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Jews in Europe ‘More Frightened Than Ever Before’ Amid Surging Antisemitism, New Survey Finds
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
A striking 96 percent of Jews in Europe had encountered antisemitism in their daily lives even before the historic surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes that followed the outbreak of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, according to the European Union’s rights watchdog.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on Thursday released an extensive survey of nearly 8,000 self-identified Jews from 13 European countries that found shocking levels of antisemitism across the continent. The largest participant countries in the survey were France, Germany, and Hungary.
“Jews are more frightened than ever before,” FRA director Sirpa Rautio said in the survey’s foreword. “We need to do more to ensure the safety and security of our Jewish communities. The EU and Member States must remain firm in their commitment to stem the rising tide of antisemitism. They must ready themselves to respond to heightened intensity and threats.”
According to the results, 80 percent of Jews surveyed said they feel antisemitism has worsened in recent years, while 76 percent of respondents reported hiding their Jewish identity “at least occasionally.” Meanwhile, 34 percent said they avoid Jewish events or sites “because they do not feel safe.”
About 60 percent said they were not satisfied with their national government’s efforts to combat antisemitism. The same number expressed concern about their family’s safety and security.
While nearly all Jews in the survey — 96 percent — said they had encountered antisemitism in the 12 months before the survey, 64 percent reported encountering it “all the time.” The most common occurrence was experiencing negative stereotypes about Jews, such as “holding power and control over finance, media, politics, or economy.” Some 37 percent of respondents said they were harassed over the past year, and 4 percent said they had experienced antisemitic physical attacks in the same period.
Because of antisemitism, 45 percent of European Jews reported that they had considered emigrating from Europe, mostly to Israel.
The survey of European Jewry was conducted from January through June of last year, before the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7 and the start of the war in Gaza. Several European countries have experienced record spikes in antisemitic incidents since the atrocities of Oct. 7.
Of note, the shocking report — which includes some information on antisemitism collected from Jewish organizations this year — employed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the IHRA definition includes denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
In the past few weeks, leaders of European Jewry have echoed the sentiment found in the FRA’s report.
“It seems France has no future for Jews,” Rabbi Moshe Sebbag of Paris’ Grand Synagogue told the Times of Israel following France’s recent parliamentary elections. “We fear for the future of our children.”
Meanwhile, Belgium’s only Jewish member of parliament, Michael Frielich, sounded the alarm to Mishpacha Magazine. “The situation is so awful [in Belgium] that at a meeting I attended at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, I told those present, ‘The whole well here is poisoned,’” he said. “People drink the anti-Israel claims in the media all day. And even if we try to explain things, however gently — they are hardly accepted.”
A top European Rabbi recently called on Israel to “develop a practical contingency plan for the absorption of European Jewry in Israel,” as antisemitism spreads across the continent.
“We are in a battle for the continuation of Jewish life in Europe,” European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said last month. “Jews in traditional dress or those with mezuzahs on their doors are experiencing relentless harassment. Jewish students face threats to their lives and are excluded from university courses, while hate slogans are freely scrawled on Jewish homes, synagogues, and cemeteries.”
The FRA’s report included a section incorporating data compiled after Oct. 7. Each European nation that was featured in the survey reported a shocking increase in antisemitic incidents in the wake of Hamas’ atrocities in Israel — in some cases by over 1,000 percent.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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