Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.

We are witnessing an alarming moral erosion across North America as antisemitism continues its steep and brazen ascent. This is not the subtle “dog whistle” antisemitism of past decades. It is overt. It is violent. It is organized. And it is often masquerading as “activism” under the guise of anti-Zionism or anti-Israel sentiment.

The growing chorus of hatred is not merely about Israel’s policies — it is about Jews, period.

In city streets, on college campuses, in media and political discourse, antisemitic rhetoric has become normalized and even celebrated. As a Jewish activist, journalist, and advisor working on the frontlines of Jewish advocacy, I can no longer temper my condemnation: our governments are failing us. Our cities are complicit through inaction. And too many voices of reason have been muted by fear or ignorance.

Anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish sentiments directed against our entire movement, people, and country are, in fact, antisemitism.

Being against Israeli policies, specific individuals, or specific actions is one thing.  Being against an entire movement, country, or people is another thing.

Hate in the Streets, on Campuses, and in Political Discourse

Let us start with the public sphere, where antisemitism no longer hides.

Just last week, Washington, D.C., was rocked by a violent terror attack targeting a Jewish gathering and murdering two young people because they attended a Jewish gathering in a Jewish building. This followed a string of violent incidents in both the United States and Canada, from vandalism of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses to death threats at “Israel Day” events in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City. It also followed murders and attempted murders that targeted Jews across America.

One unsettling battleground is the university campus, which reflects exactly what we are witnessing on city streets, as performative activism and “catchy” slogans are used to justify anti-Jewish racism, bigotry, and hatred.

According to a sweeping 2024 study conducted by Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League, 73% of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since October 7, 2023. Even more disturbingly, 41% report concealing their Jewish identity due to safety concerns

At UCLA, Jewish students were blocked from entering campus spaces unless they denounced Israel’s right to exist. In 2024, a Federal court ruled in their favor, underscoring the university’s gross failure to uphold basic rights. At McGill University in Canada, protesters called for the destruction of Israel with chants of “Long live the intifada,” while intimidating Jewish students with hateful signage and harassment. The encampments are not peace protests — they are theaters of intimidation and hate.

The Digital Engine of Antisemitic Hate

This surge of hate is not organic. It is algorithmically amplified. The digital sphere — particularly social media platforms — has become the central artery through which antisemitic content spreads.

According to CyberWell’s analysis of the 2025 Canadian federal election, 72.1% of antisemitic content tracked was posted to X (formerly Twitter), often mixing Holocaust denial, dehumanizing slurs, and calls for violence with the language of political activism. Other platforms — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube — are also culpable. This is not free speech; this is the incitement and proliferation of hate speech, and it has very real offline consequences.

The Unholy Alliance: Islamism and the Far-Left

What is perhaps most insidious is the strategic manipulation of far-left ideologies by Islamist movements that are fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy. These Islamist entities have perfected the art of linguistic appropriation — using terms like “decolonization,” “social justice,” and “intersectionality” — to disguise antisemitism as a virtue. And too many progressive institutions, including our universities and civic spaces, have bought this lie.

The placard-waving crowds chanting for “liberation” are often parroting slogans that call for the elimination of Jews and Israel.

This is not solidarity — it is sinister exploitation. These ideologues weaponize moral language to deceive well-meaning, uninformed minds. What begins as ignorance metastasizes into hate. The results are playing out in real time, in both physical attacks and the chilling erasure of Jewish identity in public life.

The Path Forward: The Stakes for Everyone

Let me be clear: when Jews are targeted, the foundational values of the entire nation are under assault.

Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine. History teaches us that societies that allow hatred against Jews to fester will eventually turn on themselves. If you want to protect the soul of America or Canada, you must protect your Jewish citizens.

What can be done? Everything. Everyone must act.

• For citizens: Speak out when you see hate. Do not allow bigotry to masquerade as activism in your community or workplace. Educate yourself beyond social media slogans.
• For politicians: Condemn antisemitism without conditions or “context.” Pass legislation that defines and prosecutes antisemitic hate crimes. Fund security for vulnerable communities.
• For universities: Enforce codes of conduct. Protect Jewish students. Restore academic integrity by removing ideologically extreme professors who promote hate under the banner of scholarship.
• For tech companies: Ban antisemitic content. Enforce your own policies. The digital space must not be a breeding ground for violent ideology.

A Final Word

I refuse to be silent as hatred spreads like wildfire. I refuse to downplay antisemitism as just another political opinion. It is not. It is the world’s oldest hatred, and it has been rebranded and repurposed in our modern era with terrifying efficiency.

As Jews, we carry the burden of survival — and the responsibility to fight forward, not back. As citizens of democratic nations, we all share the obligation to confront hate wherever it appears. This is not a Jewish problem; this is a North American crisis. And the time to act is now.

Yuval David is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, filmmaker, and actor, and an internationally recognized advocate for Jewish and LGBTQ rights. He serves as a strategic advisor to diplomatic missions, international NGOs, and multilateral organizations, focusing on human rights, pluralism, and cultural diplomacy. With extensive experience in global media and public engagement, Yuval contributes to leading international news outlets and frequently speaks at diplomatic forums, policy conferences, and intergovernmental gatherings. His work fosters cross-cultural understanding, combats antisemitism and hate, and promotes democratic values and inclusive societies. Instagram.com/Yuval_David_ X.com/YuvalDavid Facebook.com/YuvalDavid YouTube.com/YuvalDavid Tiktok.com/@yuval.david

The post Antisemitism in North America: Unmasking Hate in the Guise of Activism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A Birthright Israel trip. Photo: Facebook

I am 29.5 weeks pregnant with my fourth child, and I increasingly wonder if I am making a mistake.

Not because I don’t desperately want this child. I do. With every fiber of my being. Not a day has gone by over the last seven months in which I haven’t felt grateful to be carrying this child, despite the pain and agony of a pregnancy that forces me into a wheelchair because of pain walking and standing, a pregnancy which has me made me sick non stop; a pregnancy which keeps me up throughout the night. I know I can handle all of that.

What makes me doubt whether I am doing the right thing in bringing another Jewish life into the world right now is the fact that two beautiful young Jews, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, can get shot by a cold blooded murderer in the name of “social justice” as they left a panel discussion aimed at finding solutions to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. And the world says almost nothing.

Where is the outrage? Where are our non-Jewish friends and allies? The same questions we’ve asked every single day since Oct. 7, 2023.

The free world has either buried its head in the sand and turned a blind eye to the rising tides of radicalization and antisemitism — or worse, justified it because of the same pernicious lies touted by “reputable” organizations and institutions like the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court, not to mention the mainstream media, the British Parliament, and members of our own Congress. The false accusations of genocide and apartheid take their toll, eroding the world’s ability to care about the murder of innocent, Zionist Jews.

In 2025, after all, Zionist or even Israeli, has become a radioactive label — something people want to stay far away from. One only need to walk through a college campus today to see the workings of that hate machine, which pedals “social justice” and “free speech” as the justification for vile slogans just the same as the ones uttered by the murderer of Yaron and Sarah, like “Free Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” and “resistance by any means necessary.”

It would be better if the world was shocked and outraged when those violent and threatening slogans actually lead to violence — and yet, more than anything, the resounding response is… silence.

I desperately find myself scrolling through my social media, looking for some affirmation, some validation, that my Jewish children’s lives matter outside of my Jewish world. But the outside world seems to be mostly ignorant to the news out of D.C., and despite many Jewish friends’ pleas — “check in on your Jewish friends” today” — a total of zero of my non-Jewish friends actually do reach out.

It’s not that I think my non-Jewish friends don’t care. I know they do. But whether because the news of these beautiful souls’ death hasn’t registered across their feeds, or because they don’t want to get “political” — after all, these young bright souls, on the verge of engagement, worked at the Israeli embassy, so there is that “radioactive” bit again — it’s easier for them to stay silent.

What they fail to realize, what we have been screaming out time and again for the last 18 months, is the age old truism that what starts with the Jews, never ends with the Jews. We are but the canary in the coal-mine, the weathervane for the ailments of our failing, faltering society.

If nothing else, at least the gloomy weather feels in sync with the mood, I thought to myself, as I numbly went through my day. Some small measure of external validation.

“I don’t think I can wear a kippah anymore,” my husband says, for the first time, as he walks in through the door last night. This is my husband, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who refused to take off his kippah, the physical representation of his Jewish identity, even after his father was beaten to a pulp on the streets of New York City just because he was wearing a kippah. My husband, who refused to take off his kippah after October 7, when he had to walk through hateful masked hooligans blocking foot-traffic outside of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, ah the irony.

But in some ways, last week feels like a turning point. A sickening dawning realization, that nowhere feels safe for Jews anymore. That my husband and I — who years ago was on ACCESS, the same young leadership board of the AJC that Sarah was involved with, the organization that hosted the event at the museum — could easily have been attending that very event or one like it … that Yaron and Sarah could have been us.

And that is why a part of me cannot help but wonder if I am making a mistake. The lonely echo chamber of justifying our existence has gotten lonelier with every passing day. And yet … the greater part of my being, the inexplicable “link in the chain” part of my soul, knows that the only answer as Jews that we have ever or will ever know in the face of the ongoing cycle of attempted genocides towards our people, is to bring more Jewish life into this dark and morally upside down world.

Because even in the darkest times of our history, we have chosen to imagine the light we cannot see, to find the crevices of hope in the greatest depths of despair, to provide for ourselves the answers and the validation that we aren’t getting from the outside world — that if you prick us, we do in fact bleed.

Daniella Kahane is a Peabody Award winning producer, writer, and the Co-Founder and CEO of WIN (Women in Negotiation), as well as the Co-Founder of Atoof, an original luxury artisanal Judaica collection.

The post What It Means to Bring a Jewish Child Into the World Today first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Former US President Barack Obama. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza, by Thane Rosenbaum (Wicked Son Books, 2025)

Beyond Proportionality examines Israel’s battles against Hamas and Hezbollah under the laws of war and concludes that its wartime conduct was based on military necessity and fought justly. The targets are terrorists, weapons, and tunnels — not civilians.

Israel relies upon verifiable intelligence, deploys precise weapons, and endangers its own soldiers in order to minimize civilian death. 

Below is an excerpt from the book:

If you are a parent with an infant at home, what took place in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, must have affected you deeply. Imagine if your neighbor, who had already made it known that he or she denied your existence and wished for your house to be burned down with you and your family in it, broke into your home and slit your baby’s throat.

I will allow that to sink in for a moment. It deserves contemplation.

I fear most people have not given the reality of such barbarism very much thought. But that is precisely the barbarism that those who attended the Nova Music Festival, or who happened to live in small, ransacked kibbutzim on that fateful October 7 morning, experienced.

If you are a father with teenage daughters, there was barbarism for you, as well. Imagine if your similarly monstrous next door-neighbor invaded your home with a rapacious group of his male relatives and friends, and brutally gang raped your daughter —  and made you watch. When finished, they mutilated her breasts and genitalia with knives and machine guns. Can you imagine surviving something like that — as in, psychologically survive such an assault on your flesh and blood?
. . .

The next time some pink-haired progressive or anti-American Muslim is shouting “I am Hamas!” or “Globalize the Intifada!” or “Death to America!” please, at the very least, assume a facial expression that signals an appropriate level of disgust.

It is with these vulgarities in mind that the obvious must be stated: The laws of war were fashioned by military strategists who lived in civilized nations, men who believed that even in war there must be rules. There was honor in going to battle to defend a nation, but wars must be fought honorably — especially when facing adversaries committed to following the same set of rules. The laws of war provide a framework for how civilized nations can resolve their disputes, even if it requires going to war.

Non-state actors, however, terrorists — who abide by no rules at all, who have no pretenses about civility, and who believe themselves to be exempt from the laws of war — should expect that the civilized nations they face in battle will set at least some of those rules aside, too. It’s only fair, it is often necessary, and to do anything less is a betrayal of one’s own people.
. . .

When Barack Obama was running for president, he made his first visit to Israel, the summer before the election — a sideways campaign stop. … Obama wanted to burnish his foreign policy credentials, but mostly he needed to reassure American Jews, many of whom are Democrats, that [he] understood the moral purpose and strategic necessity of Israel, a nation created a mere three years after the liberation of Auschwitz.

. . .

Obama was a very young father of two small daughters. Unexpectedly, probably improvising from the scripted campaign materials, he responded to something he saw in Israel as a protective father would and should, and not as a cynical, gladhanding candidate.

. . .

Sderot has been target practice for Hamas and Islamic Jihad since 2007. The people who live there have grown accustomed to hearing sirens that cause them to enter outside bomb shelters and indoor safe rooms, or duck behind concrete barriers dredged along roads built for this very purpose. Obama spoke with Israeli families who told him that Sderot has faced tens of thousands of rockets in the time they have lived there. One such family had a small boy who lost a leg to one of those Qassam rockets.

When the visit was over, Obama held an impromptu press conference. … But it came as a surprise to many who were skeptical of his support for Israel when Obama read these words out loud:

“The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so, I can assure you that if — I don’t even care if I was a politician. If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

We know the story from there. The candidate won the presidency, and almost instantly upon entering the Oval Office, forgot all about his visit to Israel. The memory of Sderot, a small city teeming with vulnerability, obviously did not stay with him. During his second term in office, when Israel was at war with Hamas in 2014, Obama repeatedly warned Israel to “show restraint,” “de-escalate the fighting,” and seek avenues for a “ceasefire.”

How soon he forgot.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, and the author, most recently, of “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”

The post Back When Barack Obama Saw Israel Through the Eyes of a Dad (BOOK EXCERPT) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.