Antisemitism is the fear, dislike or hatred of Jewish people.[1][2] A technical synonym of antisemitism is Judeophobia,[3] preferred by those seeing antisemitism as ambiguous.[3]
Overview
Antisemitism has been rife throughout human history,[3] the worst instance of which is the Holocaust,[4] while the most common form of antisemitism is conspiracy theories.[5][6] The adjective of antisemitism is antisemitic. Those with antisemitic views are called antisemites.[7]
Recent trend
On 14 January 2025, American civil rights group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) announced the findings of their newest global survey (58,000 respondents) that 46% of the world's adult population (around 2,200,000,000 people) held deeply entrenched antisemitic views.[8]
Among the respondents, 56% thought that Jews were "only loyal to Israel" while 46% "Jews had too much power over global affairs."[8] 76% of those in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are found to agree with 11 negative stereotypes of Jews,[8] the highest of all regions.[8] Meanwhile, Kuwait and Indonesia are found to be the most antisemitic sovereign states.[9]
Regarding the Holocaust, only 48% of the respondents recognized its historical accuracy, with the percentage being the lowest (39%) among the age group 18–34,[9][10] contrary to the common academic leftist belief that the young is least likely to be racist.[11]
Etymology
As per American historian Deborah Lipstadt and several antisemitism experts, the word antisemitism was invented by anti-Jewish German nationalist Wilhelm Marr in his tract Path to Victory of Germanism Over Judaism to refer to the prejudice against Jews that he considered necessary for the German race to stop Jews – the leading group of "Semites" in Europe – from infiltrating or diluting the German culture.[12]
Despite "Semites" including other Middle Eastern ethnic groups,[13] German nationalists like Wilhelm Marr used "Semites" to refer to Jews specifically.[12][13]
Semantically, antisemitism cannot be assumed as the prejudice against all "Semitic" groups, or it would constitute the etymological fallacy (using a word's ancient meaning to make a point about its current meaning).[13] Moreover, the word covers Jews who practice Judaism, Jews who converted to Christianity and those with traceable Jewish ancestry,[12][13] all of whom can be victims of antisemitism.[12][13]
Spelling
The term is spelled by some as anti-Semitism, but such spelling is controversial as historians have pointed out that there is no such ideology as "Semitism",[12][13] while the concept "Semites" derived from pseudoscientific 19th-century scientific racism.[12][13]
Lies about Jews
Ancient
Middle Ages
Modern
Contemporary
MENA
Background
Jews started living in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century BC, when Babylonian Empire's conquest of the Kingdom of Judah forced Jews out of Judea (Hebrew: יהודה, Yehudah) located in the Land of Israel (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל ʼÉreṣ Yiśrāʼēl). Successive waves of Jewish exiles – caused by alternating conquests of Judea – made Jews the leading ethnoreligious group[27] in the Arabian Peninsula, where Judaism stood in contrast to the multi-god religion of ancient Arabs,[28] many of whom had arrived later than the Jews due to their nomadic nature.[28]
Middle Ages
Jews thrived in the Arabian Peninsula until Muslims conquered the Peninsula, when they, along with other conquered indigenous peoples, were required to pay jizya in exchange for their existence to be tolerated.[28][29] The payment of jizya granted Jews the status of dhimmi under which they were prohibited – under the threat of execution – from criticizing any aspects of Islam, sharing Jewish ideas to Muslims or touching a Muslim woman.[30] Jews were also not allowed to[30]
21st century
2010s
Antisemitism is extremely common in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).[2] In 2011, the Pew Research Center polled a significant number of Middle Eastern countries' citizens, where Muslims are the majority. Most of the interviewees were hostile to Jews. Only 2% of Egyptians, 3% of Lebanese Muslims and 2% of Jordanians reported feeling good about Jews.[31] Some scholars believe that mass media have played a significant role in such phenomenon.[32][33] Further data are presented as follows.
| Country | % population holding biases against Jews (95% confidence level)[34] | |
|---|---|---|
| Palestine | 93 | |
| Iraq | 92 | |
| Yemen | 88 | |
| Algeria | 87 | |
| Libya | 87 | |
| Tunisia | 86 | |
| Kuwait | 82 | |
| Jordan | 81 | |
| Bahrain | 81 | |
| Qatar | 80 | |
| Morocco | 80 | |
| United Arab Emirates | 80 | |
| Lebanon | 78 | |
| Oman | 76 | |
| Egypt | 75 | |
| Saudi Arabia | 74 | |
Sub-Saharan Africa
The % of South Africa's population holding biases against Jews rose to 47% in 2019 from 38% in 2014.[35] Since the Israel–Hamas war started on 7 October 2023, there has been an upsurge in harassment and violence against Jews in South Africa.[36][37] Between 7 October and 31 December 2023, attacks on Jews rose by 631% in South Africa as compared to the same period in 2022.[38]
Europe
Before 20th century
20th Century
The Holocaust
![Thumb](#/media/File:"Nebuď_služobníkom_žida"—Slovak_propaganda_poster.jpg)
The Holocaust was a genocide[39] committed by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 during World War II. It was known as the Final Solution. The Nazis' plan was to rid Europe of Jews. They succeeded in killing up to at least 6,000,000 Jews – 67% of European Jews back then.[4] The planning of the Holocaust was rooted in antisemitism.[4][40]
21st century
In a 2013 survey of 5,847 Jews in Europe, 76% thought that antisemitism had increased in the previous five years, while 29% had thought about moving countries as they felt unsafe.[41] A 2023 ADL survey found that as many as one-third of Western Europeans believed in stereotypes of Jews. This was reportedly worse in some Eastern European countries, particularly Hungary (37%), Poland (35%) and Russia (26%).[42] In Eastern Europe, the level of antisemitism is found to be high.[43] The cause of persistent antisemitism in Europe is under debate.[44][45]
| Country | % population holding biases against Jews (95% confidence level)[34] | |
|---|---|---|
| Greece | 69 | |
| Armenia | 58 | |
| Poland | 45 | |
| Bulgaria | 44 | |
| Serbia | 42 | |
| Hungary | 41 | |
| Belarus | 38 | |
| France | 37 | |
| Azerbaijan | 37 | |
| Lithuania | 36 | |
| Romania | 35 | |
| Croatia | 33 | |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 32 | |
| Georgia | 32 | |
| Russia | 30 | |
| Moldova | 30 | |
| Spain | 29 | |
| Montenegro | 29 | |
| Latvia | 28 | |
| Austria | 28 | |
| Slovenia | 27 | |
| Belgium | 27 | |
| Germany | 27 | |
| Switzerland | 26 | |
| Estonia | 22 | |
| Portugal | 21 | |
| Ireland | 20 | |
| Italy | 20 | |
| Iceland | 16 | |
| Norway | 15 | |
| Finland | 15 | |
| Czech Republic | 13 | |
| Denmark | 9 | |
| United Kingdom | 8 | |
| Netherlands | 5 | |
| Sweden | 4 | |
Ireland
Overview
Ireland has been predominantly Catholic throughout history.[47] Just as other Catholic countries, antisemitism is deep-rooted in Ireland.[47]
Modern period
As per specialized historians, Irish Catholics played an active role in the Catholic Spanish Inquisition's persecution of Jews (1478–1834),[48] killing as many as 300,000 Jews over false charges of "crypto-Judaism",[49][50] a charge slapped on Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity under Catholic Spanish rule.[49][50]
20th century
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, pro-Nazi sentiment was common among the Irish due to their dislike of the United Kingdom,[51] which was fighting Nazi Germany.[51]
In July 1940, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) praised Nazi Germany as the "friends and liberators of the Irish people" in a statement, with little to no opposition from the Irish public.[51][52] Meanwhile, the IRA worked with Nazi spies to plot attacks on British troops in Northern Ireland[51][52] and circulated materials accusing Éamon de Valera's neutral Irish government of being owned by "Jews and Freemasons".[51][52]
As per declassified MI5 documents, IRA leading figures Seán Russell and James O'Donovan – both veterans of the Irish War of Independence – were the main Irish contacts with Nazi Germany.[51][52] They got Nazi weapons, plotted joint attacks on British troops and discussed with Hitler a possible German invasion of Northern Ireland to facilitate Irish "reunification".[51][52]
As per Kurt Haller, an anti-Nazi German diplomat who testified in the Nuremberg Trials,[52]
James O'Donovan [...] asked for German support for the occupation of Northern Ireland [. ...] seemed most interested in obtaining delivery of weapons, ammunition and explosives.
As per Erwin von Lahousen, a Nazi German general who also testified,[52]
Frank Ryan[53] suggest that the German invasion of Britain would be an opportune moment for the seizure of Northern Ireland [. ...] Ryan had told [Edmund] Veesenmayer[54] that [Éamon] de Valera would support [...] provided he considered it a legitimate risk to take.
After Adolf Hitler's death on April 30, 1945, Éamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Ireland, mourned the death of Hitler[51][55] with backing from the Irish parliament.[51][55] De Valera also denied reports of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as "anti-national propaganda",[55][56] reportedly out of refusal to acknowledge that the Jews could have suffered more than the Irish.[55][56]
21st century
Since 2013,[57][58] a baseless theory, which claims that "Irish slaves" existed in 17th century North America before the arrival of African slaves, has been made popular by Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers[57][58] in both Ireland and the United States.[57][58] The theory is sometimes called the "Irish slaves myth". The myth reportedly originated from the book To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland written by Irish journalist Seán O'Callaghan (1918–2000)[57][59] and published by The O'Brien Press in Dublin, Ireland.[59]
The myth has been widely condemned by scholars as a far-right conspiracy theory downplaying the suffering of African Americans in history,[57][58] who were enslaved until 1865, segregated until 1965 and systemically discriminated against until now.[60] Despite To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland promoting the widely condemned far-right myth, the book is still on sale in the Sinn Féin Bookshop[61] run by the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party.[61][62]
In spring 2024, antisemitism in Ireland reportedly worsened with the escalation of the Israel–Hamas war, where antisemites felt justified to harass Jews under the guise of supporting Palestine, and some Irish Jewish community leaders were doubtful if Ireland was still safe[63] for the approximately 2,700 Jews – 0.054% of the 2023 Irish population[64] – in Ireland. In November 2024, it was revealed that textbooks teaching that
- the Jews "killed Jesus"
- Israel was "uniquely aggressive"
- Judaism "believed that violence and war are necessary"
- the Auschwitz was a "prisoner of war camp" rather than an extermination camp
were widely circulated in Irish schools[65] and shaping children's mind.[65] The findings were confirmed by the European Jewish Congress (EJC).[66] Meanwhile, the Government of Ireland has not responded to the matter, nor have any strong reactions been seen from the Irish public.[65]
Critique
David Collier, an Irish researcher in Middle East affairs,[67] noted that antisemitism among contemporary Irish is derived from[67]
- Religious antisemitism: Classic Christian belief that "Christians are the new Jews" as "the Jews killed Jesus"
- Political antisemitism:
- Popularity of the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party whose founders promoted conspiracy theories about Jews
- Projection of anti-British sentiment onto Israel[68] due to the belief that "Britain gave the Jews Israel" is similar to the British settler colonialism in the history of Ireland.[69][70]
Spain
Middle Ages
Under the rule of Henry III of Castile and León (1390–1406), Jews were made to pick either baptism or death in the Iberian territories reconquered.[71]
Modern period
From 1478 to 1834, the Catholic Spanish Empire unleashed a systematic campaign of persecution of Jews, historically known as the Spanish Inquisition,[49][50] due to its racist belief that Jews who converted to Catholicism (conversos) were mostly faking as Christians,[49][50] including those forcibly converted following the Alhambra Decree, or the Edict of Expulsion.[49][71] As many as 300,000 Jews under Catholic Spanish rule were killed over false charges of "crypto-Judaism",[49][50] a charge slapped on Jews who were forcibly converted.[49][50]
21st century
.jpg)
For the past decade, movements within Spain have emerged to rewrite the history of the Spanish Inquisition.[72] Members of the movements released a series of books, films, TV programs and mobile exhibitions[72] to beautify the Inquisition-associated Spanish history.[72]
In 2023, an ADL poll found that 26% of Spain's population held extensive antisemitic beliefs,[73] followed by Belgium (24%), France (17%), Germany (12%) and the UK (10%).[73]
In 2024, Spanish Jews make up 0.093% of Spain's population of 48,370,000. In April, the Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that at least 36 attacks had happened to Spanish Jews between 7 October 2023 and 19 April 2024, about six attacks per month.[74] In July, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that 78% of Spanish Jews saw antisemitism as a big problem in Spain.[75]
France
Classical antiquity
Jews have been living in France since the Roman times as one of the oldest diasporas in Europe. As France became Christianized in the late antiquity, Christian antisemitism shaped the region's culture.[76]
Middle Ages
Under the Germanic Frankish Merovingian dynasty between the 5th and 8th century, Jews were banned from working as public servants.[76] A succession of ecumenical councils also banned Jews from socializing with Christians or observing the shabbat over the unfounded fear that Judaism (the Jewish ethnoreligion) would influence Christians.[76]
Systematic persecutions of Jews intensified in the 11th century under the rule of the House of Capet, when the King of France Robert the Pious attempted to kill all Jews who rejected Christian conversion.[76][77] Jews across the France were assaulted, tortured or burned at stakes.[76][77] The persecutions coincided with the destruction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009, which was exploited by the French Benedictine monk Rodulfus Glaber to spread rumors about Jewish "involvement" in the destruction.[78]
When the First Crusade happened in 1096, Jews were massacred by the crusaders across the Kingdom of France.[77][78] The events were seen by some historians as a series of genocidal massacres.[79] The massacres all happened with the Roman Catholic Church's tacit approval.[78][79]
Between the 1182 and 1394, at least 13 expulsions of Jews were ordered by the French monarchy,[80] during which dozens of Black Death-associated massacres of Jews happened.[81]
Modern period
Between the 15th century and 18th century, antisemitism in France waxed and waned.[82] Voltaire (1694–1778), a famous French philosopher, held biases against Jews that contributed to the legitimization of antisemitism in Western academia.[83][84] One of the instances of Voltaire's antisemitism was his insertion of an insult into his Dictionnaire philosophique for Jewish readers:[83]
You are calculating animals; try to be thinking animals.
Despite this, he was regarded as the champion of Enlightenment by Western leftists.[84]
![Thumb](#/media/File:"Мин...гаеплим".jpg)
Antisemitism was widespread in 19th century France.[76] It was present across the political spectrum, with ancient stereotypes being phrased differently and perpetuated by their respective audience.[85] On both sides of the spectrum, Jews were targeted for their otherness, observance of Judaism and alleged lack of loyalty or assimilation.[85]
Among the French far left, Jews were accused of being regressive agents of capitalism exploiting the French proletariat.[85] Among the French far right, Jews were accused of being subversive agents of communism undermining the traditional Catholic culture.[85] Meanwhile, both the far left and far right saw Jews as undesirable under French nationalism, which prioritized national unity over minority existence.[85][86]
Between 1882 and 1885, three antisemitic publications existed in France: L'Anti-Juif, L'Anti-Sémitique, and Le Péril sociale.[76] In 1886, French politician Edouard Drumont published the 1,200-page tract La France juive ("Jewish France"), accusing Jews of masterminding capitalism, and calling for a race war between non-Jewish "Aryans" and Jewish "Semites". The tract was very popular in France and reprinted for 140 times within the first two years of publication.[83]
The wave of antisemitism peaked in the deeply divisive 1894 Dreyfus affair, when Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jewish artillery officer, was falsely convicted of treason,[86] who was not vindicated until 1906.[85][86]
World War II
On 22 June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany upon military defeat and was partitioned into the German-occupied zone, Italian-occupied zone and Vichy France – a rump state in southern France managed by pro-Nazi French collaborators.[87] Under Vichy France's leaders Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, the Statut des Juifs ("Jewish Statute") – modelled after the Nazi German Nuremberg Laws – was passed between October 1940 and June 1941 to ban Jews from all jobs.[87]
Just as in Nazi Germany, such legal persecution escalated to the deportation of Jews to extermination camps,[87] one of the worst instances of which was the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup on 16–17 July 1942 voluntarily conducted by the Vichy French police.[87] In total, 77,000 (33%) Jews living in France were killed in extermination camps.[4][87]
Post-war period
Antisemitism in post-war France mainly took the form of Holocaust denial and radical anti-Zionism. Pierre Guillaume, an ultra-left activist deemed an "anarcho-Marxist", published books denying the Holocaust as a "distraction from class struggle playing into the hands of Zionism and Stalinism."[88]
Guillaume's views were co-opted by the French far right,[88] sharing similar radical anti-Zionism, comparing the Holocaust to the Judean massacres of the Canaanites[88] or the Native American genocide,[89] and accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust to extort compensations from European countries.[90]
A number of influential French Holocaust deniers emerged, such as Claude Autant-Lara,[89] Maurice Bardèche,[90] Louis-Ferdinand Céline,[91] Dieudonné M'bala M'bala[92] and Jean-François Jalkh.[93]
Antisemitism is still common in 21st century France,[94] with Jews and synagogues regularly attacked.[94] A report by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found a spike in antisemitic incidents from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, 74% of which happened following 7 October 2023.[95] As per the Statista, 57.4% of 2023 antisemitic incidents happened in Paris.[96]
One of the most serious antisemitic incidents involved a 12-year-old Jewish girl being gang-raped by several boys hurling antisemitic insults and death threats.[97] Some French Jews reported the need to adopt fake names and wear keffiyehs to pretend as Muslims in order to minimize danger.[98]
Poland
Romania
Holocaust distortion under communism (1947 – 1989)
Under Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist rule,[99][100] Romania's role in the Holocaust was officially denied. It was blamed entirely on the German and Hungarian fascists.[101] Romanians were taught about the "heroic anti-fascist resistance," with an emphasis on the anti-Nazi battles fought following Romania defection to the Allies. Many former subordinates of Ion Antonescu served in the secret police of Nicolae Ceaușescu[101] and to help him oppress Romanians.[99][100]
Meanwhile, Nicolae Ceaușescu reportedly believed in lies about Jews, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and defined Jew as a "money-changer" and an "extortionist" in an official English–Romanian dictionary.[102]
Holocaust distortion in post-communist age (1989 – )
Since the fall of Ceaușescu's communist regime,[99][100] a systematic effort to whitewash the war criminals, especially Ion Antonescu, has been observed by scholars. Antonescu is praised by some so-called historians as a hero who waged a "holy war against Bolshevism."[101] Acts of Holocaust denial[103] by politicians occurred from time to time, notable of whom include Ion Iliescu, the former President of Romania (2000–2004). He made similar claims to those of Ceaușescu that there was "no Holocaust within Romania" and that the Poles, Jews and communists "were treated equally," while denying the Romanian role in the Holocaust and the verified Romanian Jewish death toll.[101]
An international inquiry, led by Romanian-American Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, identified all the evidence of Romania's role in the Holocaust. The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania (Romanian: Institutul Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România „Elie Wiesel”, INSHR), a state-funded Holocaust research center, was also founded in 2005.[104]
In November 2021, the Romanian parliament passed a law, by a large majority, to require the teaching of the Holocaust and Jewish history from 2023. The only group opposing it was the nationalist party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). The AUR was condemned by the INSHR.[105] Since September 2023, the Holocaust and Jewish history have become part of the high school curriculum in Romania.[106][107]
Germany
20th century
21st century
.jpg)
A 2017 Bielefeld University's research reported that those identified with the far left and far right committed roughly the same proportion of antisemitic hate crimes, with most perpetrators found to be individuals of Muslim background.[108] The research was echoed by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which asserted that certain Islamist groups' antisemitic rhetoric significantly challenged Germany's peaceful and tolerant society.[109] In a follow-up EU research in 2018, 41% of antisemitic attacks were found to have been committed by Islamic extremists, 20% by those identified with the far right and 16% by the far left.[110]
On 18 October 2023, 11 days following the Hamas-led October 7 massacre which killed over 1,200 in a day, a Berlin synagogue was firebombed with molotov cocktails by two masked men.[111] Official statistics also showed a rapid rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the months following the October 7 massacre.[112]
On 2 February 2024, a pro-Palestinian Berlin undergraduate beat a Jewish classmate to the point of hospitalization following an argument over the Israel–Hamas war. The German police reported that the Jewish student was punched and kicked repeatedly on the floor, suffering facial fractures.[113] The victim is the grandson of Amitzur Shapira, an Israeli athletics coach murdered by the Black September terrorists in the 1972 Munich massacre.[113] In May 2024, some Jewish parents from suburban Berlin transferred their kids to Jewish schools in Mitte, many of which guarded by police and enclosed walls, due to increasing antisemitic violence in Berlin.[114] In June 2024, a young Israeli couple was assaulted in Berlin's Potsdamer Platz after being heard speaking Hebrew. The suspect shouted abuses, threw a bottle and a chair at them and beat them on the floor.[115]
On 5 September 2024, the 52nd anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre, a suspected terrorist opened fire at the Israeli consulate and the neighboring Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism before being shot dead by police.[116] On 7 October 2024, 10 Holocaust memorial stones were torn from their spots. The day coincided with the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre.[117]
Responses
In June 2024, the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) reported that there were 4,782 antisemitic incidents in 2023,[118][119] an 80% rise as compared to 2022,[118][119] most of which happened following the October 7 massacre.[118][119] In October 2024, Felix Klein, the German Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, asserted that "open and aggressive antisemitism has been stronger than at any time since 1945."[120]
On 6 November 2024, the German lower house of parliament passed a non-binding resolution to pledge the end of funding to groups that "spread antisemitism, question Israel's right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the BDS movement."[121] The resolution enjoyed cross-party support, but faced opposition from MPs of left-wing populist parties like the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and Die Linke (Left Party),[121] while the BDS movement itself was designated as antisemitic by the German government in 2019[122] and a threat of "suspected extremism" by the German intelligence agency in 2024.[123]
Armenia
Overview
58% of the population[34] of Armenia[125][126] (a Caucassian country allied with Russia,[127] China,[128] Iran[129] and Syria under Bashar al-Assad[130] who killed over 400,000 Syrians[131][132]) are found to be hostile to Jews, including 62% of those aged 18–34. The percentages are the highest in Eastern Europe, making Armenia statistically the most antisemitic Eastern European country.[34] Garegin Nzhdeh (1886–1955), an Armenian nationalist who recruited thousands of Armenians to fight for Nazi Germany, is still popular among Armenians.[133][134]
20th century
From the 1930s through the Holocaust, Armenian-American media, including but not limited to the Hairenik,[135][136] fully backed Adolf Hitler and defended the Holocaust as a "necessary surgical operation" by demonizing Jews as "poisonous elements",[135][136] while 20,000 Armenian Nazi volunteers[136][137] hunted for Jews and other "undesirables" on behalf of the Nazi German army.[136][138]
21st century
Despite such history, hundreds of statues have been erected across Armenia in honor of Garegin Nzhdeh.[133][134] Meanwhile, the only synagogue in Armenia's capital Yerevan was attacked four times in a row between 7 October 2023 and 11 June 2024.[139] Members of the Marxist-Leninist militant[124] front Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia[140] (ASALA) claimed responsibility for the attacks, some of which involved the synagogue being set on fire.[141]
United States
2010s
A 2017 survey showed that 14% of Americans were hostile to Jews.[142] Since the October 7 massacre, antisemitism has surged in America and Europe, especially on college campuses.[143][144] Such antisemitism has caused thousands of Jewish students to get attacked over their identity.[143][144]
2020s
In August 2024, the advocacy group Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) did a poll which found that around 3,500,000 American Jews had faced antisemitism since the October 7 massacre in 2023. 1,075 American Jews were asked, 28% of whom said that they, often, were told that "Jews care too much about money," 25% were told that "Jews control the world" and 13% were told that "the Holocaust did not happen" or its "severity has been exaggerated."[145][146] Meanwhile, the FBI released crime statistics illustrating that antisemitic incidents constituted 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in 2023, a 63% rise compared to 2022.[147]
A follow-up research between May and October 2024 found that American Jews faced rising discrimination in job search, with American Jews having to make 24% more applications to receive the same amount of favorable first responses as Western European Americans, while Israeli Americans having to make 39% more applications to receive the same amount of such.[148][149]
In December 2024, the University of Michigan fired its DEI[150] director for making antisemitic remarks, including "the university is controlled by wealthy Jews"[1] and "we don’t work with Jews. They are wealthy and privileged..." as per documents obtained by the CNN.[151] Meanwhile, DEI training in American academia and healthcare settings has also been criticized by scholars and officials for encouraging violent antisemitism by instilling into students a binary worldview that misclassifies Jews as "White oppressors",[150][152] despite Jews being the most oppressed people in history,[4] who still suffered 68% of religion-based hate crimes in America 78 years after the end of the Holocaust in Europe.[147]
Select antisemitic incidents in the U.S.
- Fatal incidents
| Date | Reported type | Dead | Injured | Location | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 October 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | New York City, New York | Todd Richman, the Jewish co-chair of the left-leaning Democratic Majority for Israel,[153] was left bloodied after being assaulted by individuals hurling insults with antisemitic tropes.[154] |
| 5 October 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Queens, New York | A 19-year-old Jewish man was reportedly punched in the face outside a Queens synagogue. The victim in traditional Hasidic clothing was standing outside of Congregation B'Nei Abraham-EF in Kew Gardens Hills when the assailant appeared.[155] |
| 27 September 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Oakland, Pittsburgh | A Jewish student at the University of Pittsburgh, who wore a Star of David necklace, was assaulted by a group, who hurled antisemitic slurs. According to Pittsburgh police, the victim was walking alone around 2 a.m. when he came across 8 men. When the 8 men saw his necklace, they hurled insults about Israel, then punched and kicked him.[156] |
| 18 September 2024 | Contempt of Congress | 0 | 0 | Washington, D.C. | In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes, a man interrupted by shouting "F*** Israelis [...] I don't care about the f***ing Jews". The man continued to scream at the attendees until he was led away by security guards.[157][158] |
| 15 September 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Ann Arbor, Michigan | A 19-year old Jewish student was assaulted by a group of unknown men, who asked him whether he was Jewish, after he answered "yes". The University of Michigan condemned the assault.[159] |
| 31 August 2024 | Assault | 0 | 2 | Oakland, Pittsburgh | A man wearing a keffiyeh and wielding a bottle wounded two Jewish students at the University of Pittsburgh, who were treated at the scene. The suspect was arrested immediately. The Hillel International said that the students attacked had been part of a group moving between two Jewish events.[160] |
| 9 August 2024 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | At Harvard University, several mezuzahs put up by Jewish students in their dorms were vandalized or missing.[161] |
| 10 July 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C. | A Jewish man wearing a kippah was punched into the bush outside the Foggy Bottom metro station within the George Washington University. The suspect went on a tirade of conspiracy theories about Jews upon arrest.[162] |
| 24 June 2024 | Picketing | 0 | 1 | Los Angeles, California | A reportedly anti-Israel rally taking place outside a synagogue turned into a street conflict when the worshippers tried to stop the commotion. A Jewish woman was injured.[163][164] President Joe Biden and his administration condemned the incident as anti-Semitic.[163][165] |
| 11 June 2024 | Assault | 0 | 2 | Los Angeles, California | A Chabad Rabbi was assaulted on the UCLA campus, suffering a bleeding face wound. The suspects called him a "fake Jew", "Zionist pedophile rabbi" and told him to "go back to Poland and Ukraine". A journalist also reported equipment damage and burns from hot spaghetti sauce poured over him.[166][167][168] |
| April 2024 | Threats | 0 | 0 | New York City, New York | A Columbia University student said in a video that "Zionists don't deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don't deserve to live [...] Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists". He was suspended by the university.[169][170] |
| January 2024 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Washington D.C | A Lyft driver assaulted a Rabbi after refusing to continue the drive by punching them in the face. A video of the assault was recorded by a witness.[171][172][173] |
| November 2023 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Baltimore, Maryland | Several incidents of vandalism across campuses occurred in the country. For instance, a chalk graffiti stating "Holocaust 2.0" was found at the University of Maryland's campus in College Park.[174][175][176] |
| 5 November 2023 | Involuntary manslaughter | 1 | 0 | Thousand Oaks, California | Jewish man Paul Kessler was a victim of suspected involuntary manslaughter. The suspect, a former Moorpark College professor, hit Kessler's head with a megaphone over disagreement at a rally. Kessler fell with another hit and died of intracerebral hemorrhage.[177] The suspect has pleaded not guilty.[178] Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a condemnation,[179] while the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles called it an "antisemitic crime".[180] |
| October 2023 | Threats | 0 | 0 | Cornell University, Ithaca, New York | Cornell University student Patrick Dai threatened to shoot all Jewish schoolmates, burn synagogues and behead Jewish babies on an online forum.[181] He was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the action in August 2024.[182] |
| June 6, 2023 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Manchester Township, New Jersey | On June 6, Ron Carr from Manchester spray-painted swastikas and other graffiti on fourteen homes before setting fire to another one. When asked why he did the act, Carr said it was to keep Jews out. In June 2024, Carr pleded guilty to arson, bias intimidation and two counts of criminal mischief.[183] In August, Carr was sentenced to seven years in state prison.[184][185] |
| February 22–23, 2023 | Shooting | 0 | 2 | Los Angeles, California | On February 22 and 23, 29-year-old Jamie Tran shot two Jewish men as they were leaving synagogues in Pico-Robertson. Both men survived. In May 2024, Tran pleaded guilty to two federal hate crimes and weapons charges.[186][187] On 30 September 2024, Tran was sentenced to 35 years in jail.[188][189] |
| April 20, 2022 | Assault | 0 | 1 | Manhattan, New York | Attack on Matt Greenman: Matt Greenman, a Jewish man, was assaulted in an antisemitic hate crime in New York City while watching a rally organized by the pro-Hamas front Within Our Lifetime. Saadah Masoud, one of the group's founders, pled guilty to the assault and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in March 2023.[190][191][192] |
| January 15, 2022 | Hostage taking | 1 | 0 | Colleyville, Texas | Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis: Four people were taken hostage by a British Pakistani at a synagogue. After a standoff with police, the attacker was killed and all hostages escaped unharmed.[193][194][195] |
| October 31, 2021 | Arson | 0 | 0 | Austin, Texas | Austin synagogue arson: 18-year old Franklin Barrett Sechriest set fire to the main doors of the sanctuary of the Congregation Beth Israel, causing more than $250,000 in damage. Sechriest admitted he conducted the attack due to his hatred of Jews and had written, "I set a synagogue on fire," in his personal journal.[196][197][198] |
| October 13, 2021 | Arson | 0 | 0 | Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York | A woman yelling antisemitic obscenities poured gasoline in front of a yeshiva in Flatbush and set it on fire.[199] Weeks earlier, a woman was seen in the area carrying a gas canister and yelling antisemitic slurs.[199] Police are investigating a possible connection.[199][200][201] |
| September 9, 2021 | Verbal and physical assault | 0 | 1 | Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York | A 37-year-old man spat on a Jewish man and verbally abused them with antisemitic remarks; he was charged with a hate crime.[202][203] |
| July 1, 2021 | Stabbing | 0 | 1 | Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts | Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed eight times by an attacker outside of the Shaloh House Jewish Day School; the school, which was holding a summer camp, was put into lockdown.[204][205][206] The attacker had a knife and a gun in his possession at the time of arrest.[204][206] The attacker, who had a history of making anti-Semitic statements and had been the subject of a restraining order by a Jewish former-roommate, was charged with hate crimes and civil rights violations.[207][208][209] |
| June 15, 2021 | Physical assault, verbal assault | 0 | 1 | Fairfax, Los Angeles, California | A man punched a 12-year-old Jewish boy in the face; another man threatened to kill the child's family.[210][211] |
| May 27, 2021 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | St. Petersburg, Florida | The phrase "Jews are guilty" and a swastika were spray-painted on the Holocaust Museum in downtown St. Petersburg.[212][213][214] |
| May 24, 2021 | Physical assault | 0 | 1 | Brooklyn, New York | A 67-year-old man was punched in the face as he tried to enter a synagogue. A 20-year-old man was arrested for assault, assault as a hate crime, and aggravated harassment.[215] |
| May 22, 2021 | Gang attack | 0 | 2 | Brooklyn, New York | Three men, aged 19–20, tried to break into a synagogue, yelling "Free Palestine! Kill all the Jews!" Unable to enter the locked building, they left, and shortly afterward assaulted two Jewish teens, choking one, punching the other in the head, and chasing both for several blocks with cricket bats.[216][217][218] The three attackers were charged with multiple hate crimes.[217][219][218] |
| May 21, 2021 | Vandalism, verbal assault | 0 | 0 | Hallandale Beach, Florida | A man yelled antisemitic threats at a rabbi in front of a synagogue, then returned and dumped a bag of human feces in front of the building.[220][221] |
| May 20, 2021 | Gang attack | 0 | 1 | Diamond, Manhattan, New York | A caravan of cars and trucks with Palestinian flags went to the Diamond District, where many Jewish-owned businesses are located, and shot off commercial fireworks at people while yelling "F--- you, Zionists", "F--- you, pigs", and other threatening and sexually explicit comments about Jews.[222][223][224] One woman was hospitalized with burns.[222][225][226] Daniel Shaukat, Haider Anjam, and Ashan Azad, then 20, 20, and 19 years old respectively, pled guilty in September 2022 to committing hate crimes and were sentenced to between 3 and 5 years of probation.[227] |
| May 20, 2021 | Gang attack | 0 | 1 | Times Square, Manhattan, New York | Attack on Joseph Borgen: During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, five men attacked Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man, when he passed through the Times Square. Borgen was punched, kicked, bludgeoned with flag poles and a crutch. He was maced and peppered spray and suffered a concussion ensued by hospitalization.[228][229] The attackers also yelled antisemitic slurs.[230][229] Five activists were arrested, found guilty for the attack and received sentences of up to 7 years in prison.[231][232][233] |
| May 19, 2021 | Arson/physical attack | 1 | Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York | A Brooklyn man attempted to set fire to a building that housed a synagogue and a yeshiva.[234][235] Later that day, the perpetrator punched a Jewish man in the head several times.[234] | |
| May 18, 2021 | Physical and verbal assault | 0 | 0 | Bal Harbour, Florida | A visibly Jewish family walking down the street was verbally assaulted by a group of four men who threw garbage at them, threatened to rape the mother of the family, and yelled other violent antisemitic threats and insults at them.[236][237][238][226][239] |
| May 18, 2021 | Physical assault/gang attack | 0 | 0 | Fairfax, Los Angeles, California | A visibly Jewish man was walking to his synagogue when two cars with Palestinian flags, allegedly yelling "Allahu Akbar," chased him down, apparently trying to run him over as he sprinted toward shelter.[240] The episode was captured by CCTV.[240] |
| May 18, 2021 | Gang attack | 0 | 5 | Los Angeles, California | A group of men waving a Palestinian flag got out of a car near a sushi restaurant, yelled antisemitic obscenities, including the phrase "dirty Jew," at the patrons (not all Jewish), and then attacked diners with pepper spray, barrier poles and glass bottles.[241][242][243][244] In June 2023, Samer Jayylusi, 37, and Xavier Pabon, 32, pled no contest to two counts of felony assault and admitted a hate crime on both counts. They were sentenced to two years of probation, 80 hours of bias counseling, and an 8 hour visit to the Museum of Tolerance.[245] |
| April–May 2021 | Public school assignment | 0 | 0 | Tenafly, New Jersey | In early April 2021,[246] a fifth-grade teacher at Maugham Elementary School instructed a 5th grade student to dress up as Adolf Hitler and to write a first-person essay from the perspective of the Nazi leader touting his "accomplishments" as a part of a class assignment.[247][248] After initially defending the teacher and the school's actions,[249][250][251] the board of Tenafly Public Schools suspended the teacher and the principal of the school with pay and opened an investigation into the incident.[252][253] |
| December 7, 2020 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Boise, Idaho | Sometime between the evening of December 7 and the morning of December 8, 2020, nine stickers bearing the Nazi swastika and the words "We Are Everywhere" were plastered over the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho. [254][255][256] |
| October 26, 2020 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Ithaca, New York | The Sunny Days storefront was painted with Celtic crosses, and posters with antisemitic language were taped to the door.[257][258] |
| August 25, 2020 | Arson | 0 | 0 | Newark, Delaware | Late on August 25, 2020, 45 firefighters responded to a fire at the Chabad center of the University of Delaware. It was later determined to be arson.[259][260] |
| May 30, 2020 | Civil unrest | 0 | unknown | Los Angeles, California | Beginning Saturday night May 30, 2020, individuals looted, vandalized synagogues and Jewish stores in Fairfax, Los Angeles in local protests. A synagogue was spray-painted with "F*ck Israel" and "Free Palestine".[261][262][263] A statue of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, was defaced with antisemitic slogans.[264] |
| December 29, 2019 | Stabbing | 1 | 4 | Monsey, New York | On Saturday night, December 28, 2019, the seventh night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, Grafton E. Thomas, masked and wielding a large knife or machete, invaded the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, Rockland County, New York, where a Hanukkah party was underway, and began stabbing the guests. Five people were wounded, two of whom were hospitalized in critical condition.[265][266][267] 72-year-old-man Josef Neuman, who was in a coma for 59 days, succumbed to his wounds in March 2020.[268] Rottenberg's son was also among the injured.[269] Guests struck back, hitting the attacker with chairs and a small table.[265] |
| December 14, 2019 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Los Angeles, California | On Saturday, December 14, 2019, Anton Redding broke into Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills, burglarized it and damaged religious books and associated articles. He attempted to escape by fleeing to Hawaii, where he was caught by police.[270][271] On November 27, 2020, Redding was ordered to pay $166,000 in restitution and serve 220 days in county jail. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped hate crimes charges.[272] |
| December 10, 2019 | Shooting | 7 | 3 | Jersey City, New Jersey | On December 10, 2019, David Nathaniel Anderson (age 47) and his girlfriend Francine Graham (age 50),[273] perpetrated a shooting at a kosher grocery store located in the Greenville section of Jersey City, New Jersey, in the United States. Five people were killed at the store, including the two assailants and three civilians whom they attacked. Additionally, the assailants wounded one civilian and two police officers.[274][275][276] Anderson had made posts on social media that were anti-police and antisemitic. His language was linked to that used by the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.[277] |
| September 19, 2019 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Racine, Wisconsin and Hancock, Michigan | 2019 synagogue vandalism: On September 19, 2019, members of neo-Nazi accelerationist paramilitary group The Base vandalized Beth Israel Sinai Congregation in Racine, Wisconsin, and Temple Jacob in Hancock, Michigan in the US, in a campaign the group dubbed "Operation Kristallnacht". Three members of The Base were arrested and subsequently found guilty.[278][279][280] On June 5, 2024, 24-year-old Nathan Weeden was sentenced to 26 months in prison and 3 months of supervised release for the incident.[281] |
| July 28, 2019 | Shooting | 0 | 1 | Miami, Florida | A gunman in a Chevrolet Impala fired shots at the Young Israel of Greater Miami synagogue, spraying the building with bullets. A 68-year-old Jewish congregant sustained several bullet wounds during the attack, requiring extensive surgery. Carlints St. Louis was charged the next day with attempted murder and for perpetuating a hate crime.[282][283][284] |
| April 27, 2019 | Shooting | 1 | 3 | Poway, California | Poway synagogue shooting: John Earnest fired shots inside the synagogue, Chabad of Poway.[285][286][287] One woman was killed and three others were injured, including the synagogue's rabbi.[288][289] In an open letter posted on 8chan shortly before the shooting and signed with Earnest's name, the author blamed Jews for the "meticulously planned genocide of the European race", a White genocide conspiracy theory.[290][better source needed] |
| October 27, 2018 | Shooting | 11 | 6 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: a gunman killed eleven people and wounded six in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.[291] Bowers had earlier posted antisemitic comments about a group formerly named Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) on the online social network Gab.[292] Referring to Central American migrant caravans and immigrants, Bowers posted on Gab that "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."[293][294] |
| 11–12 August 2017 | Riot | 3 | 49+ | Charlottesville, Virginia | In a far-right rally, attendees were filmed chanting "[the] Jews will not replace us". The rally turned deadly when James Alex Fields Jr., one of the attendees, launched a vehicle-ramming attack on an opposing group.[295][294] |
| 24 June 2017 | Harassment | 0 | 0 | Chicago, Illinois | Three Jewish lesbians were ejected from the Chicago's Dyke March for carrying pride flags with the Star of David, a Jewish national symbol. They were reportedly interrogated over their stance on "Zionism" to which the organizer opposed. The incident drew widespread criticism.[296][297] |
| April 13, 2014 | Shooting | 3 | 0 | Overland Park, Kansas | Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a Klansman and neo-Nazi,[298] perpetrated shootings at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, both located in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people were killed in the shootings, two of whom were shot at the community center and one shot at the retirement community.[299] |
| June 10, 2009 | Shooting | 1 | 1 | Washington, D.C. | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting: At about 12:50 pm on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old white supremacist James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other security guards returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended.[300][301][302][303] |
| July 28, 2006 | Shooting | 1 | 6 | Seattle, Washington | 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting: at around 4:00 pm. Naveed Afzal Haq entered the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington and shot six women, one fatally.[304] Witnesses reported that before Haq began shooting he shouted, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel."[305] |
| August 6, 2003 | Stabbing | 1 | 0 | Houston, Texas | Murder of Ariel Sellouk: Mohammed Ali Alayed, who had stopped socializing with his Jewish friend Ariel Sellouk due to becoming a religiously strict Muslim, came back to Alayed's apartment after not seeing each other for a year. Alayed slit Sellouk's throat and nearly decapitated him. Alayed pled guilty and was sentenced to 60 years in prison on April 19, 2004.[306][307] |
| July 4, 2002 | Shooting | 2 | 5 | Los Angeles, California | 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national,[308] opened fire at the airline ticket counter of El Al, Israel's national airline, at Los Angeles International Airport. Two people were killed and four others were injured before the gunman was fatally shot by an El Al security guard.[309] In September 2002, federal investigators concluded that Hadayet hoped to influence U.S. government policy in favor of the Palestinians, and that the incident was a terrorist act.[310][311][312] |
| August 10, 1999 | Shooting | 1 | 5 | Los Angeles, California | Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting: at around 10:50 am. white supremacist Buford O. Furrow, Jr. walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, firing 70 shots into the complex. The gunfire wounded five people: three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities.[313][314] |
| March 1, 1994 | Shooting | 1 | 3 | New York, New York | 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting: Rashid Baz shot at a van of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish students who were traveling on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, killing one and injuring three others.[315] Baz was arrested and found to be in possession of anti-Jewish literature, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a stun gun, a bulletproof vest and two 50-round ammunition magazines. Initially, Baz claimed a traffic dispute led him to commit the shootings, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation initially classified the case as road rage.[316] Witnesses testified that on the day of the shooting Baz had attended "a raging anti-Semitic sermon" by Imam Reda Shata at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge.[317] |
| August 19, 1991 – August 21 | Riot | 1 | New York, New York | Crown Heights riot: a race riot that took place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City in which black residents turned against Orthodox Jewish Chabad residents. The riots began on August 19, 1991, after two children of Guyanese immigrants were accidentally struck by one of the cars in the motorcade of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of Chabad, a Jewish religious movement. One child died and the second was severely injured. In the wake of the fatal accident, some black youths attacked several Jews on the street, seriously injuring several and fatally injuring Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish student from Australia.[318] | |
| April 17, 1986 | Murder | 1 | 0 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Murder of Neal Rosenblum was shot and killed because of his Jewish appearance, wearing Haredi attire. The killer was released from prison on October 23, 2017, after serving 15 years of the maximum 20. |
| June 18, 1984 | Shooting | 1 | 0 | Denver, Colorado | Members of the white nationalist group The Order shot Jewish talk radio host Alan Berg dead.[319] |
| October 8, 1977 | Shooting | 1 | 2 | St. Louis, Missouri | Guests who attended a bar mitzvah were leaving Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue when white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin began shooting at them, killing Gerald Gordon, and wounding Steven Goldman and William Ash.[320][321][322] |
| November 11, 1957 and October 14, 1958 | Bombing | 0 | 0 | Temple Beth-El, Nashville, Tennessee. Temple Emanuel, Gastonia, North Carolina. Temple Beth-El, Miami, Florida. Jewish Community Center, Nashville, Tennessee. Jewish Community Center, Jacksonville, Florida. Temple Beth-El, Birmingham, Alabama. The Temple, Atlanta, Georgia. Temple Anshei Emeth, Peoria, Illinois. | Five bombings and three attempted bombings of synagogues, seven in the Southern United States and one in the Midwest United States. There were no deaths or injuries. Some of the bombings are unsolved to this day. |
| August 17, 1915 | Lynching | 1 | 0 | Marietta, Georgia | Lynching of Leo Frank: Leo Frank was an American factory superintendent who was wrongly convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia.[324][326] His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. A mob lynched him on August 17, 1915, in response to the commutation of his death sentence. |
| December 17, 1862 | Order | Parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky | General Order No. 11 was an order issued by Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, during the Vicksburg Campaign, that took place during the American Civil War. The order expelled all Jews from Grant's military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Grant issued the order in an effort to reduce Union military corruption, and stop an illicit trade of Southern cotton, which Grant thought was being run "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders."[327][better source needed]
At Holly Springs, Mississippi, Grant's Union Army supply depot, Jewish persons were rounded up and forced to leave the city by foot. On December 20, 1862, three days after Grant's order, Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn's Confederate Army raided Holly Springs, that prevented many Jewish persons from potential expulsion. Although delayed by Van Dorn's raid, Grant's order was fully implemented at Paducah, Kentucky. Thirty Jewish families were expelled and roughly treated from the city.[source?] Jewish community leaders protested, and there was an outcry by members of Congress and the press; President Abraham Lincoln countermanded the General Order on January 4, 1863. Grant claimed during his 1868 Presidential campaign that he had issued the order without prejudice against Jews as a way to address a problem that "certain Jews had caused".[328][better source needed] |
Latin America
| Country | % population holding biases against Jews (95% confidence level)[34] | |
|---|---|---|
| Panama | 52 | |
| Colombia | 41 | |
| Dominican Republic | 41 | |
| Peru | 38 | |
| Chile | 37 | |
| Guatemala | 36 | |
| Paraguay | 35 | |
| Nicaragua | 34 | |
| Uruguay | 33 | |
| Costa Rica | 32 | |
| Venezuela | 30 | |
| Bolivia | 30 | |
| Haiti | 26 | |
| Mexico | 24 | |
| Argentina | 24 | |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 24 | |
| Jamaica | 18 | |
Since 7 October 2023, a spike in harassment and violence against Jews has also been recorded across Latin America.[329] As per the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC), 91% of community leaders from several Latin American countries reported that antisemitism had increased since 7 October 2023.[330]
Hispan TV, the Spanish channel of the antisemitic[331] Iranian regime's state television Press TV, has reportedly contributed to antisemitism among its 600 million audience in Latin America by promoting the[332]
- Holocaust denial
- myth of Jews controlling the Hollywood and governments
- perception of the antisemitic[331] Iranian regime being the "leader of global resistance[333] movements"
Asia
Internet
Antisemitism is common on the most visited websites worldwide,[334] including Wikipedia,[335][336] Reddit[337] and Instagram.[338][339] On January 23, 2025, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) said in a press release that a UNESCO study found 16% of all Holocaust-related content across social media to be denying or distorting.[340][341]
Wikipedia
Croatian Wikipedia
Between 2009 and 2021, Croatian Wikipedia was controlled by a group of far-right administrators who promoted Holocaust denial by censoring[335] the war crimes of the pro-Nazi Ustaše-ruled Independent State of Croatia (NDH)[342] and blocking dozens of rule-abiding users for trying to remove the false content.[335]
Željko Jovanović, the Minister of Science of Croatia back then, also advised against the use of the Croatian Wikipedia.[343] The most serious violation by the far-right administrators was their anti-historical designation of the Jasenovac concentration camp, in which 77,000–99,000 were killed,[344] as a "collection camp".[335] Their Holocaust denial was condemned by scholars, officials, advocacy groups and media critics.[335]
Following a year-long investigation (2020–21) by the Wikimedia Foundation, several complicit users and administrators were either banned or demoted, with one of the administrators found to have consolidated his or her power with 80 sockpuppet accounts.[345]
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia was criticized for condoning the systematic whitewashing of Nazi war criminals in thousands of WWII-related articles.[346] For instance, Arthur Nebe, a senior SS official who invented mobile gas chambers to kill Jews, was portrayed as a savior of Jews based on distortion of a cited source that actually said the opposite,[346] while false claims of Nazi war criminals "opposing" Hitler were made.[346] SS units responsible for the Holocaust were either depicted as brave fighters or described in passive voice to make their atrocities look normal.[346]
Those who corrected the false content had also faced persistent harassment from pro-Nazi users, some of whom were found to have repeatedly cited materials from Holocaust-denying sources (e.g. Journal of Historical Review, Nation Europa and Franz Kurowski[346]) misrepresented them as academic consensus and gamed the rules to prevent the removal of such content.[346] The violations continued for years with limited administrative intervention,[346] which mainstreamed Nazi sympathy among young readers and hurt efforts to preserve the Holocaust's historical truth.[346] German military historian Jens Westemeier commented on the issue,[346]
The English Wikipedia pages are far more sympathetic towards the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS than the German ones [. ...] Wikipedia and Amazon are the worst distributors of pro-Nazi perspectives and the ["clean"] Wehrmacht myth.
In 2023, Holocaust historians Prof. Jan Grabowski and Dr. Shira Klein published a 57-page article titled Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust[347] in The Journal of Holocaust Research wherein they reported to have found widespread distortion of Poland's Holocaust history on the English Wikipedia,[336][347] which involved the exaggeration[336][347] of Jewish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers, invention of Jewish "atrocities" against Poles, downplaying of Polish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers and blaming Jews for their own suffering in the Holocaust.[336][347]
Prof. Grabowski and Dr. Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle,[336][347] leaving the site vulnerable to disinformation:
Wikipedia’s administrators have largely failed to uphold Wikipedia’s policies [. ...] unable to deal with the issue of persistent distortion [...] Wikipedia’s articles [...] have become a hub of misinformation and antisemitic canards.
On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,[336]
As a historian, I was aware [...] of various distortions [...] of the Holocaust on Wikipedia. What I found shocking, was the sheer scale [...] and the small number of individuals needed to distort the history of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity.
In 2024, independent journalist investigations uncovered a large-scale off-site canvassing campaign to rewrite Jewish history and reshape the narrative surrounding the Israel–Palestine conflict, which involved 40 accounts having made at least 2,000,000 edits to over 10,000 Jewish-related articles.[348]
The off-site canvassing campaign was coordinated by an 8,000-member Tech for Palestine Discord channel,[348] where the organizers provided the participants in-depth training (e.g. strategy planning sessions, group audio "office hour" chats)[348] on getting used to Wikipedia's site operation, assigning participants (in groups of 2~3) to edit hundreds of articles in rotation[348] and gaming the rules to block others from correcting them.[348]
Reported examples of their revisionist[349] edits include[348]
- Removal of "Land of Israel" from the origin of Jews in Jewish-related articles
- Removal of mentions of 16th century Jewish immigration to Israel in Jewish-related articles
- Removal of mentions of Hamas' 1988 charter which involved the incitement to mass murder of Jews
- Removal of mentions of the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's alliance with Hitler[350][351] in Holocaust-related articles
- Redefinition of Jews as an "ethnoreligious group and cultural community" from "ethnoreligious group and nation from the Levant" in Jewish-related articles
On 12 December 2024, English Wikipedia's arbitration committee announced that two editors[352] had been site-banned indefinitely for off-site canvassing[348][352] and "encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing."[352] Another three editors have also been sanctioned for similar reasons.[352] On January 17, 2025, English Wikipedia's arbitration committee further voted to impose indefinite topic-bans on multiple longtime editors associated with the organized campaign.[353] ADL's CEO Jonathan Greenblatt commented,[353]
[I]t is now imperative for Wikipedia to [...] undo the harm caused by these rogue but prolific editors who [...] wreaked havoc across the platform [. ...] a systemic problem [...] that needs immediate action.
Antisemitism is also common on Instagram.[338][339] Some celebrities, including Israeli Jewish actresses Gal Gadot[354][355] and Noa Cohen,[356][357] are also victims, who have to restrict commenting on their Instagram profiles to reduce antisemitic harassment from purported pro-Palestinian groups.[354][356]
Related pages
- Antiziganism
- Bosnian genocide
- Rwandan genocide
- Cambodian genocide
- Rwandan genocide denial
- Cambodian genocide denial
Other websites
Organizations
- StopAntisemitism
- World Jewish Congress (WJC)
- Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC)
- European Jewish Congress (EJC)
- American Jewish Committee (AJC)
- Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA)
- Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM)
Academic journals
Research institutes
- Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
- Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)
- Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania (Romanian: Institutul Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România „Elie Wiesel”)
References
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