As antisemitic incidents continue to reach record highs in Germany, hundreds participated in a torchlit march to celebrate leaders of Nazi Germany. In Poland, far-right nationalists held a rally in which a large crowed chanted “Death to Jews,” while burning a book about Polish Jews.
This week’s global antisemitism report highlights 43 new media reports of antisemitic incidents. The total includes 21 (48.8%) from the far-right, 4 (9.3%) from the far-left, 5 (11.6%) with Islamist motivations, and 13 (30.2%) unidentifiable in nature.
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