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As Europe’s Jews see a new era of antisemitism, governments struggle over how to respond
(JTA) — In synagogues, schools and ordinary streets across Europe, Jews are voicing a similar refrain: They live in a different world from the one they knew before Oct. 7.
That’s not only because Hamas’ attacks in southern Israel killed the most Jewish civilians in one day since the Holocaust. Across Europe, the rate of antisemitic incidents has fueled an atmosphere of fear and motivated some to conceal their Jewish identity.
European governments have made it a point to protect their countries’ Jews from antisemitism in recent decades. The fruits of those efforts are seen in the increased security at Jewish institutions across the continent and the continued public statements by Western leaders meant to call out and condemn hatred against Jews.
But there is a new wrinkle to that arc: a clear, tortured confusion in European governments and police departments about how to distinguish between anger against Israel and antisemitism, between the right to assemble at pro-Palestinian rallies and the crime of hate speech. The debate was punctuated on Monday by the firing of British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who made a series of divisive remarks about pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week.
A new era?
Over a month into the bloody aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israeli towns and Israel’s bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip, antisemitism is soaring far from the scene of the conflict.
France has registered over 1,000 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, exceeding in weeks the number recorded over the past year, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. The Community Security Trust, a group that tracks antisemitism in Britain, has reported 1,205 incidents in that time frame — the highest total in a 35-day period since it began recording offenses in 1984. And in Germany, the federal agency RIAS verified 202 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-15, up 240% from the same week last year.
The incidents run the gamut: Assaults, threats to Jews and Jewish businesses, damage to Jewish property, hate mail and online abuse.
On Nov. 4, a Jewish woman in Lyon was stabbed in the stomach at her home, while a swastika was found graffitied on her door. French prosecutors have also opened a probe into a viral video that showed a group of youths chanting on the Paris metro: “Fuck the Jews and fuck your mother, long live Palestine, we are Nazis and proud of it.”
Meanwhile, Berlin police are investigating two Molotov cocktails thrown at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue, along with multiple Stars of David marked on apartment buildings. The Oct. 27 cover of the German magazine Der Spiegel, one of the most widely circulated news magazines in Europe, read “Wir Haben Angst” (“We are scared”). One of the four German Jews pictured on the cover is 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Ivar Buterfas-Frankenthal.
Marina Chernivsky is the founder and director of OFEK, a Berlin counseling center that specializes in antisemitic violence and discrimination. The group has struggled to manage a 12-fold increase in requests for psychological counseling since Oct. 7, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. In just three weeks, OFEK received 390 requests; its previous record was 370 in an entire year.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Chernivsky. “It’s just one indicator of the situation now, because it’s a very high barrier to decide to call an institution and tell the story and also ask for support. It’s not easy and many people do not do it.”
London police received reports of 657 antisemitic and 230 Islamophobic incidents between Oct.1 and Nov. 1, a significant jump in both categories. On Nov. 2, staff at London’s Wiener Holocaust Library — the world’s oldest Holocaust library and research center — found graffiti that read “Gaza” across their building’s sign.
In Italy’s capital, four Holocaust memorial plaques were found blackened with a torch and spray paint last week. The bronze blocks, called “pietre d’inciampo” or “stumbling stones” in Rome, are embedded on the sidewalk in front of apartment buildings where Jews were rounded up from the Nazi-occupied city and sent to Auschwitz in 1944. They show the names of the Jews who lived there and the dates when they were born, deported and murdered.
Milan officials are also investigating dozens of antisemitic incidents, including death threats graffitied in a hospital, a bakery and a nightclub. At a recent Milan rally, some protestors chanted, “Open the borders so we can kill the Zionists.”
Spain and Portugal have seen their share of synagogue graffiti, too. In Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast, a group of protestors gathered in front of a synagogue and burned an Israeli flag.
The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue in Porto, Portugal, was hit with graffiti tied to the Israel-Hamas conflict, Oct. 11, 2023. (CIP)
In the Netherlands, the number of antisemitic incidents reported to a leading Dutch-Jewish watchdog is up 818% from the monthly average of the past three years. This figure only includes interpersonal incidents, such as threats, verbal and physical abuse and direct messages, not general antisemitic statements on social media.
“We see lots of incidents at schools, where Jewish or Israeli kids are being attacked because of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza,” CIDI director Naomi Mestrum told JTA. “One kid was threatened with a knife and hit with a bottle, while the other kids were swearing, ‘kankerjood’ — in Dutch, that means ‘cancer Jew.’”
The Dutch Jewish Weekly changed its delivery packaging from transparent plastic to an anonymous white envelope after Oct. 7, according to editor-in-chief Esther Voet, because subscribers were anxious about their neighbors finding out they were Jewish. Their requests follow a pattern of fear among Jews taking measures to hide their identity in Europe, from removing or camouflaging their mezuzahs to taking off their kippahs in public and avoiding speaking Hebrew on the street. One Syrian Jewish refugee in the Netherlands told JTA he no longer sleeps in his own apartment after his window was defaced with a swastika.
Although antisemitism typically flares in Europe when there is fighting in Israel and the Palestinian territories, tracking groups in France, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands all report that European Jews are living in a new landscape.
“We’ve never seen this before, both this increase in numbers and the threatening types of incidents,” CIDI researcher and policy advisor Hans Wallage told JTA. “I also hear from the Jewish community that they’ve never experienced this before, and they’re very afraid and anxious for the future.”
The free speech debate
In the face of this crescendo, European governments have been conflicted over how to crack down on antisemitism without inhibiting free speech.
In France, Darmanin attempted to impose a blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, declaring them “likely to generate disturbances to public order.” Vincent Brengarth, a lawyer for the Palestine Action Committee, called this order a “serious attack on freedom of expression.” The ban has since been overturned by France’s top administrative court, although local authorities can still block protests on a case-by-case basis.
London’s Metropolitan police have been open about their difficulty in determining which protest chants are lawful and which could incite violence. In a bulletin on Oct. 20, they discussed the popular chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has various interpretations. Some activists say it means that Palestinians should be free of Israeli occupation, with rights and dignity equal to Israelis. Critics, including Israeli leaders and Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, say the chant calls for a Palestinian entity that has eliminated Jews and Israelis between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
“While we can envisage scenarios where chanting these words could be unlawful, such as outside a synagogue or Jewish school, or directly at a Jewish person or group intended to intimidate, it is likely that its use in a wider protest setting… would not be an offense and would not result in arrests,” said the Metropolitan police.
Police officers arrest a pro-Palestinian protester during the demonstration in Piccadilly Circus in London, Nov. 4, 2023. (Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the British government is divided. Ahead of a massive pro-Palestinian rally in London on Saturday, Suella Braverman wrote an op-ed calling the protestors “hate marchers” and accusing the police of being overly lenient with them. In a letter to senior police officers last month, the former home secretary argued that waving a Palestinian flag and chanting “From the river to the sea” should both be considered as possible criminal offenses.
Britain’s Labour party, just a few years removed from a longstanding antisemitism scandal, is similarly divided. Party leader Keir Starmer has shown a zero-tolerance policy for anything he sees as approaching hate speech against Jews. Labour parliament member Andy McDonald was suspended, pending an investigation, after the party alleged that he made “deeply offensive” comments at a rally on Oct. 29. He said in the speech: “We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.”
Although Germany’s constitution protects freedom of expression, opinion and assembly, various local authorities have imposed bans on pro-Palestinian protests — including Hamburg, the second-largest city. In some places, resistance to these orders has led to clashes between protestors and riot police. Berlin’s education senator Katharina Guenther-Wuensch has allowed schools to ban the keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, along with the phrase “Free Palestine.”
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has said he believes that protest bans are “definitely justified” to prevent “anti-Israel, aggressive and antisemitic” actions.
But some vocal opponents of the protest bans are Jews. In an open letter published in the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung and the New York-based magazine N+1, over 100 Jewish artists, writers and scholars in Germany said the suppression of pro-Palestinian rallies did not make them feel safer.
The group noted the surge in violent intimidation against German Jews and expressed fear that “the atmosphere in Germany has become more dangerous — for Jews and Muslims alike — than at any time in the nation’s recent history.” However, they denounced bans on nonviolent protest, saying these restrictions often come with brutality to immigrants and minorities and can escalate instead of preventing violence.
“As Jews, we reject this pretext for racist violence and express full solidarity with our Arab, Muslim, and particularly our Palestinian neighbors,” said the letter. “What frightens us is the prevailing atmosphere of racism and xenophobia in Germany, hand in hand with a constraining and paternalistic philo-Semitism. We reject in particular the conflation of anti-Semitism and any criticism of the state of Israel.”
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The post As Europe’s Jews see a new era of antisemitism, governments struggle over how to respond appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lebanon Claims It Is Replacing Hezbollah in the South
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam speaks at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
JNS.org – Lebanon’s leadership declared in recent days that the Lebanese Army has begun replacing Hezbollah forces in the country’s southern region.
In an April 15 interview with The New Arab, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced that 2025 would be the year of the Lebanese state’s monopoly on arms.
Aoun pledged that only the state would have weapons, referring to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and stressed this goal would be achieved through direct dialogue with Hezbollah, while explicitly ruling out steps that could ignite conflict with Hezbollah.
“I told the Americans that we want to remove Hezbollah’s weapons, but we will not ignite a civil war in Lebanon,” Aoun said, referencing a meeting with US Deputy Envoy Morgan Ortagus.
Aoun added that Hezbollah members could potentially integrate individually into the LAF but rejected replicating the Iraqi model where Shi’ite, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups formed independent units within the military. He asserted the LAF was conducting missions throughout the country “without any obstruction from Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah member Mahmoud Qamat, however, responded by stating, “No one in the world will succeed in laying a hand on this weapon,” according to Lebanese media.
Hezbollah Member of Parliament Ali Fayyad stated the group was open to internal dialogue but warned against pressure on the LAF to disarm Hezbollah.
Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai, a research associate at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and a former investigator for the IDF’s commission on the 2006 Second Lebanon War, told JNS on Wednesday that statements by Lebanese officials and the activities of the Lebanese army are “unequivocally an achievement for Israel.”
But Shai warned that due “the weakness of the Lebanese army, the IDF cannot rely on it and must back it up with its own parallel defense—mainly through detailed intelligence monitoring and targeted thwarting of any violation not only in Southern Lebanon but also [deep] within it, including at sea and air ports.”
The fragility of the situation was highlighted when a LAF soldier was killed, and three others were wounded while attempting to neutralize suspected Hezbollah ordnance in the Tyre district of Southern Lebanon on April 14.
Hezbollah’s real intentions were also apparent when its supporters reportedly burned billboards celebrating Lebanon’s “new era.”
Most tellingly, the Israel Defense Forces is continuing to detect intelligence of illegal Hezbollah activity in Southern Lebanon, and acting on that intelligence. Overnight between April 15 and 16, the IDF conducted strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Southern Lebanon.
In one strike near Aitaroun in Southern Lebanon, an IDF aircraft killed Ali Najib Bazzi, identified by the IDF as a squad commander in Hezbollah’s Special Operations unit. Other recent IDF actions included strikes and artillery fire targeting a Hezbollah engineering vehicle near Ayta ash-Shab in Southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, reports emerged suggesting Hezbollah was actively adapting its methods for acquiring weapons. Reports indicated a shift towards sea-based smuggling routes utilizing Beirut Port.
The Saudi Al-Hadath news site reported on April 8 that Iran’s Quds Force created an arms smuggling sea route that bypasses Syria.
Amidst these reports, Aoun visited Beirut Port on April 11, calling for strict government cargo monitoring.
Karmon expresses skepticism
Senior research scholar Ely Karmon of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya stated, “There’s no doubt there’s a change in Lebanon, first of all on the political level— the fact that President Joseph Aoun was elected—supported by the West, the United States, Saudi Arabia.”
In addition, he said, “Hezbollah’s political weight in parliament and in Lebanon in general has dropped significantly after the blow they received from the IDF.”
On the other hand, Karmon expressed deep skepticism about Aoun’s stated path to disarming Hezbollah. Aoun’s statement that he “isn’t interested in coming to military confrontation with Hezbollah,” and that it needs to be a “slow process,” as well as his call for Hezbollah to enter Lebanese army units, should not be taken at face value, according to Karmon.
“I don’t really believe it. First of all, because traditionally, in the Lebanese Army, most of the soldiers were Shi’ites, for a simple demographic reason. And therefore, the integration of thousands of Hezbollah fighters or personnel into the army—certainly at this stage in my opinion—it’s a danger that they’ll take control of the army from within, after they’ve already for years cooperated with the army.”
He added, “We know, for example, that they received weapons from the Lebanese Army—tanks and APCs—when they operated in Syria in 2013, 2010, and they even presented them publicly in Qusayr [in Syria]. On the other hand, we also heard one article from a Hezbollah representative who’s on their political committee, stating, ‘Absolutely not, we will not give up the weapons!’ It is clear there’ll be opposition.”
Karmon said he was skeptical about Lebanese government claims about taking over around 95 out of some 250 Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon. Karmon assessed that Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors would be cautious but that they would continue to try “as usual, to act and to bring in weapons, to prepare some infrastructure in case, for example, there is a crisis in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue.”
The post Lebanon Claims It Is Replacing Hezbollah in the South first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Tradition, Tradition!’
An image from “Family at the Seder,” from the 1935 Haggadah by artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Lodz, Poland—d. 1951, New Canaan, CT). Photo: Courtesy of Irvin Ungar
JNS.org – How important is tradition in Judaism? Obviously, the answer is that it is very important. I mean, they even dedicated a major song by that title in “Fiddler on the Roof!”
How strong is the need for tradition in the spiritual consciousness of Jews today? Despite the effects of secularism, I’d venture to suggest that there is still a need inside us to feel connected to our roots, our heritage and our sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Perhaps more than any time of the year, Passover is the season when millions of Jews embrace their traditions with love, warmth and lots of nostalgia.
But for vast numbers of our people, tradition alone has not been enough. And that applies not only to the rebellious among us who may have cast aside their traditions with impunity, but also to many ordinary, thinking people who decided that to do something just because “that’s the way it has always been done” was simply not good enough.
So what if my grandfather did it? My grandfather rode around in a horse and buggy! Must I give up my car for a horse just because my Zaidy rode a horse? And if my Bubbie never got a university degree, why shouldn’t I? Just because my grandparents practiced certain Jewish traditions, why must I? Perhaps those traditions are as obsolete as the horse and buggy?
There are masses of Jews who think this way and who will not be convinced to behave Jewishly just because their grandparents did.
We need to tell them why their grandparents did it. They need to understand that their grandparents’ traditions were not done just for tradition’s sake, but there was a very good reason why their forbears practiced those traditions. And those very same reasons and rationales still hold good today. There is, in fact, no such thing as “empty ritual” in Judaism. Everything has a reason, and a good one, too.
Too many young people were put off by tradition because some cheder or Talmud Torah teacher didn’t take their questions seriously. They were silenced with a wave of the hand, a pinch of the ear, the classic “when you get older, you’ll understand,” or the infamously classic, “just do as you’re told.”
There are answers. There have always been answers. We may not have logical explanations for tsunamis and other tzuris, but all our traditions are founded on substance and have intelligible, credible underpinnings. If we seek answers, we will find them in abundance, including layers and layers of meaning, from the simple to the symbolic to the philosophical and even mystical.
The seventh day of Passover recalls the “Song of the Sea” sung by Moses and the Jewish people following the splitting of the sea and their miraculous deliverance from the Egyptian armies. Early on, we find the verse, “This is my God and I will glorify Him, the God of my fathers, and I will exalt Him.”
The sequence is significant. First comes “my God,” and only thereafter “the God of my fathers.” In the Amidah prayer, the silent devotion, which is the apex of our daily prayers, we begin addressing the “Almighty, as our God and the God of our fathers … Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Again, “our God” comes first. So while the God of our fathers, i.e., tradition, most definitely plays a very important role in Judaism, an indispensable prerequisite is that we must make God ours, personally. Every Jew must develop a personal relationship with God. We need to understand the reasons and the significance of our traditions lest they be mistaken for empty ritual to be discarded by the next generation.
Authentic Judaism has never shied away from questions. Questions have always been encouraged and formed a part of our academic heritage. Every page of the Talmud is filled with questions and answers. You don’t have to wait for the Passover seder to ask a question.
When we think, ask and find answers to our faith, the traditions of our grandparents become alive, and we understand fully why we should make them ours. Once a tradition has become ours and we realize that this very same practice has been observed uninterruptedly by our ancestors throughout the generations, then tradition becomes a powerful force that can inspire us forever.
The seders we celebrated at the beginning of Passover are among the most powerful in our faith. They go back to our ancestors in Egypt, where the very first seder was observed. How truly awesome is it that we are still practicing these same traditions more than 3,300 years later!
Our traditions are not empty. They are rich and meaningful and will, please God, be held on to preciously for generations to come.
With acknowledgments to Chabad.org.
The post ‘Tradition, Tradition!’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US
“Protect Migrants, Protect the Planet” rally in New York City, U.S., April 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Thousands of protesters rallied in Washington and other cities across the US on Saturday to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on deportations, government firings, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Outside the White House, protesters carried banners that read “Workers should have the power,” “No kingship,” “Stop arming Israel” and “Due process,” media footage showed.
Some demonstrators chanted in support of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported or has been attempting to deport while expressing solidarity with people fired by the federal government and with universities whose funding is threatened by Trump.
“As Trump and his administration mobilize the use of the US deportation machine, we are going to organize networks and systems of resistance to defend our neighbors,” a protester said in a rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.
Other protesters waved Palestinian flags while wearing keffiyeh scarves, chanting “free Palestine” and expressing solidarity with Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some demonstrators carried symbols expressing support for Ukraine and urging Washington to be more decisive in opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Since his January inauguration, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have gutted the federal government, firing over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.
The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to stop federal funding to universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Rights groups have condemned the policies.
Near the Washington Monument, banners from protesters read: “hate never made any nation great” and “equal rights for all does not mean less rights for you.”
Demonstrations were also held in New York City and Chicago, among dozens of other locations. It marked the second day of nationwide demonstrations since Trump took office.
The post Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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